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

[Woolly Mammoth]

We will suffer short-term financial pain if we stop selling games.

We will suffer long-term financial pain if we continue to sell games.

There is an opportunity cost to not playing all our home games in Melbourne that is easy to overlook, it is an intangible that doesn't show up in a spreadsheet or in your accounts.

The target is to be able to get 40-50k people at home games at Docklands against teams like GC, Fremantle, Port, GWS, etc. This means it will push people into the higher tiers of seating and membership packages, we will make a lot more from catering and alcohol sales, get a lot more from sponsorship and advertising revenue. Our new stadium deal is a great deal to make money, but you need to get more people through the door consistently.

What is the best way to increase the critical mass of supporters who want to attend games? Is it by playing home games here sporadically and forcing supporters to attend games with away game seating restrictions or is to to play every home game here and try and build the culture of going to the football every week, including away games? We play at the MCG fewer times than some interstate teams, it is because we don't have a supporter base that has been conditioned to going to the football. We've had a lot of weekends with no game to go to and people found something else to do with their time and when that happens they stop going to games when they are here. I've seen it a lot with North family and friends over the years.

We were ahead of Saints and Bulldogs for local support for a long time and now we are dead last, by a significant margin. That damage has been self-inflicted. The Wyndham association has been a great boon for our club but that was an AFL initiative, we have had a lack of proactive investment in Melbourne initiated by us and followed through by us. If we think we are going places with Clarkson and this new batch of talent, the time is right to bring the games home and put the focus on the other growth regions of Melbourne. We need to replicate what we are doing in Wyndham in these other areas.

It is never going to just happen. It has to be something we work for.

Good post, but I'm guessing the 40-50k was a typo? in the 30 odd years theyve been in the comp, Essendon have managed a 40k crowd against the Dockers and the Powers about 3 times.

But it is an important point you have (accidentally?) raised, it is seriously high time that *supporters of North (as well as every other club) *our admin *the AFL *current and prospective sponsors *broadcasters *basically every c*nt starts to acknowledge that Port and Freo away crowds are shisen housen across the board, flag window or wooden spoon window it makes no difference, it has and always will be that way. There is a weird corporate delusion that pretends that its not the case or it's clearly all that pesky North Melbournes fault, and that somehow promotions/gimmicks/discounted tickets/lighting some prayer candles will be the difference in changing it.

Time to accept that for what it is, they are basically write-offs as games, and concentrate on improving our saints/dogs/demons crowds as our main focus.

 

[Woolly Mammoth]

I don't think we should be pursuing a "secondary market" if that means deluding ourselves that we will turn Cairns let alone some part of regional Victoria into a stronghold that generates us members.

It's not, or should never have been about creating a stronghold, it is about picking up dribs and drabs of supporters, mainly kids. Which is why it should have been a Victorian pursuit from the very beginning. We have pissed away 20+ years in markets where at best we could hope for very casual fans who live too far away to regularly attend Docklands games. Time to try and amend those mistakes.

 

[Gasometer]

Intellectually challenged sore loser.....over what...your content?

Please....you're a hollow north supporter who over compensates pushing the women's agenda.

You wanted a side by side list of comparisons with Hawthorn/North re tassie. Perhaps you've missed the bigger picture.....we've been the traveling Kangaroos since the early 2000's and we've been all the poorer for it in a multitude of ways. Thankfully others have already raised this point.

And who's this 'we'? Since when did you post on the behalf of others?

Just out of interest when you watch that show....do you imagine yourself as the damsel in distress? Does the guy turn into a werewolf by conventional terms ie full moon?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the genre......I remember watching a Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer movie called Wolf many years ago.....great movie.


But this looks like a bag of dog sh!t...

I'd rather watch 2 homeless guys ****ing each other than watch ^that^.

That doesn’t have Micheal J Fox in it!

 

[Dan]

That doesn’t have Micheal J Fox in it!

That looks worse.

He looks like Chewbacca’s sister.

 

[Augustine]

Good post, but I'm guessing the 40-50k was a typo? in the 30 odd years theyve been in the comp, Essendon have managed a 40k crowd against the Dockers and the Powers about 3 times.

But it is an important point you have (accidentally?) raised, it is seriously high time that *supporters of North (as well as every other club) *our admin *the AFL *current and prospective sponsors *broadcasters *basically every c*nt starts to acknowledge that Port and Freo away crowds are shisen housen across the board, flag window or wooden spoon window it makes no difference, it has and always will be that way. There is a weird corporate delusion that pretends that its not the case or it's clearly all that pesky North Melbournes fault, and that somehow promotions/gimmicks/discounted tickets/lighting some prayer candles will be the difference in changing it.

Time to accept that for what it is, they are basically write-offs as games, and concentrate on improving our saints/dogs/demons crowds as our main focus.

I don't fully understand why this is the case. Yes you get a big injection of supporters from the Victorian away side but you also get thousands and thousands more home fans.

It must be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy:
"North vs Hawthorn this week, that will be a decent crowd. I'll give my Hawthorn mate Johnny a ring, see if he's keen."
vs
"Second weekend of July for the fishing trip? I think it's only North vs Port Adelaide that week so won't be a big game anyway."

Is there a VFL snobbery among supporters of a certain age?

Except in extenuating circumstances (clash near top of the ladder) I think we basically get North Melbourne supporting people at Home games (not including away supporters or neutrals) like this:

• Good Friday: Around 35k
• Collingwood, Carlton, Richmond, Essendon - 20-30k
• Western Bulldogs, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Melbourne, Sydney - 18-25k
• West Coast, Brisbane, Adelaide - 15-20k
• Port Adelaide, Freo - 13-18k
• GWS, Gold Coast - 11-16k

There's just a really large amount of people who only really go to 1-3 games a season and they circle games vs larger Melbourne based teams. There's only about 15k of us who are there nearly every week. Honestly, if we could just find a way to push all those brackets up by even 5k it would be happy days.

 

[Dan]

I don't fully understand why this is the case. Yes you get a big injection of supporters from the Victorian away side but you also get thousands and thousands more home fans.

It must be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy:
"North vs Hawthorn this week, that will be a decent crowd. I'll give my Hawthorn mate Johnny a ring, see if he's keen."
vs
"Second weekend of July for the fishing trip? I think it's only North vs Port Adelaide that week so won't be a big game anyway."

Is there a VFL snobbery among supporters of a certain age?

Except in extenuating circumstances (clash near top of the ladder) I think we basically get North Melbourne supporting people at Home games (not including away supporters or neutrals) like this:

• Good Friday: Around 35k
• Collingwood, Carlton, Richmond, Essendon - 20-30k
• Western Bulldogs, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Melbourne, Sydney - 18-25k
• West Coast, Brisbane, Adelaide - 15-20k
• Port Adelaide, Freo - 13-18k
• GWS, Gold Coast - 11-16k

There's just a really large amount of people who only really go to 1-3 games a season and they circle games vs larger Melbourne based teams. There's only about 15k of us who are there nearly every week. Honestly, if we could just find a way to push all those brackets up by even 5k it would be happy days.

You’ll get the numbers you’re looking for from sheer team improvement and more home games offered to those who have and are on the fence getting a reserved seat.

 

[DEVO]

I came across this on YouTube this afternoon, apparently, we shouldn't look for a second market, but just relocate to Canberra.



I'd get to see them live at least.

 

[travelli]

2-3 games in Cairns, long term with a local academy in FNQ. Games only played in June/July/August. Always fine weather & a great holiday for the Melbourne winter.

Cairns will never be able to host a full time team, so no risks. We've got a great oval and has a great vibe at around 15k attendance.

Commit to a 10 year long term plan to the Cairns area. A long term commitment is important. Cut a deal with the North Cairns Tigers to swap jumpers. Run kids programs. Develop a supporter base. People will jump on the roos faster than Tasi. Cairns gets very little "celebrity" attention and one school visit by players might attract 10 or 20 life long fans. I used to work in schools and I have seen it happen when Gold Coast hacks turn up, play with the kids for half an hour and then the kids commit.

Since COVID, Cairns has loaded up with Melbourne people and I reckon now is the best market for AFL since I have lived here (almost 20 years).

Do it. Or Bendigo. Actually Bendigo makes alot more sense, but I highly recommend Cairns because I would love to actually watch a game. And I think it would work if we genuinely gave a shit about the community.

 

[Dan]

Also we don’t need anymore Hawthorn’s success & coincidentally playing some games in tassie….as some justification rebuttals for us being down there.

Don’t be lazy….you know what’s what.

 

[Dan]

2-3 games in Cairns, long term with a local academy in FNQ. Games only played in June/July/August. Always fine weather & a great holiday for the Melbourne winter.

Cairns will never be able to host a full time team, so no risks. We've got a great oval and has a great vibe at around 15k attendance.

Commit to a 10 year long term plan to the Cairns area. A long term commitment is important. Cut a deal with the North Cairns Tigers to swap jumpers. Run kids programs. Develop a supporter base. People will jump on the roos faster than Tasi. Cairns gets very little "celebrity" attention and one school visit by players might attract 10 or 20 life long fans. I used to work in schools and I have seen it happen when Gold Coast hacks turn up, play with the kids for half an hour and then the kids commit.

Since COVID, Cairns has loaded up with Melbourne people and I reckon now is the best market for AFL since I have lived here (almost 20 years).

Do it. Or Bendigo. Actually Bendigo makes alot more sense, but I highly recommend Cairns because I would love to actually watch a game. And I think it would work if we genuinely gave a shit about the community.

Bendigo I’m opened minded.

Cairns can bugger off. Too far and who wants to watch soap ball footy?

 

[travelli]

Bendigo I’m opened minded.

Cairns can bugger off. Too far and who wants to watch soap ball footy?

just don't play in March!

I flew back from 10 degree Melbourne this morning to 26 degree Cairns today. If they are sensible about the timing you are almost guaranteed perfect weather.

I was at the soap ball footy game too and it was great fun. Footy is an all weather sport

 

[Colby Cheer Squad]

That old chestnut.

To be fair to you, your argument didn't warrant new appraisal. We lose potential free agents and recruits because our flights to Hobart are 5 minutes longer than the flights Hawthorn takes to Launceston?

 

[Colby Cheer Squad]

I don't think we should be pursuing a "secondary market" if that means deluding ourselves that we will turn Cairns let alone some part of regional Victoria into a stronghold that generates us members.

That argument is dead and buried imo.

We certainly need $$$ to replace the Tassie money bit we can go a fair way to replacing that simply by selling games to the highest bidder.

THIS. Wherever we send at least 2 out of the 4 games will be about how much money someone is prepared to pay us and not so much where we can eke out a few dozen memberships.

 

[The Warlord]

THIS. Wherever we send at least 2 out of the 4 games will be about how much money someone is prepared to pay us and not so much where we can eke out a few dozen memberships.

I'd sell two home games a year to Perth (one each team) as long as it was done for the right $$$ and also it worked for us travelling early in the week etc.

 

[Dan]

To be fair to you, your argument didn't warrant new appraisal. We lose potential free agents and recruits because our flights to Hobart are 5 minutes longer than the flights Hawthorn takes to Launceston?

Hawthorn still does what it does whether they played games in tassie or not.

Do you think a player of Josh Gibson's calibre chose Hawthorn because he'd going to Launceston every 6 weeks? Or perhaps there were other factors that had nothing to do with Tasmania. Now apply that rationale to some of the other big name players that they got during their premiership run.

 

[Colby Cheer Squad]

Hawthorn still does what it does whether they played games in tassie or not.

Do you think a player of Josh Gibson's calibre chose Hawthorn because he'd going to Launceston every 6 weeks? Or perhaps there were other factors that had nothing to do with Tasmania. Now apply that rationale to some of the other big name players that they got during their premiership run.

Oh you're not helping yourself. Just admit that you forgot about Hawthorn when you made your original boneheaded assertion and stop doubling down on your mistakes.

 

[Dan]

Oh you're not helping yourself. Just admit that you forgot about Hawthorn when you made your original boneheaded assertion and stop doubling down on your mistakes.

Don't need your help nor do I have to spell things out for people that are obvious.

But I will for you...

Draft picks, priority picks, trading with us (shrewd on their part - more fool us on ours) all done before the expansion clubs arrived and a well run club off field. That's what led Hawthorn to its success and I assumed people around these parts understood that.....clearly not. None of which has anything to do with tassie.

 

[Roo316]

I came across this on YouTube this afternoon, apparently, we shouldn't look for a second market, but just relocate to Canberra.



I'd get to see them live at least.

**** that is a horrible take. Suggests moving to Canberra because our mascot is most suited to there? Jog on bud! (Not you Devo, I recognise you were just posting someone else video)

 

[Teen Wolf]

Everybody suspected the Dantrum would keep posting and inadvertently admit selling games to Tassie has no impact on recruiting. And it looks like we were all correct.

Pretty sure nobody's clicking on the thread for his pop culture criticism and casual homophobia though.

 

[Woolly Mammoth]

I came across this on YouTube this afternoon, apparently, we shouldn't look for a second market, but just relocate to Canberra.



I'd get to see them live at least.

Ugh this bloke lol, has talked about Kangaroos going to Canberra for ages, bloody obsessed. Watched about 20 seconds, same old drivel (talking about location limitations, as though Collingwood is as big as it is because the club is located in a drug infested sh*thole with a population of 10k) and using our membership count during arguably the most putrid onfield period in our century and a half of existence as short-hand proof we are the smallest club in Melbourne. Same old same old.

But this caught my attention, the idiocy of the AFL community is a disturbing snapshot of how easy it is the propagandise the general population. Kind of how it was accepted wisdom that we were getting a plethora of 'first round picks' lock stock and no questions asked, apparently a Tom Morris throw-sh*t-at-a-wall-and-see-what-sticks piece is now cast iron fact. Be afraid, be very afraid.

 

[wolvesRoos]

Prefer them all in Melbourne but if had to have another somewhere cheap and easy to get to. Normally go to tassie one game a year getting 35 dollar flights. Have done day trips some years but have enjoyed weekends in hobart

 

[Woolly Mammoth]

I don't fully understand why this is the case. Yes you get a big injection of supporters from the Victorian away side but you also get thousands and thousands more home fans.

It must be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy:
"North vs Hawthorn this week, that will be a decent crowd. I'll give my Hawthorn mate Johnny a ring, see if he's keen."
vs
"Second weekend of July for the fishing trip? I think it's only North vs Port Adelaide that week so won't be a big game anyway."

Is there a VFL snobbery among supporters of a certain age?

Yeh, definitely a self-fulfilling prophesy, the whole "North get terrible crowds" thing in general is a self-fulfilling prophesy and leads to oppo supporters valuing North games the least on the fixture and alot of North people being embarrassed to go to a traditionally low drawing match, but its more than that.

Far and away my biggest bugbear about supporting North, and by extension football in general, is our needlessly crappy crowds, I have p*ssed and moaned about it many times, and will continue to do so, I'm happy to be an irritating broken record on this subject. But because I feel passionately about it, obviously I've thought alot about it over the years.

One conclusion I've come to is one thing oppo supporters get right about us is we collectively have a huge chip on our shoulder that we are not one of the big boys, made worse by the fact that onfield we were bigger than the big boys in the 70s and 90s and got a teasing taste of it. One consequence of that seems to be a feeling that getting excited for a Saints or Dogs game is beneath us, and judging by the pitiful turn out from them when both those sides had the Good Friday slot, they seem to feel the same. And naturally that feeling will extend to the interstate sides, even with West Coast when it was a great rivalry the games didnt get the crowds it could have, and I say once again, Port and Freos away crowds are poor right across the board so that speaks for itself. Clearly we will flock to a game where we have the chance to stick it up the Blues butthole, so it is snobbery, but a fairly nuanced form of snobbery.

Except in extenuating circumstances (clash near top of the ladder) I think we basically get North Melbourne supporting people at Home games (not including away supporters or neutrals) like this:

• Good Friday: Around 35k
• Collingwood, Carlton, Richmond, Essendon - 20-30k
• Western Bulldogs, Hawthorn, St Kilda, Melbourne, Sydney - 18-25k
• West Coast, Brisbane, Adelaide - 15-20k
• Port Adelaide, Freo - 13-18k
• GWS, Gold Coast - 11-16k

Definitely, that is something thats overlooked by people who put the boots into us, there is no distinction made between crowds during the Brad Scott era that should have been better, and the crowds during our horrific last 5 years. The Freo game earlier this year for example, while it looks bad on paper, was 90% blue and white, '23 + '24 crowds honestly not as bad as I expected them to be. Away support has been some of the lowest I've ever seen (understandably)

There's just a really large amount of people who only really go to 1-3 games a season and they circle games vs larger Melbourne based teams. There's only about 15k of us who are there nearly every week. Honestly, if we could just find a way to push all those brackets up by even 5k it would be happy days.

Yep, thats what is so frustrating, its not that big of a margin, we only have to partially fill the 50k Docklands, we should be grateful we are not the Dees who recently got 43k against Brisbane, an exceptional crowd for a club their size against Bris, but got the mick taken out of them because a half filled 100k MCG looks like a bad crowd, especially when competing against the corporate hype machine backed Vic big 4.

 

[Dan]

Spoiler

 

[Limerick]

I came across this on YouTube this afternoon, apparently, we shouldn't look for a second market, but just relocate to Canberra.



I'd get to see them live at least.

The Canberra Kangaroos, if it was to be, weren’t established in 1869.

 

[Teen Wolf]

One conclusion I've come to is one thing oppo supporters get right about us is we collectively have a huge chip on our shoulder that we are not one of the big boys, made worse by the fact that onfield we were bigger than the big boys in the 70s and 90s and got a teasing taste of it. One consequence of that seems to be a feeling that getting excited for a Saints or Dogs game is beneath us, and judging by the pitiful turn out from them when both those sides had the Good Friday slot, they seem to feel the same. And naturally that feeling will extend to the interstate sides, even with West Coast when it was a great rivalry the games didnt get the crowds it could have, and I say once again, Port and Freos away crowds are poor right across the board so that speaks for itself. Clearly we will flock to a game where we have the chance to stick it up the Blues butthole, so it is snobbery, but a fairly nuanced form of snobbery.

North Melbourne fans are far more likely to have friends/family supporting Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon than the Bulldogs and St Kilda. Furthermore, people generally prefer to attend with friends/family, choosing games wherein both 'parties' have a team to cheer on.

If there's any snobbery factor, it's not related to big or small clubs, but rather ladder position/quality of football being played, which is a leaguewide phenomenon. Last time NM and WB were simultaneously genuine contenders was '98-'99, and we pulled a home crowd that was 2.5x the size of the 18th v 11th clash of seven days ago.