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A-league attendances 24/25

biggiemic said:
The appetite for Football is huge in WA. Atmosphere was great on Saturday night, great night out. Shame we lost as I'm sure more would have returned this coming Friday had we won. Im amazed we still get 6k despite the club itself being a basket case for over a decade now but im glad we have those 6k rusted on supporters.

For some reason in this state we love "winners". West coast eagles were averaging around 45k a few years back, started losing and are now just scraping 30k. Massive drop.

Wildcats have been consistently good hence there crowds rarely fluctuate, but even the past 3 years they haven't been as good and crowds have slightly dipped.
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I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said except for a clarification on the "For some reason in this state we love "winners"" bit.
I don't think that is unique to WA - sure you probably could find a rare exception to the rule somewhere, but it's pretty much a universal rule: Crowds go up when the team is winning and down when they're losing.


As an aside, there was only 1 season in the history of the A-League where Perth's crowds were above the league average.
1738633852050.png

Probably not hard to guess what happened that season.

(Yes, this was just an excuse to bump my website :) )
 
petszk said:
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said except for a clarification on the "For some reason in this state we love "winners"" bit.
I don't think that is unique to WA - sure you probably could find a rare exception to the rule somewhere, but it's pretty much a universal rule: Crowds go up when the team is winning and down when they're losing.


As an aside, there was only 1 season in the history of the A-League where Perth's crowds were above the league average.
View attachment 943

Probably not hard to guess what happened that season.

(Yes, this was just an excuse to bump my website :) )
Click to expand...

Yep, i still think 7.5k is a good average despite being below league average, but when compared to AFL it isn't.

I have friends all over Perth who keep an interest in the team but only attend when we are "winning".

Glory is solidified in the WA sporting landscape, unfortunately results on the pitch have been diabolical.

If we are coming last and core 6k are still attending, i think there is nothing wrong with his.

Prime example is Adelaide, start winning this season and crowds are back.

Interestingly I have it on good authority WA is looking to add a second NBL team, will be curious to see how they go up against the Wildcats.
 
biggiemic said:
Interestingly I have it on good authority WA is looking to add a second NBL team, will be curious to see how they go up against the Wildcats.
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That would be interesting!

I'm old enough to remember the late 80's/early 90's when the Wildcats had their matches shown live on Channel 7 every Friday/Saturday night, and they were (arguably) a bigger team in the WA sporting landscape than the WCE.
 
petszk said:
That would be interesting!

I'm old enough to remember the late 80's/early 90's when the Wildcats had their matches shown live on Channel 7 every Friday/Saturday night, and they were (arguably) a bigger team in the WA sporting landscape than the WCE.
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Haha yep, my old man tells me the Wildcats were massive back then.

I remember when Glory even had there own half hour show (pretty sure it was saturday mornings) on channel 7 back in the late 90s or even maybe early 2000's, crazy times :oops:
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
Mate I feel like that is a separate conversation around the same issue.. Sort of a chicken and the egg thing... My take is that the clubs SHOULD have by now (its been 20 years for Alegaue and 60-70 years for some NPL clubs) the generational rusted on support that DOESN'T need these players to solidify support around...

I sort of disagree, its NOT only about the football on the pitch, "the club" is EVERYTHING off it as well.
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Your view of club is the community based home grown sort that I am NOT talking about. Clubs like yours are a different kettle of fish entirely with a life, meaning and history beyond the green grass.

An unlikely hypothetical to explain what I mean - if South Melbourne kept playing football on the side but switched to community support and welfare as their primary focus it would not be the same club. That is what I mean by football being first. Everything in the background that contributes to the football is included in that statement - not just the football on the pitch - and that may include a variety of roles and services involving the club.

Yes, after 20 years we should have the start of a generational core in our clubs and rusted on followers. I believe my club has got a bucket load of disenchanted supporters just waiting (whether they know it or not) for a change in our club to step out for the club again. Unlike me, they have become too alienated from the club's historic handling of everything to willingly give anything to the club now.

If a second Brisbane club started before we won them back I would expect a huge following of interested football supporters looking for a 'not Roar' to get behind. Bastards!

You likely have individuals like that with your club, but coming from your club's background it would take a lot for that to happen. For franchises without the grassroots flow through the number of alienated fans can be cripplingly huge. In its shallowest form a franchise is a financial transaction for many that requires a satisfactory product to complete the contract.

Not sure we are differing too much in our views since I agree with what you say.

For you - Should Be and Is covers your club. For my club, there is a lot missing between Should Be and Is.
 
biggiemic said:
Haha yep, my old man tells me the Wildcats were massive back then.

I remember when Glory even had there own half hour show (pretty sure it was saturday mornings) on channel 7 back in the late 90s or even maybe early 2000's, crazy times :oops:
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Yes, that's true.
It was called "Glory Days" and was hosted by Basil Zempilas (IIRC)

It's inconceivable these days, but in the past Channel 7, although still prioritising AFL, actually acknowledged the existence of sports other than Footy & Cricket and would actually promote and report on the Perth-based teams.
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
Mate I feel like that is a separate conversation around the same issue.. Sort of a chicken and the egg thing... My take is that the clubs SHOULD have by now (its been 20 years for Alegaue and 60-70 years for some NPL clubs) the generational rusted on support that DOESN'T need these players to solidify support around...

I sort of disagree, its NOT only about the football on the pitch, "the club" is EVERYTHING off it as well.
Click to expand...

How come these NPL clubs don't have the generational rusted on support?
 
RIMB said:
Your view of club is the community based home grown sort that I am NOT talking about. Clubs like yours are a different kettle of fish entirely with a life, meaning and history beyond the green grass.

An unlikely hypothetical to explain what I mean - if South Melbourne kept playing football on the side but switched to community support and welfare as their primary focus it would not be the same club. That is what I mean by football being first. Everything in the background that contributes to the football is included in that statement - not just the football on the pitch - and that may include a variety of roles and services involving the club.

Yes, after 20 years we should have the start of a generational core in our clubs and rusted on followers. I believe my club has got a bucket load of disenchanted supporters just waiting (whether they know it or not) for a change in our club to step out for the club again. Unlike me, they have become too alienated from the club's historic handling of everything to willingly give anything to the club now.

If a second Brisbane club started before we won them back I would expect a huge following of interested football supporters looking for a 'not Roar' to get behind. Bastards!

You likely have individuals like that with your club, but coming from your club's background it would take a lot for that to happen. For franchises without the grassroots flow through the number of alienated fans can be cripplingly huge. In its shallowest form a franchise is a financial transaction for many that requires a satisfactory product to complete the contract.

Not sure we are differing too much in our views since I agree with what you say.

For you - Should Be and Is covers your club. For my club, there is a lot missing between Should Be and Is.
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LFC said:
wrong thread this for some get dis jointed getting off topic.
Banishment is like a cancer for starters.
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biggiemic said:
How come these NPL clubs don't have the generational rusted on support?
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RIMB - Sure I get your point but I wasnt talking about "community affairs" either. My take is that "the football" is a given in the equation, it is a constant so to speak, the very reason for existence . Whether it is good, bad, terrible or pretty to watch doesn't change the fact that it is a collective representation of form by the club to its members.... alienated fans implies that at one point theyr WERE rusted on ... thats my point.. casuals, will always be casuals.

LFC - great point, banishment is indeed a cancer... what do you expect after 20 years, the fact that NPL clubs are still around is a minor miracle.

biggiemic - they DID, at least for the context of their time in the top flight.. 20 years of banishment has dwindled the fanbase.... 10K crowds pre Lowy to 4k crowds in the very first season of banishment means those 6k went somewhere..... ??? a vast proportion followed the shiny new thing (I pity them their fickleness) knowing we were locked out but an equal if not vaster amount just gave up all together and went back to their state league clubs and focused on their own junior clubs, Northcote, Bentleigh, Oakleigh, Port Melbourne, Malvern City, Clifton Hill, Box Hill , Yarraville and more .... ALL have ex South Melbourne fans at their clubs for example...
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
RIMB - Sure I get your point but I wasnt talking about "community affairs" either. My take is that "the football" is a given in the equation, it is a constant so to speak, the very reason for existence . Whether it is good, bad, terrible or pretty to watch doesn't change the fact that it is a collective representation of form by the club to its members.... alienated fans implies that at one point theyr WERE rusted on ... thats my point.. casuals, will always be casuals.

LFC - great point, banishment is indeed a cancer... what do you expect after 20 years, the fact that NPL clubs are still around is a minor miracle.

biggiemic - they DID, at least for the context of their time in the top flight.. 20 years of banishment has dwindled the fanbase.... 10K crowds pre Lowy to 4k crowds in the very first season of banishment means those 6k went somewhere..... ??? a vast proportion followed the shiny new thing (I pity them their fickleness) knowing we were locked out but an equal if not vaster amount just gave up all together and went back to their state league clubs and focused on their own junior clubs, Northcote, Bentleigh, Oakleigh, Port Melbourne, Malvern City, Clifton Hill, Box Hill , Yarraville and more .... ALL have ex South Melbourne fans at their clubs for example...
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Interesting, does this mean if these said clubs were relegated from the top flight the fan bases would also dwindle? Or are you assuming they would hang around as they would have hope of returning to the top flight?
 
biggiemic said:
Interesting, does this mean if these said clubs were relegated from the top flight the fan bases would also dwindle? Or are you assuming they would hang around as they would have hope of returning to the top flight?
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It would be a fantastically interesting test of 'Aussies' and football and I would love to know the answer myself. I cannot see it happening while the aleague stays around though.

If the Roar were relegated I would be sweating on our games waiting for a chance to get back to the top flight - and I suspect I would lose a lot of interest in the stinking plastic franchise system and their fake plastic clubs until we got back up ;).

The owners would surely bail since there would be no aleagues licence to own in the current sense and with the drop in earnings from aleague mainstream media funding to likely bugger all second tier funding the departure of good players would be a greater impact than in a normal 'EPL to second tier' sort of drop and loss. From a quick Google search the whole EFL 3 tiers have a SkySports media deal for GBP 935 million over 5 years - which would be about 2.6 million for each of the 72 clubs per year if spread evenly. I can't see our media funding being that effective in an Australian second tier (again - we can dream).

I don't believe relegation should feature in a 13 team comp though. You need enough midtable teams to allow all 'decent' teams to stay up year after year as long as the club was willing to pay to have that decent team. A competition of only 13 teams that saw one drop each year would be a very hard pitch to sell licences and encourage 'investors' wanting to lose money on a football team. Someone has to be last and 13 good teams is not outside a realistic possibility. Imagine playing the best football in a season and being relegated from 13th instead of 18th. We need relegation to make us stronger rather than to just have it as a negative trophy.

On current form the Roar would be deserving of relegation. But in the current format the owners can afford to spend less and carry a couple of seasons that way to improve their financial stocks if they want. Bring in relegation and have 18-20 teams involved and the top 13 owners would no doubt be more interested in having decent coaches and teams every season.

Short answer though - I would stick with the Roar, catch the train to Perry Park (we are speculating after all) and like any second tier club would be looking forward to a time when we got back up. I expect a lot of big game/event fans rather than actual club fans would stick with the big league whichever team was in it. With fairly low crowds at our own games compared to what I want to see (10k+) maybe we are already down to the rusted on fans and there might not be that huge a drop.

On the flipside, teams coming up from our second tier would not be bringing the same number of fans with them so we would expect to see a drop in numbers across the league every time an established aleagues club was relegated.
 
petszk said:
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said except for a clarification on the "For some reason in this state we love "winners"" bit.
I don't think that is unique to WA - sure you probably could find a rare exception to the rule somewhere, but it's pretty much a universal rule: Crowds go up when the team is winning and down when they're losing.


As an aside, there was only 1 season in the history of the A-League where Perth's crowds were above the league average.
View attachment 943

Probably not hard to guess what happened that season.

(Yes, this was just an excuse to bump my website :) )
Click to expand...
What's ur website?
 
petszk said:
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said except for a clarification on the "For some reason in this state we love "winners"" bit.
I don't think that is unique to WA - sure you probably could find a rare exception to the rule somewhere, but it's pretty much a universal rule: Crowds go up when the team is winning and down when they're losing.


As an aside, there was only 1 season in the history of the A-League where Perth's crowds were above the league average.
View attachment 943

Probably not hard to guess what happened that season.

(Yes, this was just an excuse to bump my website :) )
Click to expand...
Really interesting graph.

Thanks for posting, Petszk.
 
biggiemic said:
Interesting, does this mean if these said clubs were relegated from the top flight the fan bases would also dwindle? Or are you assuming they would hang around as they would have hope of returning to the top flight?
Click to expand...
Its a hard question to answer with any clarity (in Australia at least) as it has never really been tested... The clubs in NPL and below that get relegated certainly see a drop in crowds in the lower division but, considering most of the teams relegated are coming off a small base to begin with it could be a variety of reasons...

In the situation of ex NSL clubs crowds, It is not comparable to relegation in mind eyes... Having NO prospect of ever being promoted again does not allow fans to stck around with the hope that they can again taste glory..

The only way we can see if it effect crowds (and for the record I would expect some sort of crowd attrition playing in a lesser league, but as grazor has proved it will bump up in other areas) is to actual implement pro/rel and see.... Judging by my buddy RIMBs post above there will be many rusted on Aleague fans that won't allow their clubs to die if relegated.. I tend to see that as well.. APL is fearing the worst case scenario and not trusting in their support.... typical.
 
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