Analysis Should we be pursuing a secondary market post-Hobart? If yes, then where?

[Heaps of fun]

One million a game seems fine not great when you consider the increased cost of everything since the Tassie deal was last ironed out. A million wouldn't go nearly as far as it did five years ago.

 

[CBSlogger]

Any plan which doesn't ultimately aim to get back to 11 home games in Vic is for the tip.

As long as we bind our survival to these short term govt. funded sugar hits, we'll never escape the AFLs teat.

Either the docklands stadium deal is amended to have some semblance of parity for all tenants, or lock in venue hopping and a dispirited Victorian supporter base in perpetuity.

Notwithstanding 5+ years of our record breaking awfulness, any hope of escaping this vortex must revolve around a sustainable plan of 11 vic games per year, by capitalising on the most promising list we've had in 30 years.

If in the next decade, with this list, the club can't achieve that then I'm afraid it's gone forever, and we'll remain in the vortex until we're no longer.

 

[Woolly Mammoth]

Thank you for your question and here is my honest response:

NO!!!!! I was passionate since 1973. I had loved the club but in the end it came down to money and a betrayal of my trust. Perhaps the trust of many, because many have had my recent experience but choose to just suck it up.

The club membership department betrayed my trust and integrity when they on-sold my personal financial details to a second party without my consent. THEY!!!! Have done that continuously for at least the last three years without apology or verification. The Club denied all obligation, choosing to blame it on Ticketmaster. WELL IT'S LIKE THIS .... I gave my personal information and financial details to the club's Membership department (Not Ticketmaster) over the phone, and I certainly NEVER gave the club authorisation to auto-renew my annual membership. This was all done over the phone, not online. So, THEY (The club's "MEMBERSHIP DEPARTMENT") chose to forward my personal financial details to Ticketmaster. Now as it turns out, Ticketmaster have an agreement which was NEVER - EVER - DISCLOSED to me (By the club's membership department) or to you that they get provided our personal security details to credit card companies to extend our updated card CVN and updated expiry dates from our credit cards.

ARE YOU NOW GETTING THE PICTURE????????

Do you now damn well see what the Hell I am on about? You ought to be as angry at this point as I am.

The Club and Ticketmaster are blatantly abusing your personal privacy. They hide behind the fact that they are a multi-billion dollar business. That still doesn't allow them to abuse your privacy or banking details under any circumstances. Do you, or anybody else reading this post understand now? YOUR PRIVACY and MINE is ATM for sale to credit card companies. The club membership department are being a willing accomplice to this. Any questions?

I am not making this up.

That is the point of my complaint. And any person among you who thinks that I am a crackpot or an idiot for lodging a complaint about this breach of personal security to either the ACCC, the Banking Ombudsman or the AFL better damn well think again. How could the AFL and any club think that taking a member's updated or changed banking information (The security details (CVN and expiry date)) from their credit card, without at least a courtesy phone call for personal verification of the card holder (without consent) think for a moment is acceptable?

If any among you think that such behaviour is acceptable, then be my guest. Feel free if you are that way inclined to offer over up your personal PIN numbers for all of your bank accounts to the next Nigerian Prince, or maybe to Big W who are offering you free Tupperware, or even to Bunnings who are offering your free vouchers in your next round of spam emails.

Is anybody among you reading this message laughing now???? You have all received those emails. So think about it before you try to respond to this post or EVER try to question my motives again. Where do you think that these spammers get their information from? Think about it folks.

I gave 51 years of support and loyalty to the North Melbourne Club, and yes now I'm over it, and angry as F***. Yes, I am over the Club and the bullshit tens of $1000s that I have given to it without question over my working life. They have done their dash now because they abused my personal trust. Trust takes many years to build, and only takes a few seconds to destroy. Can I be clearer? The NMFC and AFL have destroyed my trust and can not morally ever support them ever again. They attempted to take money from me without my consent. That is the bottom line. They are still doing it even to many who are reading this post. It is wrong. Make no mistake, in the old days we used to call that "Robbery". How can I ever trust this club, the AFL or Ticketmaster ever again?

I cannot give you a more honest response to your question than that my friend.

Now! That all said and done, many of you are asking ... "So if you are not a NM supporter then why are your responding to this thread?" The answer to that is dead simple. This came up flagged on my "Watched Threads" icon. Look at the top of your screens and there is a little eyeball icon that flags messages. The next step for me is to cancel my "Bigfooty" membership/association because there is no facility within the app or group to change club affiliations. So yes as long as I remain on Bigfooty they identify me as a NMFC supporter. I've had enough, and yes that is my next step. Just cancel my membership to even this organisation and write it off as one of life's big mistakes ... Like 51 year marriage Yes, like a divorce it sometimes takes some people 51 years to realise that they hitched their wagons to the wrong horse.

So you are still on Bigfooty, i.e following another club?

Absolute bollocks, just another sook looking for any old excuse to jump off the ship when we are at our lowest ebb, we deadset have some of the most p*ssweak supporters in organised sports.

 

[Dan]

Is it possible that the club is merely waiting for the women's team to finish its season first?

Everything has been going smoothly (touch wood) they don't want any distractions by making this offical?

 

[Spud11]

So you are still on Bigfooty, i.e following another club?

Absolute bollocks, just another sook looking for any old excuse to jump off the ship when we are at our lowest ebb, we deadset have some of the most p*ssweak supporters in organised sports.

“Organised sport?” AFL?

If by “organised” you mean “formatted and makes sense”, nah. It’s really not.
If however you mean “organised” as in… fixtures that are lopsided, rules that are manipulated and results that are dubious to such an extent that even Hansie Cronje would have questioned them. Then yes. It really is.

 

[LB2Snake]

What’s the point of developing a secondary market when you drop it like a hot turd as soon as something else comes along?

I’m all for reducing the number of games being sold and if this results in it being 2 then great, but if I were a Tassie member I would switch to the Devils as soon as games are being played.

Canberra, Sydney, Gold Coast, Ballarat, there’s a pattern of us investing in and then ditching the secondary markets. The members we make look great initially but I would guess they mostly drop off once the club loses interest. We keep making the same mistake.

It’s an old cliche but we’ve gotta turn up to games in Melbourne. We get Marvel rocking and we don’t have these issues. But it can be pretty quiet there some days

 

[shintemaster]

It’s an old cliche but we’ve gotta turn up to games in Melbourne. We get Marvel rocking and we don’t have these issues. But it can be pretty quiet there some days

We have one of the highest membership / supporter ratio's in the league. People do turn up. We need more supporters and at some point the club need to face up to the reality that they need to actually support the supporters.

 

[Colby Cheer Squad]

We have one of the highest membership / supporter ratio's in the league. People do turn up. We need more supporters and at some point the club need to face up to the reality that they need to actually support the supporters.

One of the highest membership : supporter ratios isn't the same as membership : game day attendance ratio.

 

[Spud11]

The travelling Kangaroos

 

[shintemaster]

One of the highest membership : supporter ratios isn't the same as membership : game day attendance ratio.

Agree, but the point remains. We stack well statistically for supporters attending games as a proportion of members. We don't have enough and we get butchered in the fixture every year - the Hobart games make this even easier for the AFL to cook us on.

Just for context based on 2024 against the league leaders who have a stacked fixture and no artificial lessening of home attendees due to Hobart games:

Collingwood Members: 110,628
Average home attendance: 53,467
Ratio: 0.48

North Members: 50,628
Average home attendance: 26,395
Ratio: 0.52

Long story short, we attend, we need more supporters full stop and the club needs to take steps to rectify this. We get awful commercial fixtures, poor timeslots, more games against non Vic teams as home games and play games at an oval in Hobart and are still getting a higher proportion of our supporters to games. That's without even considering they came off a premiership and we can't win a shoot yourself in the foot competition. We need more supporters and I'm well and truly of the view that the current pathway is not a solution to getting more.

 

[Colby Cheer Squad]

Agree, but the point remains. We stack well statistically for supporters attending games as a proportion of members. We don't have enough and we get butchered in the fixture every year - the Hobart games make this even easier for the AFL to cook us on.

Just for context based on 2024 against the league leaders who have a stacked fixture and no artificial lessening of home attendees due to Hobart games:

Collingwood Members: 110,628
Average home attendance: 53,467
Ratio: 0.48

North Members: 50,628
Average home attendance: 26,395
Ratio: 0.52

Long story short, we attend, we need more supporters full stop and the club needs to take steps to rectify this. We get awful commercial fixtures, poor timeslots, more games against non Vic teams as home games and play games at an oval in Hobart and are still getting a higher proportion of our supporters to games. That's without even considering they came off a premiership and we can't win a shoot yourself in the foot competition. We need more supporters and I'm well and truly of the view that the current pathway is not a solution to getting more.

Thanks for providing those figures. I assume the average home attendance is for Melbourne home games rather than Melbourne and Hobart combined. It will be interesting to see if we can maintain or improve on that once we are out of Hobart and with 9 home games in Melbourne, assuming that's the way this deal plays out. Our Hobart attendances have been poor but we have been able to send low drawing opponents like Gold Coast and Port Adelaide down there and now we will have them in Melbourne. We need to be able to pull well over 20k of our own supporters to Docklands regardless of the opposition.

 

[shintemaster]

Thanks for providing those figures. I assume the average home attendance is for Melbourne home games rather than Melbourne and Hobart combined. It will be interesting to see if we can maintain or improve on that once we are out of Hobart and with 9 home games in Melbourne, assuming that's the way this deal plays out. Our Hobart attendances have been poor but we have been able to send low drawing opponents like Gold Coast and Port Adelaide down there and now we will have them in Melbourne. We need to be able to pull well over 20k of our own supporters to Docklands regardless of the opposition.

Those are straight averages. They show that we get more supporters turning up to games as a percentage than Collingwood. We need more supporters, it's irrelevant mostly whether they're hardcore, week in week out or whatever. Reality is that with 11 home games in Melbourne our average and ratio would be higher. We would draw more supporters against the likes of Gold Coast or PA in Melbourne than we do in Hobart. We just need more supporters in Melbourne full stop. Call me crazy but I don't think playing every 3 weeks on average with up to month long gaps in home games help build the supporter base.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Thanks for providing those figures. I assume the average home attendance is for Melbourne home games rather than Melbourne and Hobart combined. It will be interesting to see if we can maintain or improve on that once we are out of Hobart and with 9 home games in Melbourne, assuming that's the way this deal plays out. Our Hobart attendances have been poor but we have been able to send low drawing opponents like Gold Coast and Port Adelaide down there and now we will have them in Melbourne. We need to be able to pull well over 20k of our own supporters to Docklands regardless of the opposition.

Those are straight averages. They show that we get more supporters turning up to games as a percentage than Collingwood. We need more supporters, it's irrelevant mostly whether they're hardcore, week in week out or whatever. Reality is that with 11 home games in Melbourne our average and ratio would be higher. We would draw more supporters against the likes of Gold Coast or PA in Melbourne than we do in Hobart. We just need more supporters in Melbourne full stop. Call me crazy but I don't think playing every 3 weeks on average with up to month long gaps in home games help build the supporter base.

I'm gonna keep butting in because I keep getting notifications for this

I don't disagree with the broader sentiment (North fans do actually show up relative to the size of the club, agreed, Roy Morgan polling suggests that there are only 200,000 North 'fans' so a 10% turnout rate compares well with Collingwood's 5% turnout rate given it supposed 900,000 fans).

But given that Hobart games are disproportionately against non-Victorian opponents, it means that home games are more proportionally bumped up by away fans.

The "default" rate of North attendees when we assume that there's no away fans, the Docklands games vs interstate teams over the last couple of years, have been crowds of around 17,000 plus whatever away fans.

Collingwood played at Docklands, their non-usual home ground, vs. West Coast and still got 37,000 to a game this year.

You would hope that given that two of the home games in WA from 2026 onward are against interstate teams so 6 out of the 9 games are against Victorian opponents (66%) which is not a mile off the 5/7 that's generally the case now (71%). But the fixture is essentially fixed to ensure the big 5/6 Vic clubs play more often against each other. Even with the 8 non-Victorian teams guaranteeing that one of their 11 games are against their main rival, you should only expect to play a Victorian team for 6 of the 11 home games, which is 54%, which will drag the Melbourne home attendance down.

FWIW this is why I don't see it being that big of an issue to sell off a game or two. Ideally it's not where you're gifting home ground advantage, but the 10th and 11th most in-demand Docklands game while theoretically being accessible in Melbourne, when against Freo or a less desirable team, just isn't that big a deal to have avaliable to the fans at home. If it really was a desirable game ... you'd have more people attending, rather than the sub 15k that I would believe would attend this 11th most desireable game, the 5th of the season against an interstate team

 

[shintemaster]

You would hope that given that two of the home games in WA from 2026 onward are against interstate teams so 6 out of the 9 games are against Victorian opponents (66%) which is not a mile off the 5/7 that's generally the case now (71%). But the fixture is essentially fixed to ensure the big 5/6 Vic clubs play more often against each other. Even with the 8 non-Victorian teams guaranteeing that one of their 11 games are against their main rival, you should only expect to play a Victorian team for 6 of the 11 home games, which is 54%, which will drag the Melbourne home attendance down.

FWIW this is why I don't see it being that big of an issue to sell off a game or two. Ideally it's not where you're gifting home ground advantage, but the 10th and 11th most in-demand Docklands game while theoretically being accessible in Melbourne, when against Freo or a less desirable team, just isn't that big a deal to have avaliable to the fans at home. If it really was a desirable game ... you'd have more people attending, rather than the sub 15k that I would believe would attend this 11th most desireable game, the 5th of the season against an interstate team

Your logic is flawed. The two bold lines are in direct conflict with each other. If the biggest VIC clubs are setup to play each other more often - not just an extra "rival" game - then there is not a 54% chance of drawing a Victorian team. The odds are lower for us and they will get worse. It won't be Collingwood playing Tassie twice a year.

Ultimately you're not telling us anything we don't already know. We get good crowds for our size, we get an absolute fisting from head office and the number 1 priority has to be growing our home supporter base. The club wanting to stay ahead in the interim is fine and dandy - but history shows they've had the same idea for 2+ decades and still in the same position. There is a fixed stadium size cap in Melbourne (especially docklands), every supporter that has to buy a reserved seat is better for the club - best we start putting efforts into growing here, not elsewhere.

 

[berniemccarthy]

How’d you get out of the Auto Renew though? They did it regardless of instructions to cease last year.

I called and told them not to this year. I’ve been on auto for years. Asked them to call me a couple of weeks after the auto renew date. Said I would only renew
If it was at the old cost level and that happened. So not difficult. Just takes a call and a conversation.

 

[Gasometer]

I called and told them not to this year. I’ve been on auto for years. Asked them to call me a couple of weeks after the auto renew date. Said I would only renew
If it was at the old cost level and that happened. So not difficult. Just takes a call and a conversation.

I had the same conversation last year

Nothing changed this year

 

[berniemccarthy]

I had the same conversation last year

Nothing changed this year

 

[Ruckle]

“Organised sport?” AFL?

If by “organised” you mean “formatted and makes sense”, nah. It’s really not.
If however you mean “organised” as in… fixtures that are lopsided, rules that are manipulated and results that are dubious to such an extent that even Hansie Cronje would have questioned them. Then yes. It really is.

HAHA Nice one, had forgotten about ol Hansie. Cheers

 

[giantroo]

 

[shintemaster]

As much shit as I've given this, two games in WA is better than four in TAS. Caveat being the club will deserve every bit of manure that comes their way if we miss a final by one game due to a loss in one of these. We get stuck into the players for not doing everything possible to win - perhaps they take their lead from the club?

 

[gokangas]

As much shit as I've given this, two games in WA is better than four in TAS. Caveat being the club will deserve every bit of manure that comes their way if we miss a final by one game due to a loss in one of these. We get stuck into the players for not doing everything possible to win - perhaps they take their lead from the club?

Members first, huh?

 

[backtothedraft]

Members first, huh?

How is the club supposed to control the narrative when this information is clearly coming out of WA?

 

[gokangas]

How is the club supposed to control the narrative when this information is clearly coming out of WA?

Serious? Make a holding statement. Simple. They will announce this deal like it is the second coming and the saviour of our club. It's been in the media almost three weeks. This discussion has been had earlier in this thread so I know some do not agree. I think they should have made a comment to members confirming this is an option being looked at and that they would advise members what was happening when appropriate. They have no surprise announcement to make now - they will tell members last.

 

[Warrboy]

Very interested to see what happens now given I auto-renewed on 15 Oct for 4 games in Hobart …

BTW as much as I love watching in my home state, North need 9 home games at Marvel. It has to be the medium term objective.

 

[Warrboy]

Very interested to see what happens now given I auto-renewed on 15 Oct for 4 games in Hobart …

BTW as much as I love watching in my home state, North need 9 home games at Marvel. It has to be the medium term objective.

I notice Tas memberships are no longer on the website …