Expansion Lowest finals crowd since WW1...

[telsor]

The biggest fallacy in modern day AFL history, is that they just need GWS to be "successful" and everything will be ok. Well they are in for a rude shock!
Just because they win a flag, or even 3 , dosen't mean people are going to develop an interest in a sport they are otherwise not interested in! Will not happen, particularly to the point of becoming members and attending games.

Melbourne Victory won flags, and Melbourne Storm in the NRL in their second year. I couldnt give a rats arse about either of those codes and wouldnt open my blind if they were playing on my front lawn. GWS IS doomed to failure.

Honestly, while success might help in getting people through the door, I think struggle is required to build the 'rusted on' base. Base them on success and you get the Sydney situation....Gifted success, and both clubs still complain about the AFL not doing enough to promote the game for them. How much of the support for Sydney would fall off the bandwagon if they spent a few years down the bottom of the ladder?

If you looked at all the money pumped into NSW/QLD (probably half a billion thus far), how small the return has been (a few players, bugger all money), and how little evidence of a decent return in the future are (if anything, the funds needed to keep them going is getting worse), you have to start wondering if it's all been a massive waste of time, effort and resources.

 

[telsor]

Where clubs that claim 70,000+ members get 20k to a home game.

Why is that a problem? The clubs get the money, and the fans have the right to attend, or not, as they choose.

Do you think there should be a requirement on members to attend? How do you think clubs should enforce this?

 

[ziad]

Interesting that the earlier WC-GWS game (Round 20 or so )had a slightly higher crowd. All Sydney wide junior clubs were given free tickets to that game and quite a few families turned up.

For the final the junior clubs were offered $25 tickets and this appeared to deter many.

We drove out there - easy parking and easy to get out. The NRL ($40+K finished earlier.)

 

[LoungeLizard]

20-30-40 year plan?
Success is the only option.
AFL is stuffed.

 

[Rob]

Why is that a problem? The clubs get the money, and the fans have the right to attend, or not, as they choose.

Do you think there should be a requirement on members to attend? How do you think clubs should enforce this?

Good on them. Just saying that it's not just GWS that seem to have members that rarely, if ever, show up to games.

 

[Major Colvin]

Could you imagine if they won the grand final to pretty much zero fan fare? The entire footy supporting community missing out on the chance to see a premiership all in the name of a failed marketing gimmick.

The Swans seem to get decent crowds but I wonder how many of them are diehards - those who are seem to be Melb based. Remember when they won the flag in 2005 - O'Loughlin and Goodes entered the airport terminal and there was like 3 people there (all cameramen). Contrast to the following year, West Coast were greeted at the airport like a Beatles Concert.

 

[telsor]

Good on them. Just saying that it's not just GWS that seem to have members that rarely, if ever, show up to games.

GWS doesn't have members in the usual sense though.

Members contribute to their club.

GWS members, overall, are a drain on their club.

 

[The Goon]

The Swans seem to get decent crowds but I wonder how many of them are diehards - those who are seem to be Melb based. Remember when they won the flag in 2005 - O'Loughlin and Goodes entered the airport terminal and there was like 3 people there (all cameramen). Contrast to the following year, West Coast were greeted at the airport like a Beatles Concert.

Lots of Sydney diehards up here. More bandwagoners than you can shake a stick at, but the diehards would easily be equivalent to a mid-tier club in Melbourne.

 

[raymond35]

Sure, it's a disappointing figure. Is it relevant? no

The attendance figure has no impact on whether or not the expansion experiment is a success or failure.

GWS are in their salad days. They are financially backed by the AFL, have the most 1st round draft picks gifted to any club in history, an extended list, Salary Cap allowances and were given (amongst others) Cameron, Shiel, Trelour and Wilson without having to draft them.

The true indicator will the size of the crowd when all this wears off.

Salad days eh?
Thats an expression you don't hear enough of.

 

[Walshawk]

GWS will be a scucess by Sydney standards. In five years they are on track to have 30K members and average 20K crowds, which will put them second behind the Swans in terms of those two metrics of the 14 pro football teams in the city.
They will never be a success by Melbourne standards.

 

[Rob]

GWS doesn't have members in the usual sense though.

Members contribute to their club.

GWS members, overall, are a drain on their club.

WTF? This isn't the bay telsor.

 

[telsor]

WTF? This isn't the bay telsor.

No, it's not.

I'm referring to the GWS club financial report.

Membership revenue was significantly LOWER than membership expenses.

Revenue
Membership & Merchandise 1,258,993

Expenses.
Membership 2,038,543
Merch (cost of sales) 122,157


Membership & Merch COST the club ~$900K in 2016. Thus my point that GWS 'members' are a drain on their club.

 

[Smartest Brain]

Why?

Afl doesn't want so many teams in a saturated Melbourne market.

 

[Smartest Brain]

No, it's not.

I'm referring to the GWS club financial report.

Membership revenue was significantly LOWER than membership expenses.

Revenue
Membership & Merchandise 1,258,993

Expenses.
Membership 2,038,543
Merch (cost of sales) 122,157


Membership & Merch COST the club ~$900K in 2016. Thus my point that GWS 'members' are a drain on their club.

Probably marketing to get even more supporters comes under that.

 

[telsor]

Afl doesn't want so many teams in a saturated Melbourne market.

Given that you were 100% certain, surely you have something to back that up....

 

[telsor]

Probably marketing to get even more supporters comes under that.

marketing is a separate expense (and was over $5Million, so I doubt much was missed from it)

 

[juss]

GWS fans dont even care, thats a terrible crowd for a semi final.

 

[citizen-erased]

A Melbourne team will 100% move to Tassie in the future, to deny this reality is foolish. It will be down to which team is going to fold first.

im not so sure the AFL will visit that ever again.
There have been opportunities, but the threat has largely been there to get the financial backers involved in "saving" the clubs.
Bulldogs, North, Melbourne, Richmond. All have struggled, but faced their financial issues head on rather than being told to move.

You could launch another Vic franchise and not have an issue with supporter bases. As it stands games are hard enough to get into here.
Etihad is becoming more often than not a ticketed stadium, rather than rock up and find a seat.
The G never really sells out, but a 3rd stadium could easily host another game in Melbourne and not see a drop off in crowds.
Simonds is under capacity for any game the cats play as it is.

I can't see a Vic club moving.
At best, they may abandon the Gold Coast, but that would be it.

As for GWS, this stat is as pointless and hysterical as the one about Essendon not winning a final without Sheedy since '68.
Ignores quite a number of factors to make a sensationalist point, which only serves to feed those who'd seek to troll the club out of dislike.

How about we focus on the fact they've made 2 prelims within their first 6 years of existence, which everyone tipped against a few years back, and have created a strong club culture that has seen only one superstar leave (Treloar) and a vast number invest in the club over themselves (Cameron, Patton, Kelly, Greene, Shiel, Coniglio, etc.)

 

[Rusty Brookes]

I live in sydney and i hardly hear about afl.

Its not in the newspaper (maybe a column after the soccer lol), no pubs play it with sound (nrl gets the main screen with afl in th back corner)... just no where to be seen really. Most people wouldnt have known gws was in a final.

My mother didn't even realise there was a second team in Sydney until I told her last year and she's been living up there for over 20 years.

 

[citizen-erased]

The biggest fallacy in modern day AFL history, is that they just need GWS to be "successful" and everything will be ok. Well they are in for a rude shock!
Just because they win a flag, or even 3 , dosen't mean people are going to develop an interest in a sport they are otherwise not interested in! Will not happen, particularly to the point of becoming members and attending games.

Melbourne Victory won flags, and Melbourne Storm in the NRL in their second year. I couldnt give a rats arse about either of those codes and wouldnt open my blind if they were playing on my front lawn. GWS IS doomed to failure.

ridiculous point.
Victory & Storm have sustainability within fans of their code.
Football is universal, so no surprise with Victory, and City have rebranded nicely.
Storm are a lesson in how to build a club and keep the fans coming. NRL did well to get here before ARU did, and it's hurt the Rebels in terms of getting any decent shareholding in the city.

its not about the fans who don't like AFL changing their minds. It's tapping into the fans of AFL in a large area (essentially anyone not that enamoured with the Swans in Sydney & the Canberra crowd) and getting them onboard with the Suns.
It may take time to get them off their current teams (i have a few essendon mates who are shifting to GWS, even if they don't admit it) and getting them invested in the chance to see GWS on a regular basis.

 

[Smartest Brain]

marketing is a separate expense (and was over $5Million, so I doubt much was missed from it)

So what could it be? Admin doesn't cost that much.

 

[MVille Swan]

My mother didn't even realise there was a second team in Sydney until I told her last year and she's been living up there for over 20 years.

Well it could be that she hasn't been following footy very closely in recent times.

 

[MVille Swan]

In time some of the Sydney based followers of the other clubs will drift over to GWS. This is what happened with the
Swans in the 80s, it's not like there was a huge base of South Melbourne fans already in Sydney just waiting for the Swans to
arrive. Everybody in Sydney who started following the Swans in the 80s was already supporting another team, and slowly (and it took
many years) they drifted over to the Swans. Sure, some people will never switch clubs, but a lot will. It's just going to take
a long time.
These people just want a team that they can go and see every second week. Sound familiar? Re all of this talk about the funding GWS get. North, St Kilda, Brisbane & Gold Coast aren't that far behind them
in that department. Are all of those clubs a waste of time too?

 

[Sentinel]

In time some of the Sydney based followers of the other clubs will drift over to GWS. This is what happened with the
Swans in the 80s, it's not like there was a huge base of South Melbourne fans already in Sydney just waiting for the Swans to
arrive. Everybody in Sydney who started following the Swans in 80s was already supporting another team, and slowly (and it took
many years) they drifted over to the Swans. Sure, some people will never switch clubs, but a lot will. It's just going to take
a long time. Re all of this talk about the funding GWS get. North, St Kilda, Brisbane & Gold Coast aren't that far behind them
in that department. Are all of those clubs a waste of time too?

I'd say the Sydney example from the 80s is quite different because it was a matter of Sydney based AFL fans moving to the local team rather than supporting a team based interstate, where as the Giants don't have that appeal of being the only local based club.

I think the better example would be in Perth - I don't know the background well, but it would be interesting to know if most Dockers followers were originally on West Coast prior to their entrance to the league, or did they follow someone else (or no an AFL team at all)? Fremantle seemed to develop a strong supporter base relatively quickly, although admittedly in a strong AFL city.

 

[RupieDupie]

Dunno, maybe they're struggling to capture the the public's imagination?

Not a good colour combo and what's a Giant? Who can identify with a Giant? Giants don't exist except in Jack The Giant Slayer. A movie. Should've been given a traditional looking Guernsey, simple colour combination and a traditional fooball sounding nickname. These things locals could identify with AFL. It's almost like the AFL shied away from their own history here. At the very least they need a simpler traditional AFL looking Guernsey IMO. What Freo done to the ugly anchor jumper looks a million times better now.

Here's my opinion on this,

Western NSW is a harsh, scarred, and desolate, and the iron soils are rusted Orange. On the banks of intermittent creeks stand the few White gum trees as a Testament to the parched landscape; this barren place can Crush the strongest of spirits. Legend tells us that across all of western NSW giant people once roamed, the Jogungs or the Goolagahs, 3.3 metre tall Giants who cooked flesh in the Charcoal from volcanic lava and had powerful Thundering growls. These mythological creatures can be thought of as a symbol of the land, merciless, strong and Giant.

Then in the late sixties, on the Macquarie River near Bathurst, a 16.6kg stone club was found, this was not new, as early European settlers sinking mineshafts along creek beds in Western NSW reported finding Enormous club-shaped rocks, some up to 40 kilograms in weight. More surprisingly, as far east as Blacktown, Large footprints were uncovered of a Pleistocene giant walking through the charcoal ash from a volcanic explosion. The Giants were real. The harsh land, testing of a person’s mettle, had created Giant people.

We are the Giants.