- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
In pleasing news for Australian football, the 2022-23 A-League Men season has started well, every team has tasted success on the pitch and crowds are trending positively.
Despite some ordinary weather across much of eastern Australia during the opening rounds, as the skies have cleared and the Qatar World Cup looms, people have been out in noisy droves, with Round 6 potentially displaying to Ten, streaming arm Paramount+ and parent owners Viacom CBS exactly how profitable their investment could be in the long term.
It is difficult to explain exactly why there is such a positive feel around the league at present, yet a weakening fear of COVID-19, the Socceroos’ pending World Cup participation, better depth in squads off the back of some much-needed investment, dynamic young players and a more settled stadium situation have no doubt all played a role.
Sydney FC are kicking goals at their flashy new Allianz Stadium, despite the scope to be better on the pitch being considerable. Adelaide United are enjoying something similar with a refurbished section of their ground helping draw 13,504 fans to their clash with Victory on Friday night. The Phoenix are finally home, playing well and hopeful of drawing more and more fans as the season unfolds.
The Wanderers are back and firing after multiple seasons in purgatory, the Mariners continue to impress and connect strongly with their local community, and Melbourne City grows off the back of the parental control of the City Football Group, which is determined to make them the most powerful club in Australia.
Based on recent seasons they are halfway there and another championship in 2022-23 may confirm City as a likely omnipotent presence in the A-League finals.
(Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images)
Ten and Paramount have caught a glimpse of exactly what this much-maligned thing we call the A-League could be, should its guidance and management be handled well over the next decade.
The Sydney Derby appeared to be back on the radar on Saturday night, with over 34,000 people rocking up to Allianz Stadium, creating an atmosphere that has been missing from the league for some time.
It is no coincidence that both Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers are now settled back into their home digs and, after four years where one or both were misplaced, the predicted pick-up in emotional investment is exactly of the level predicted by those passionately in support of the competition.
Combined with Adelaide emerging as a new contender under Carl Veart, Victory’s solid base that will continue to come out in force across the entire season, and the returning fans reconnecting with the Wanderers, the A-League Men may well have ridden out a troubled period both prior to and during the pandemic years.
In terms of attendances, Perth Glory looms as a frustrating problem after being displaced from their traditional home of HBF Park by forces beyond their control, and Brisbane Roar should be pulling better crowds in Redcliffe, in a key market the league needs to be humming along.
Western United and Macarthur FC remain supported by few, yet are both hopeful of growing into clubs capable of drawing far larger crowds as their footprints become more established in their communities.
Despite those imperfections, the average A-League attendance is contextually up on 2018-19 figures, when 1,407,148 people attended 134 home and away matches.
With 156 fixtures slated for this season after the inclusions of Macarthur FC and Western United over the last three years, the current attendance figures suggest nearer to 1.5 million people will attend matches in 2022-23.
This is bolstered by BBL crowds being likely to continue to fall in the wake of competition organisers playing so many matches that few people can financially or emotionally afford to remain engaged, and the current NBL season experiencing an eight per cent down turn in crowds compared to 2018/19 figures.
The recent T20 World Cup and the subsequent media fallout showed that Australian-supporting cricket bums on seats are in significant decline, the WBBL has begun and continues with little attention or interest, and even the AFL (10.1%) took a significant hit in terms of attendance when compared to 2019 figures.
If that is not encouragement enough for Ten to review current metrics and be excited about the potential they have in the palm of their hands, I’m not sure what is. Perhaps an appearance on the main channel the next time the corresponding fixture rolls around is in order?
Either way, those having invested in the A-League would have been impressed with not only what they saw in Round 6, but also the potential growth we are seeing in the league and the new/returning fans being drawn to it.
With most Australian sports struggling to draw crowds thanks to the financial strain families across the nation are feeling, the A-League appears to be doing a better job than most and should be commended for a brilliant start to the post-pandemic period.