Club member tallies @ Christmas

[WCErevival]

West Coast were 44592 last week.

 

[Silvagnis]

Carlton 17,000?

Horrible if true

17,089 is a record for Carlton at this time of year.

Message From the President

The response to the 2011 Membership Campaign, “No Passengers”, has been extremely pleasing. Membership is at a pre-Christmas all-time record.

Message From the President

Another 30,000 supporters purchased memberships after we had just 13,000 members on the 18th of December 2008.

2010 was down due to the fallout from losing Fevola and negavity about the upcoming season.

 

[Rob]

They have standing room don't they? Would have to get atleast 30,000+ to have a waiting list, given 3 game memberships and general admission memberships.

From reading their website it looks like they have a few bays which are GA, but there isn't much standing room. I doubt they will just sell unlimited numbers of GA memberships and only admit a couple of thousand a game - they'll end up pissing too many people off who can't get in and those people won't resign the next year. What's more likely is that if demand rises the whole ground will become reserved seating and they'll sell ~22k reserved seat memberships.

I'm also not sure whether they'll continue to play 3 home games at the Gabba after this season either, so the 3 game membership might just be a one off.

 

[Ant85]

Collingwood have probably sold all of their Legend memberships, whilst Essendon is flying due to the Hird\Thompson factor.

We sold out all our Legends memberships in the first 2 weeks, there's now a waiting list.

We have a total of 9000 Legends members.

 

[magic_johnson!]

From reading their website it looks like they have a few bays which are GA, but there isn't much standing room. I doubt they will just sell unlimited numbers of GA memberships and only admit a couple of thousand a game - they'll end up pissing too many people off who can't get in and those people won't resign the next year. What's more likely is that if demand rises the whole ground will become reserved seating and they'll sell ~22k reserved seat memberships.

I'm also not sure whether they'll continue to play 3 home games at the Gabba after this season either, so the 3 game membership might just be a one off.

Geelong have just under 20,000 general admission memberships for just standing room at Skilled. I know, a number of them are Melbourne based and find it hard to get to Geelong but it still shows you can successfully oversell general admission memberships.

 

[Rob]

Geelong have just under 20,000 general admission memberships for just standing room at Skilled. I know, a number of them are Melbourne based and find it hard to get to Geelong but it still shows you can successfully oversell general admission memberships.

It's a different concept in Victoria. Football clubs are treated more like charities, people seem to routinely buy a basic membership and then don't go to many games. A lot of people also seem to buy multiple memberships just as a donation if bigfooty is any guide. It's also pretty common for many Victorian clubs to draw half (or even less) of their purported 'membership' figure to games where there isn't much away support. As well as the prevalence of the bullshit memberships in recent years in order to bump up the numbers in the annual dick measuring competition that few outside Melbourne care about.

I'd be surprised if the Suns had many people prepared to buy a membership and not want to attend many games. People that buy a membership will expect to get entry. It won't be an issue in 2010, but in a couple of years if they start playing good footy it might be.

 

[SM]

Think the Swans are somewhere around the 14-15k mark.

 

[Smokeyr67]

It's a different concept in Victoria. Football clubs are treated more like charities, people seem to routinely buy a basic membership and then don't go to many games. A lot of people also seem to buy multiple memberships just as a donation if bigfooty is any guide. It's also pretty common for many Victorian clubs to draw half (or even less) of their purported 'membership' figure to games where there isn't much away support. As well as the prevalence of the bullshit memberships in recent years in order to bump up the numbers in the annual dick measuring competition that few outside Melbourne care about.

I'd be surprised if the Suns had many people prepared to buy a membership and not want to attend many games. People that buy a membership will expect to get entry. It won't be an issue in 2010, but in a couple of years if they start playing good footy it might be.

1. It's probably best not to use Bigfooty (or any other footy forum) as a guide.

2. We have a Gold family membership (2 adults, 2 kids) and we'll go when it suits us - we just thought we'd support the code in QLD and I've never liked the Bears/Lions since the Paul Cronin days.

3. I agree with you that membership counts are just a pissing contest, but it's an even contest, so how about we stop bitching about the type of membership (i.e. 3 game, kids, pets etc). The AFL sets the rules, they count the numbers and release the results, and until they decide on a full open and honest financial reporting system then membership is our only definable off season measuring contest.

 

[The_Wookie]

Hawthorn site also claims more than 6000 tasmanian members. Not a bad haul at all for such a small state and not far behind the Gold Coast at all. I may laugh if they beat GWS for raw numbers next year.

 

[The Filth Wizard]

I may laugh if they beat GWS for raw numbers next year.

It may just happen if North in Hobart is signed and sealed. I'd expect at least a couple of thousand as a boost for us.

 

[bombermick]

Brisbane are looking steady on recent years, and when you take into that they had a bad season this year it is a very good sign. Almost 10,000 more members of Queensland clubs than this time last year

That's a good sign. It would have been a pointless exercise starting another side if most of your members came from the team down the road. Good for Brissy that they can hold onto their members when they're in such dire straits. Shows the game has a bit of maturity up there.

 

[1873 United]

How good would it be for the code, if the Suns were able to secure more members than their cross town rivals the Titans. I for one, would love for the two expansion clubs to stick it to the poorly run NRL, further strengthening the position of this great game.

 

[Coledinho]

A global financial crisis, 16th on the table and Eagles have 44 952 renewals so far at a 97% renewal rate. 39 000 are seat holders and 6 000 are on the waiting list.

IMO Eagles could probably fill a 80k stadium week in week out if given the opportunity

 

[magic_johnson!]

How good would it be for the code, if the Suns were able to secure more members than their cross town rivals the Titans. I for one, would love for the two expansion clubs to stick it to the poorly run NRL, further strengthening the position of this great game.

That's a 99% possibility. The suns have been ahead of the titans for quite some time, but lets stick to afl...

 

[Tas]

Think the on field success determines the band wagoner element in any club. Play in the finals and the next year generates more interest and pushes those who are uming and arhging into buying up.

Definitely, I think there are different thresholds based on how competitive the supporters believe the side is going to be. From not expecting to win on any given week, to expecting to be competitive, to expecting to win more games than losing, to expecting finals and beating good quality sides to expecting a top 4 finish and a crack at a flag.

I think we have progressed off the bottom rung in terms of expectation. It is why comparing memberships is a ridiculous concept for clubs in Victoria where you do not have waiting lists. Where supporters believe their side is going to be will greatly influence membership sales.

Membership should be more a self-reflection, it is why I like to compare our figures to our historical figures. Pre-Christmas tends to be the more loyal die hards and the fairer weather ones come in the new year, for us at least.

It's different over here where membership is a season ticket style, whereas only 30k turn up for a home game but the gate receipts are still sold out.

That is because demand is higher than supply. If you had a 100k stadium in Perth then those who only wanted to go to a handful of games wouldn't need to purchase a membership and could just rock up to the games they wanted to go to. Even Collingwood supporters do not have that kind of pressure here in Melbourne. You can easily enough find seating even during Collingwood vs Essendon Anzac day games.

What will be an acceptable figure for you guys this year Tas ?

What is acceptable is what the end figure is. Looking at the clubs our number is compared to most of them count interstate home game memberships despite getting a fixed return on those games, some have 1 game memberships that they count, others count MCC memberships that only kick in $50 to the club.

The main thing I want to see is improvement in the sustainable Victorian membership base. It is important you have enough supporters where you actually play your games.

If we play games in Tasmania in 2012 and get 10k Tasmanian members and play a few in Ballarat and get another 5k regional members then having a membership number of 50-60k while looks impressive wouldn't be any better than where we are at now. It is how that number is comprised and what is sustainable.

Hey GR instead of shooting the messenger, answer me this:
Do you think the sympathy memberships have dried up, because if they have and you have 13k of die hard support already, things are on the up.

Our CEO said we had around 1k in 2008 and I don't think many renewed. I think some supporters have purchased memberships for family and friends but I believe the number would be immaterially small.

The reason there is a more significant variance for us between membership and attendance because we have diluted our local support for greater national support. We have relatively large number of members who live in SA, WA, Tasmania and other places for our overall supporter base.

Our previous administration did not aggressively defend or expand the supporter base in Victoria and in a competitive environment that was an extremely poor decision and one where there are no quick fixes.

It will take years of hard work to rebuild markets that have been lost. It took Hawthorn 12 years to do that and there were no real visible signs of improvement for more than a decade, we are two years in now and all clubs are trying to expand as much as possible.

I believe we will get there as long as we do the hard work. Having a successful team just makes it a lot easier to convert some people who would otherwise choose someone else.

 

[Silvagnis]

Pre-season snapshot

Membership: Carlton's membership tally stood at 20,250 on December 23.

Pre-season snapshot

 

[Bulldog1954]

How many clubs have the membership for life monthly payment schemes now?

 

[blueboy25]

A global financial crisis, 16th on the table and Eagles have 44 952 renewals so far at a 97% renewal rate. 39 000 are seat holders and 6 000 are on the waiting list.

IMO Eagles could probably fill a 80k stadium week in week out if given the opportunity

You couldnt even fill Subi last season.

If perth had a a 80k stadium I think you will find that you will get a lot of people buying general admin tickets each week like they do in melbourne and your membership numbers wouldn't jump a great deal.

The reason people buy eagles memberships is because you have to have one to be any chance of seeing them play where as a Bulldogs supporter can pay $20 at the gate at the G or dome and watch his team.

 

[smasha]

Membership Tallies - Christmas 2010 (from smalest to largest)
Taken from Club websites at 4pm today

Gold Coast - 8300
Brisbane - 12762
Nth melbourne - 13218
Port Adelaide - 14577
Western Bulldogs - 16374
Carlton - 17089
Melbourne - 20611
St Kilda - 21075
Richmond - 22440
Essendon - 30135
Hawthorn - 39228
Collingwood - 40682

Fremantle - not posted
Geelong - not posted
Sydney - not posted
Adelaide - waiting list
West Coast - waiting list

Rchmond supporters the best as usual.

 

[smasha]

Essendon finished in the bottom four and are still 7,000 up of this time last year. Then again we do have the Hird factor..

Pffft.

Lets see how you go with 30 years of despair.

 

[peppy la pew]

Essendon finished in the bottom four and are still 7,000 up of this time last year. Then again we do have the Hird factor..

Hird will be massive for you boys, I'm tipping a big year

 

[Righteo]

A global financial crisis, 16th on the table and Eagles have 44 952 renewals so far at a 97% renewal rate. 39 000 are seat holders and 6 000 are on the waiting list.

IMO Eagles could probably fill a 80k stadium week in week out if given the opportunity

Well that's a pretty bold claim considering you can't even fill Subiaco every second week.

Your members, a bit like Port, just don't rock up when times are tough.

In fact how many times did the Eagles even surpass 40k at Subi this year? Once? Twice?

 

[halfback dasher]

Never thought id see the day we would break 40,000 by Xmas ( near enough).... Either way you look at it , its hard to believe that 15 odd years ago we where on the brink of extinction and now we are a true power ..... Hats off to Dicker and Scott......

 

[Eth]

Not bad from Melbourne, considering the events of 2007-9

 

[gaelictiogar]

The figures are basically great all round. OK we all know that there are many thousands of cut price "membership lite" packages in there but be that as it may the figures are great.