Good call on the alternate jersey! A traditional away jersey would definitely build recognition and give a unique local twist to the Bears brand without fighting against it.

Have to disagree with you on the Central Coast Bears logo though. When I think of the Bears I think of history and tradition – I feel like the modern illustration of the bear and the fresh typefaces are the exact opposite of this.

That’s actually a fair call about the away jersey – might be thinking more about English football but I think it gives a club more recognition when they have a traditional away kit (ie. Arsenal – Yellow/Blue).

Can’t agree with you on the Central Coast Bears logo though. When I think of the Bears, I associate words like tradition and history with them… If the logo is a modern cartoon with expressive typography on it, I feel like you lose the essence of what the club is about.

Now that you’ve bought up the CC Bears logo, I don’t see the point in even debating this. Instead of hiring someone like me who’s going to research the club, interview Perth fans and study similar cases across the world, they’ll just ask find someone they’re know who has a cousin that can draw. They’ll ask them to make a cool looking Bear, then a group of people that work at the club will vote on the one they think looks the best.

I work in branding and I’m a North Sydney Bears fan. I agree with the naming part of your piece but the branding suggestions… It really infuriates me when people make suggestions about how to ‘modernise’ and ‘adapt’ sports brands.
You only have to look at history to understand what works and what doesn’t. Is a Wests Tigers or Northern Eagles approach really the right way forward? And in a broader context when you look at examples in the NFL, MLB and beyond… Have the most commercially successful teams messed with their badges and jerseys?
If you alter the iconic Bears logo or the red and black hoops, you throw away the brand equity and end up with a brand that is neither here or there (Northern Eagles and Wests Tigers). This is a foundation club with over 100 years of history. If they don’t respect and honour that, and instead introduce some cartoon Bear logo, and add yellow stripes to the jersey… You may as well not call them the Bears at all.

The Fury/Gold Coast situation never would have happened in a pyramid competition. Firstly both clubs would have had to build a sustainable structure and supporter base in the lower divisions. AND in promo/relegation, if a club goes broke they can always start over in a lower division. With closed-shop, when they are gone, they are dead and buried.

Look at the NRL – North Sydney Bears and Newtown Jets went tits up. Newtown ceased to exist for a number of years, same with North Sydney after the merger with Manly fell through. Both re-emerged and now play in the lower division. Both get a fraction of their old fanbases attending games because they can’t be promoted. At the same time, the NRL pumps money into clubs like the Tigers to help them survive. Does that sound like a fair system to you? It’s the same system as the a-league.

The vast majority of football fans in Australia could not care less about the a-league. If you think continuing on the current path with a few nice marketing ideas here and there is the way forward, fine.

I know the generation you’re talking about but their parents are in the following one. They all grew up playing football and watching NRL and AFL on the weekend.

One thing people dismiss is how unbelievably well the Premier League markets its product. I have the optus sport app and listen to the Gegen podcast and it’s so good.… Mark Schwarzer and Michael Bridges. 5-star! Last year, I had paramount and was trying to listen to the a-league podcast but a lot of the content was irrelevant.

How can I be a walking contradiction if I’m just relaying what I’ve heard? For all the people I was with it’s a 3-4 hour round trip to see their nearest a-league team. Their parents either had family ties with European clubs or guided them to the best players in the world on YouTube.

Yeah, there are plenty of people who support big clubs in Europe but I’d argue that many (not all) of them do it in addition to their local team. Again, I can only talk for the UK, but if you pull up attendances to league one and league two teams, they’re pretty bloody decent in relation to the populations of the towns they represent.

I think there is some good ideas in there but I don’t any of them are going to have a substantial impact on engagement. The question you need to answer is: Why should someone care about the a-league? 1/12 chance of winning. Little history, little prestige. Teams representing vast regions instead of people’s local communities. Can see better quality football by just hitting a button on an app.

Some kind of pyramid structure would activate peoples local teams representing their local communities. Kids would be playing for lower divisions for these clubs. There would be teams with rich history – that have stories behind their origins! And instead of a 12 horse race, it’s something that a whole network of teams can win making it much more elusive. There would be fairytale stories, tragedies… proper drama.

Can only talk for the UK because I’ve lived there… They love the football pyramid and would lose their mind if premier league owners tried to create a closed competition – look at united, liverpool, chelsea fans response to the ESL!

I don’t think the a-league can be successful in the long-term in it’s current format.

If you look at successful periods for the league, it’s been during times with high-profile marquee signings or when active support was at its peak. Neither of these things have to with having pride and passion for your local club – which is what almost every football team in Europe was initially built on.

How to you get people to feel pride and passion for a-league clubs when they’re so disconnected from their local community and the competitions they play in?

I was at a bbq during the week and sat at the kids table – they all play football and were talking about the world cup. I asked them what clubs they followed – the older ones mentioned premier league or serie a clubs and the youngest one just said ronaldo because of all the youtube footage he’d seen. When I mentioned the a-league, they all went quiet.

How do you see kids that are football obsessed getting behind the a-league when it’s so far away from their local clubs and social media feeds? Because in its current form, its completely irrelevant to them.

Great, I didn’t know that.
The current clubs licencing agreements (which apparently protect them from being relegated) go until 2034 so I’m not sure what happens if AFC requirements clash with licencing agreements.

Of course there are better investments than football clubs but no owner is going to vote for something that puts their club at risk of losing revenue (significant money if their club was to get relegated and there were other competitive teams in their local market).

If the owners of all the best (and probably the most profitable) clubs in the world could create a closed-shop Super League without any backlash or protests, they would do in a second. Unfortunately, if you believe a pyramid or two divisions is the way forward, the A-League is in the opposite position.

I don’t understand how the owners of clubs can run the game…
The owners of clubs number 1 priority is to make money. They are always always always going to make decisions which favour their bank accounts.
Over 2 million people play the game, yet, a tiny fraction of this go to a-league games. Go to your local park and there is more chance there’s a kid running around in a barcelona jersey than any team in the a-league jersey.
The a-league doesn’t engage the vast majority of football players or kids that play the game. The LONG term solution is to develop a pyramid structure so that everyone that plays in connected to the a-league. Yes, it could take decades and no, it’s not just going to a copy paste of a european model.
It should be the primary thing everyone is working towards.
But if you’re an owner of an a-league club and all you care about is money, why would you work towards a system where your team could potentially be relegated and lose revenue?
The a-league has built a ceiling for itself by putting the owners in charge.

Why not? They’d be playing 40+ games in Europe. Arnie criticised the lack of games in the a-league in one of his press conferences. We’ve seen what happens to crowds in the big bash if you make the season longer. How do you propose we extend the A-League season without crowds imploding?

Tbh, I’m just really bloody frustrated. Me and my mates are constantly up in arms about how much it costs for kids to play – one of them has an older child that plays for an elite team and they are paying $6,000 a year! It such a problem and it gets so little attention. I don’t know the intricacies of the A-League how they subsidise fees for lower divisions but before its existence, back when I played, fees were a fraction of what they are now.

Goodwin and Leckie were outstanding but Souttar was unbelivable during the WC and we wouldn’t have even made there if it hadn’t been for Boyle.

SCRAP THE A-LEAGUE

Australian Football won’t lose any supporters. Everyone will just continue to watch their European clubs.

Youth numbers won’t change. The vast majority of kids are more influenced by Messi and Ronaldo than the every player in the A-League combined.

The image of the game will actually improve. Constantly seeing half empty stadiums and faux ultras supporting clubs that were created by marketing teams and stand for nothing isn’t a good look. The ultra-professional, super-exciting English Premier League will be what people think of when they hear ‘football’ just like when Australians hear ‘Gridiron’ they think of the NFL.

We can finally have a single focus of building a world-class youth system. Fees are extortionate – just speak to any parent whose child is playing in a first division team. Our youth development is appalling – Who was our best player at the World Cup was and who was our best player in the qualifiers? Both went through a foreign country’s youth system.

After the Socceroo’s performance at the World Cup and the amount of support shown around the country, I thought we might actually get some decent investment. But the A-League has destroyed that.

Honestly, where do we go from here? Spend a tonne of money slowly rebuilding the league’s ‘brand’ or pump it into the youth system so parents can actually afford to pay for their child to play the game at decent level?

I’d happily trade the A-League for a youth system with low fees and world-class player development in a heartbeat.

If we lost the national league what would that mean for the youth system? Is it possible that we could put all our focus and all investment into improving the youth system and building our own Clairefontaine?

It’s not to do with quality.
They need to expand the football pyramid and promote Asian football.
That way people can watch their local club (which represents their local community which they have an attachment to – not their city) and dream of them one day competing against the best teams in Asia.
People didn’t show up to the live sites on Sunday purely hoping for a quality game of football. They turned up because of the PRIDE they have for their country and the DREAM of winning an incredibly elusive trophy. These principles need to be applied to the a-league for it to thrive.

Thanks for this! I really hope the bridges can be repaired and we have one unified sport.

I also hope that the vision for the game goes beyond 5-10 years. We set up a NSD, then what? It would be great if there was a collective vision for the game – maybe it does end at two divisions, maybe it goes to 4, maybe all the divisions down to a very local level are tied together. Would just be nice to know the grand plan for the game – I think it would help supporters get behind the cause and give them hope that football could rule Australia (whether that eventuates or not is a separate issue – it’s hope that drives fans).

100% agree with the Aussie’s giving everything shorter, punchier nicknames. But often the nickname isn’t the official name – ie. When you see a sign to a service station it doesn’t say ‘servo’ and the AFL’s official name isn’t the Australian ‘Footy’ League.

Look, I don’t think we tell supporters what they can and can’t call the team! Nobody has the right to police what nickname fans use – Maybe it even evolves to ‘Rooies’ over time – who knows! But I think setting the official name (the one referred to on the website/social media/advertising/commentary as ‘Australia’ which is has more dignity commands more respect is definitely preferable.

You make some good point Paul. Begs the question, why did they try and change the name of the game to football?

Don’t you think that given we’re not the number one sport and many Australians look down on the game, we should lay down the foundations for a respectable presence?

It’s easy to say winning = respect but it was only a few years ago that we won the Asian Cup. Our manager at the time said that he expected that it would be a seminal moment and that the team would be celebrated and bestowed with honours. It didn’t happen.

I’m definitely not saying a removing our team name fixes everything. But I do think as well as doing as doing everything right on the pitch, we need to have some self respect and take every opportunity necessary to elevate our national team’s brand.

From most of these comments I get the feeling that it might have been the wrong move to change from calling it Soccer to Football.

To be honest, it’s something that’s always got under my skin and would be really easy to change if deemed necessary.

I know there are much bigger issues in the game and I was tempted to write about the A-League or our youth system but these are so complex and as a fan, I really only understand the tip of the iceberg.

From what your just mentioned, I’d be really interested in learning more about why Melbourne should host more games, how the A-League can reduce food and drink prices (or do they even introduce some kind of tailgating approach that involves the local community?) and how the U23’s brand can be elevated so there is more interest from TV networks.

Write an article! I’d be keen to read it.

I don’t agree with the history explanation but I understand your reasoning.

I think your point about simply liking the name is great! I’m honestly taken back by how many supporters have a strong connection with it. I had no idea this was the case until I read all the passionate comments on here. I think that alone is enough to keep the name.

I don’t understand how getting rid of the team nickname is a disservice to former players or disrespecting history. It just doesn’t make sense.

Not a single player walks onto the pitch to play for a nickname or a brand, they play for our country, Australia.

I didn’t say they weren’t. I said it’s not their primary name. If you need evidence of this look at the ‘England’ national team website and the ‘England’ social media pages and then compare them with the ‘Socceroos’ website and ‘Socceroos’ social media pages.