WSYD Lessons from the Swans v North crowd debacle

[cos789]

Before you go off half cocked just remember that the Swans compete with 3 A-League teams, 10 NRL teams and a S14 team for coverage. Even so, they still get a better coverage than either of the Victory or Storm (who only are competing with 9 AFL teams).

Pick up any Sydney paper and the coverage of the Swans is still dismal.
I'd be happy if they got the coverage of one nrl but they don't despite
drawing the equivalent of a number of nrl teams . There was no coverage
of the Swans elimination final , despite it being a final , and still outdrawing
3 nrl games on the same day .

Why would you expect a big coverage for the Storm , they're competing against all those VFL teams and how much coverage do they give to the VFL ?

 

[saints__01]

We would get 20k to an AFL final in Tassie even if it were WC vs Freo, Raining for two weeks and was in crappy launnie. AFL in Sydney....it just dont work.

 

[cos789]

We would get 20k to an AFL final in Tassie even if it were WC vs Freo, Raining for two weeks and was in crappy launnie. AFL in Sydney....it just dont work.

But would you get 30k ?
.

 

[Monty of the Shire]

Sydney sports fans have shown that they will attend sport if they see it as an event. A perfect example is the 70k that turned up to watch Sydney FC play LA Galaxy because David Beckham was playing. This is a least four times their usual crowd.

Maybe the AFL could have Guy Sebastian sing at half time. Maybe they could give one lucky crowd member a free dinner with their favourite big brother housemate.

The fact is that the sporting culture is different in Sydney than the rest of Australia. People who live in Sydney and watch different sports have always said that. If you cut the promotion and the glitz you cut the crowd.

lol nice one! actually in all seriousness the NRL always jam the gridiron style glitz down the fans throat who normally just boo back. last time guy sebastian was dragged out to sing he was pelted with rubbish and coins.

AFL will work in Sydney, they just need to keep it at the SCG and lower peoples expectations as to how sucessful it will be. given the presence of league, union and soccer, at the very most it will be another big fish in a very small pond which isnt the end of the world by any stretch.

 

[XFactor1979]

no second west sydney team

sydney is not an afl state

i come from wa, there is absolutely no interest in the afl here, other than backpackers and international travellers fascinated by watching a game (when they can) of the australian football code

rugby league owns afl here. one team is ENOUGH

if the afl were to introduce a second sydney team, it would work as well as the nrl introducing a second rugby league team in melbourne

it DOESNT WORK!

 

[saints__01]

But would you get 30k ?
.

If it was Tassie in a final and we had a ground big enough you would get at least 40k.....

The Devils VFL side nearly got as many as the Sydney game when they were in the finals a few years back.

And would Sydney get 30k ???? oh thats right they didnt did they.....Sydney people really are pretty soft....It must be all the man make-up those city folk use.....dont want it to run out in the rain

 

[Monty of the Shire]

no second west sydney team

sydney is not an afl state

i come from wa, there is absolutely no interest in the afl here, other than backpackers and international travellers fascinated by watching a game (when they can) of the australian football code

rugby league owns afl here. one team is ENOUGH

if the afl were to introduce a second sydney team, it would work as well as the nrl introducing a second rugby league team in melbourne

it DOESNT WORK!

that sums it up pretty well actually mate - I was waiting for someone from an AFL state who lives in Sydney to give their verdict.

 

[Monty of the Shire]

If it was Tassie in a final and we had a ground big enough you would get at least 40k.....

The Devils VFL side nearly got as many as the Sydney game when they were in the finals a few years back.

And would Sydney get 30k ???? oh thats right they didnt did they.....Sydney people really are pretty soft....It must be all the man make-up those city folk use.....dont want it to run out in the rain

its a combination of makeup issues and nobody giving a flying ****

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Also you have to straighten out the stadium thing .Getting shafted by both the SCG and ANZ whilst rl is being paid to play at ANZ is totally wrong.

And exactly how is the SCG Trust and ANZ shafting the swans? The swans got new training facilities out of the SCG Trust because they were scared the swans would move out to ANZ. They are getting increased capacity and opportunity to sell more corporate boxes with the new stands. There is a new admin building almost complete which will be used by the swans and NSW-ACT AFL. The swans will always play second fiddle to cricket, but you can hardly call it shafted.

And what is totally wrong with paying NRL clubs to play at ANZ? Telstra Dome pay Essendon and Carlton money to play there and because the AFL signed a 35+ game per annum, 25 year deal there the AFL have to pay the Kangaroos and Bulldogs to play there, otherwise the Kangaroos and Bulldogs would find a new home.

When the Stadium Australia group sold units in the Stadium Australia Trust in 1998, they promised a certain amount of games there with the initial purchase of units and annual subscriptions. When they subsequently sold gold memberships, they promised a certain amount of events out there every year. So what is totally wrong about meeting your promise to people who helped pay to build the stadium and who keep it afloat on an annual basis?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Re a second team in Sydney, I'll listen to a bloke who was chairman of the WAFC for 5 or 6 years, put up $1mil of his own cash to get the West Coast Eagles off the ground after the public float was an abysmal failure and has been the chairman of the swans for about 13 years, before I swallow everything coming out of the AFL offices.

50,000 reasons to rethink second team

Peter Lalor | September 08, 2008

SWANS chairman Richard Colless believes the poor crowd at Saturday night's finals match in Sydney is evidence Melbourne-based AFL staff are out of touch with the market and has warned things are so financially grim the club might have to cut football department spending.

The match against North Melbourne attracted 19,127 - the smallest crowd for a Swans/South Melbourne final for 84 years and the worst in Sydney this season.

"By any measure and through anyone's eyes it was devastating," Colless said yesterday.

"If this is dismissed as an aberration then heaven help us. Membership is down, crowds are down, sponsorship is down. It doesn't give me any joy in saying any of that, but I think the trend is perturbing."

North coach Dean Laidley said after the match that the attendance was "really disappointing for football in this state", as did Swans coach Paul Roos.

But AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou dismissed the trend having any impact on plans for a second team, claiming his organisation had enough money to overcome any setbacks.

The AFL plans to invest $100million to start up a second team in western Sydney by 2012 and has used historical crowd attendances at ANZ Stadium at Olympic Park as proof of the demand. However, AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan admitted yesterday that the Sydney market was "soft" but said his organisation was looking at a long-term investment.

"We are talking about a strategy with a 60 to 100-year view," McLachlan told Melbourne radio station 3AW. "We know it is going to be difficult but what has come out of this is we need more players, more resources, we need two teams in the town with a rivalry to help maintain that presence in the market.

"Sydney is the most competitive sports market in Australia and Sydney have been doing all the heavy lifting on their own."

Finals matches are marketed by the AFL, and Swans chiefs were furious at the lack of promotion in the lead-up to the game.

The Swans' marketing department has attracted its eastern suburbs fans to the outer-suburban ground by offering cheap three-game packages and two days of constant rain did not help ticket sales for the final.

The AFL insisted it had invested heavily in marketing the game, but there was little evidence of that. One television advertisement for the match ran early yesterday morning - almost five hours after the game.

Colless said that the AFL's generic advertising was also a turn-off in Sydney as people who have a broad affection for the four football codes were offended by the arrogance of the series which cheekily claims that the AFL is at the centre of Australian history.

The club chairman said he had heard that AFL staff were blaming the Swans' approach to the media for the poor crowd.

"I know various members of the AFL media department said it's our fault which I find rather confusing," Colless said.

"I wouldn't be prepared to publicly prescribe fault. I think it highlights something we have been saying for a long time and that is there's not an insatiable desire for AFL in Sydney.

"Rather than playing the blame game, all of us have to snap out of denial and say there is an issue.

"Just about every key metric this year has been down and I was personally shocked beyond belief at the crowd. In 2003, we had 71,000 people to a final against Brisbane, five seasons later with a whole lot of success behind us it's dropped to 19,000.

"It's easy to play the blame game sitting in Melbourne, those people need to come up here and actually get amongst it. I think it's confronting the fact that demand for the game is finite."

The Swans have watched with alarm as sponsorship revenue, crowds, membership and television ratings have fallen this year, despite the team finishing in the top eight and the economy being relatively strong.

"We won't make a profit this year, I'm not prepared to publicly canvas what the result will be, it depends how far we go into the finals and a few other things," Colless said.

"We'll lose money, I don't say that with any pride, it's a fact of life.

"You can't keep spending money to have a competitive football team and have membership, sponsorship, crowds go down. It's a very low margin business, one or two things go wrong and you can very easily go from being in the black to being in the red.

"This is the most successful period in the club against the backdrop of a very buoyant economy, heaven help us if we were to be at the bottom of the ladder in a recession. It's no walk in the park and that's for sure and we've been here 26 years."

Colless and the Swans have been supportive of the second team idea but have warned it will be a lot harder than anyone thinks.

"All I continue to say is don't apply traditional thinking, this is not Melbourne or Perth or Adelaide, it's a totally different market. It has different interests, different values, it has different social mores and more to the point AFL is still a minority sport here," Colless said.

"We are talking about a strategy with a 60 to 100-year view," AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan
Sounds like the John McCain strategy in Iraq. I don't think the AFL has the US governments treasury reserves or will be allowed to subsides a club for 60+ years by the other clubs.

 

[XFactor1979]

for the record i wasnt there at anz stadium on saturday night

NOBODY WAS!

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

1. Only play games that are expecting well in excess of 40,000 at ANZ otherwise keep it at the SCG. Reduce ANZ H/A games back to 3 years. The long term average for H/A is 47,000, the new capacity of the SCG is 47,000.
2. Review prices for elimination finals. I don't know how the AFL sets its price, the AFL could be in fact happy with the lowish crowds because the profit maximising price is not always the same as the attendance maximising price. 38,000 @ $75 makes more money than 50,000 @ $50.

So then why is the AFL happy that 22,000 AFL members pay $13 booking fee to attend a final at the MCG and maybe 23,000 MCC members get in for nothing or 4,000 of them pay a booking fee of $8 to reserve a seat?

If the AFL offered 45,000 seats at these prices to any venue around Australia I'm sure they would sell them by Monday night before the final if the computer system could handle the requests.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

for the record i wasnt there at anz stadium on saturday night

NOBODY WAS!

I was!

 

[Subprime]

So then why is the AFL happy that 22,000 AFL members pay $13 booking fee to attend a final at the MCG and maybe 23,000 MCC members get in for nothing or 4,000 of them pay a booking fee of $8 to reserve a seat?

If the AFL offered 45,000 seats at these prices to any venue around Australia I'm sure they would sell them by Monday night before the final if the computer system could handle the requests.

If thats correct then the gate for the Sydney game wouldn't be that far behind the MCG games and the Adelaide game may have made more.

 

[aneale]

that question has long been asked from SANFL members who don't get the same benefit that AFL members do in Vic.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

If thats correct then the gate for the Sydney game wouldn't be that far behind the MCG games and the Adelaide game may have made more.

Here is the arrangements for AFL members confirming $13 last week

http://afl.com.au/News/NEWSARTICLE/tabid/208/Default.aspx?newsId=66724

Here is the AFL members page with links to the 2 SF's at the MCG this week, which when you visit those links confirms $13 again this week.

not sure why it wont work directly but if you type in the following URL you will go to the right page;

----http://afl.com.au/*****/AFLMembership/tabid/818/default.aspx------
replace the ***** with A.FLHQ (actually it is AFetc no dot. something screwy is happening with my post.)



Here is the arrangements for the MCC members this week semi finals confirming $8 for the 4,000 reserved seats ie free for the other 19,000 or so seats.

http://www.mcc.org.au/Events at the MCG/2008 AFL Finals Series.aspx

 

[grimface_87]

And what is totally wrong with paying NRL clubs to play at ANZ? Telstra Dome pay Essendon and Carlton money to play there and because the AFL signed a 35+ game per annum, 25 year deal there the AFL have to pay the Kangaroos and Bulldogs to play there, otherwise the Kangaroos and Bulldogs would find a new home.

Someone who actually gets our stadium "deal" and what the ASD is REALLY for! I never thought I would see the day!

why is the AFL happy that 22,000 AFL members pay $13 booking fee to attend a final at the MCG and maybe 23,000 MCC members get in for nothing or 4,000 of them pay a booking fee of $8 to reserve a seat?

If the AFL offered 45,000 seats at these prices to any venue around Australia I'm sure they would sell them by Monday night before the final if the computer system could handle the requests.

Exactly!

 

[fishmonger]

"We are talking about a strategy with a 60 to 100-year view," AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan

What a load of rubbish.

Even politicians don't think that far ahead ...

So it won't happen in my lifetime or my kids lifetimes.

Then WHY BOTHER ????

Surely Gill and Andy D are just after a pay-rise come next salary review after they negotiate a new TV deal on the back of the success of the Swans and Lions - which they shouldn't take any credit for whatsoever.

To come out spin this sort of crap is a total insult to the fans of Aussie Rules.

Time to go Andy D and your cronies.

 

[Monty of the Shire]

What a load of rubbish.

Even politicians don't think that far ahead ...

So it won't happen in my lifetime or my kids lifetimes.

Then WHY BOTHER ????

So if something's not going to be of benefit in your lifetime or your kids lifetime then its not worth doing? What vision!
Mate that's a terrible way to view the world. I agree with a lot of your anti WS/pro tazzie stuff but you would have just registered a FAIL for any debating team with that comment...

 

[Valleys FC 4Ever]

Pick up any Sydney paper and the coverage of the Swans is still dismal. I'd be happy if they got the coverage of one nrl but they don't despite
drawing the equivalent of a number of nrl teams .

There was no coverage of the Swans elimination final , despite it being a final , and still outdrawing
3 nrl games on the same day .

What's with the obsession with crowds? You need to factor in tv viewers and other things such as merch sales to estimate the popularity of a team. It's ridiculous to say that a team should get a certain amount of coverage based simply on their crowds.

would you expect a big coverage for the Storm , they're competing against all those VFL teams and how much coverage do they give to the VFL ?

There are 9 AFL/VFL teams and the Victory that the Storm compete for coverage with (ie: fewer competitors than the Swans) yet they (and the Victory) still get worse coverage in comparison to the Swans. You just need to understand that while Sydney is home to many sports (it's the national capital for three of the four footy codes) it's also the most competitive market in Australia. You really should be happy with the coverage that the Swans get tbh, it's by no means perfect but plenty of other teams would kill for it.

 

[Ragnarok14]

sydney siders dont like to sign up to things (atleast in general terms) its not a tradition to go to the AFL every week, theres lots of things to do/options and sydney siders I think imo having been one most of my life, is that we like the option to do whatever takes our fancy at the time hence:

expensive tickets + stadium not many like + bad weather + bad form + playing a bad (sorry NM fans generalising here) team was always going to mean a low crowd.

As for whether western sydney would be successful in light of this: the AFL market simply isn't very big in sydney, the swans cover it well enough, a western sydney team imo, unless they always won, would struggle for longer than the swans did to get established (thought swans aren't particularly stable) probably average 15-20k crowds for the first 20years at best especially if they have to play out of Telstra stadium.

 

[cos789]

It's ridiculous to say that a team should get a certain amount of coverage based simply on their crowds.

It's ridiculous to suggesy otherwise.

There are 9 AFL/VFL teams and the Victory that the Storm compete for coverage .

Like I said , the Storm are competing with the VFL .

 

[cos789]

And exactly how is the SCG Trust and ANZ shafting the swans?

Please , I thought you knew a few things .

 

[chesson]

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Please , I thought you knew a few things .

Explain them to me.