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ALM/W TV deal

Midfielder said:
Fully agree mate...

But they can help steam the losses...

This is not purely my idea but comes from that evil MLS...but why not play all matches Saturday night that's when we get the best crowd's...

As I often say we need all boats to lift together I want all clubs to succeed regardless of history and background

Not sure if you saw my post the other day...I went to the Mariners v Sydney United match...what I found was a very knowledgeable and respectful crowd...cheering loudly for their side and lots of conversations about a upcoming or recent match against Manly who come from the northern beaches in Sydney.

Had dinner at the club with my Mariners cap and scarf people we overly polite very friendly and welcoming not the BS the media go on with.

But to your point we need to average about 16k per match to break even ...no way now but it should be the goal of everyone NJ r as a healthy A-league lifts everyone's else as well
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Ofcourse they were mate. Down at the fundamental fan level we all just want to talk about the game... You eating in their club, paying for entry and enjoying the day is the ultimate sign of mutual respect.

As for strategy to lift attendances, I think every "market" has a different demand and what works on Saturday night in one area does NOT in another... often the same area can have divided "needs" depending on the type of fan they are targeting.

What I was talking about though as physical population size when it comes to growth.. The MLS has a "one size fits all" approach because they can do that when they have multiple cities with population of a million plus . Here in Australia we have different sized clubs (both traditional and new franchise) because of our "catchment" limitations. Whether the targeted community for a club here is geographical, cultural, religious or political it is still only able to grow based on the size of the community.
 
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Midfielder said:
Had dinner at the club with my Mariners cap and scarf people we overly polite very friendly and welcoming not the BS the media go on with.
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Did you order the Zagreb Schnitzel, or Croatian Special?

hope you enjoyed the hospitality.
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
Ofcourse they were mate. Down at the fundamental fan level we all just want to talk about the game... You eating in their club, paying for entry and enjoying the day is the ultimate sign of mutual respect.

As for strategy to lift attendances, I think every "market" has a different demand and what works on Saturday night in one area does NOT in another... often the same area can have divided "needs" depending on the type of fan they are targeting.

What I was talking about though as physical population size when it comes to growth.. The MLS has a "one size fits all" approach because they can do that when they have multiple cities with population of a million plus . Here in Australia we have different sized clubs (both traditional and new franchise) because of our "catchment" limitations. Whether the targeted community for a club here is geographical, cultural, religious or political it is still only able to grow based on the size of the community.
Click to expand...


Yep....Geography is a real constraint, and while it's not the main reason the A-League and domestic football in general isn’t flourishing, it's definitely part of the conversation.....

Because Australia is so big and the population is heavily concentrated in a handful of cities. That creates genuine problems.

Long, expensive travel for clubs and fans. Smaller catchments outside Sydney and Melbourne....

Much harder to build a true national feel when half the country is sparsely populated.

Real difficulty sustaining midweek games or consistent national media attention.

Those factors make a fully national professional league harder here than in more compact or large populated countries like the US.....

Mind other sports operate nationally under the same geography and still generate far higher revenue, crowds, and broadcast value. The AFL and NRL deal with the same distances and still thrive.

Sometimes I think that football might just need a smaller, tighter national competition with genuine regional strength underneath it, clear promotion pathways, and less pretence that every club can operate at the same scale.

I dunno....

The core challenge is matching the competition’s structure to the actual size and distribution of the football audience, rather than forcing a full national professional model that the commercial base cannot currently support.
 
Football us life said:
Yep....Geography is a real constraint, and while it's not the main reason the A-League and domestic football in general isn’t flourishing, it's definitely part of the conversation.....

Because Australia is so big and the population is heavily concentrated in a handful of cities. That creates genuine problems.

Long, expensive travel for clubs and fans. Smaller catchments outside Sydney and Melbourne....

Much harder to build a true national feel when half the country is sparsely populated.

Real difficulty sustaining midweek games or consistent national media attention.

Those factors make a fully national professional league harder here than in more compact or large populated countries like the US.....

Mind other sports operate nationally under the same geography and still generate far higher revenue, crowds, and broadcast value. The AFL and NRL deal with the same distances and still thrive.

Sometimes I think that football might just need a smaller, tighter national competition with genuine regional strength underneath it, clear promotion pathways, and less pretence that every club can operate at the same scale.

I dunno....

The core challenge is matching the competition’s structure to the actual size and distribution of the football audience, rather than forcing a full national professional model that the commercial base cannot currently support.
Click to expand...
Very much this:

The core challenge is matching the competition’s structure to the actual size and distribution of the football audience, rather than forcing a full national professional model that the commercial base cannot currently support.
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
Very much this:

The core challenge is matching the competition’s structure to the actual size and distribution of the football audience, rather than forcing a full national professional model that the commercial base cannot currently support.
Click to expand...

Australia has strong football pockets, not a uniformly strong national market. A sustainable model has to reflect that with fewer pretences of equal national scale, so more realism about catchment size, travel costs, and what the television and sponsorship markets will actually pay for.

Who knows? 😂
 
Football us life said:
Yep....Geography is a real constraint, and while it's not the main reason the A-League and domestic football in general isn’t flourishing, it's definitely part of the conversation.....

Because Australia is so big and the population is heavily concentrated in a handful of cities. That creates genuine problems.

Long, expensive travel for clubs and fans. Smaller catchments outside Sydney and Melbourne....

Much harder to build a true national feel when half the country is sparsely populated.

Real difficulty sustaining midweek games or consistent national media attention.

Those factors make a fully national professional league harder here than in more compact or large populated countries like the US.....

Mind other sports operate nationally under the same geography and still generate far higher revenue, crowds, and broadcast value. The AFL and NRL deal with the same distances and still thrive.

Sometimes I think that football might just need a smaller, tighter national competition with genuine regional strength underneath it, clear promotion pathways, and less pretence that every club can operate at the same scale.

I dunno....

The core challenge is matching the competition’s structure to the actual size and distribution of the football audience, rather than forcing a full national professional model that the commercial base cannot currently support.
Click to expand...
Yes, the football purists (?) shall I call them, have to get over the fact that we have 2 very large metropolis' and 3 smaller ones, which means that a national football competition will be heavily concentrated in the 2 large metropolis'. As the NRL and AFL are, though their centre of gravity is sqewed due to historical precedents. It would be interesting to see where our dominant centre would be. It seems Victoria at the moment.
 
The thing that i think didn't help football in this country, was not having a national league until 1977, about 100 years after football was founded here. Think about it, not even 50 years ago.
 
patjennings said:
Yes - it didn't help - but either did Rugby League, Rugby Union or Australia Rules.
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Yes, but they were still the dominant sports, although nothing like today.

In the case of Australian rules, they had particularly strong domestic leagues in SA & WA, as well as the VFL.
 
Hillbilly55 said:
Yes, the football purists (?) shall I call them, have to get over the fact that we have 2 very large metropolis' and 3 smaller ones, which means that a national football competition will be heavily concentrated in the 2 large metropolis'. As the NRL and AFL are, though their centre of gravity is sqewed due to historical precedents. It would be interesting to see where our dominant centre would be. It seems Victoria at the moment.
Click to expand...


Victoria and New South Wales—anchored by Melbourne and Sydney would house roughly 40% of the country's total population. When you factor in the other major urban centres like Brisbane, the vast majority of economic activity, corporate headquarters, and media consumption is heavily urbanised in Australia.

Unlike say European nations where football grew organically out of dense, localised industrial towns, Australia's vast geographic scale means that running a national competition requires commercial centre's of gravity.

The A-League was built from the top down as a national competition supposedly to avoid the ethnic-club fragmentation of the old NSL.

However, it has perpetually wrestled with this exact geographic tension. Putting teams in smaller regional areas or spreading them too thin across vast distances often strains travel budgets and gate revenues, whereas major metro derbies (like Sydney or Melbourne) provide the necessary oxygen for broadcast visibility, media interest and of course attendance.

Ultimately, accepting that the big metropolitan hubs drive the financial and operational engine of Australian sport isn't a betrayal of the game's purists—it's the stark mathematical reality required to keep any kind of national league solvent.

The reality is when you strip away the optimistic corporate press releases and that little bit of football media hyperbole about football being the "world game" and all that, the reality of the game in Australia is defined by a persistent collision between macro-level ambition and micro-level financial fragility.

It is a perpetual "rock and a hard place" scenario with immense grassroots participation and undeniable cultural passion choked by a commercial framework that constantly struggles to pay its own way.
 
Football us life said:
Victoria and New South Wales—anchored by Melbourne and Sydney would house roughly 40% of the country's total population. When you factor in the other major urban centres like Brisbane, the vast majority of economic activity, corporate headquarters, and media consumption is heavily urbanised in Australia.

Unlike say European nations where football grew organically out of dense, localised industrial towns, Australia's vast geographic scale means that running a national competition requires commercial centre's of gravity.

The A-League was built from the top down as a national competition supposedly to avoid the ethnic-club fragmentation of the old NSL.

However, it has perpetually wrestled with this exact geographic tension. Putting teams in smaller regional areas or spreading them too thin across vast distances often strains travel budgets and gate revenues, whereas major metro derbies (like Sydney or Melbourne) provide the necessary oxygen for broadcast visibility, media interest and of course attendance.

Ultimately, accepting that the big metropolitan hubs drive the financial and operational engine of Australian sport isn't a betrayal of the game's purists—it's the stark mathematical reality required to keep any kind of national league solvent.

The reality is when you strip away the optimistic corporate press releases and that little bit of football media hyperbole about football being the "world game" and all that, the reality of the game in Australia is defined by a persistent collision between macro-level ambition and micro-level financial fragility.

It is a perpetual "rock and a hard place" scenario with immense grassroots participation and undeniable cultural passion choked by a commercial framework that constantly struggles to pay its own way.
Click to expand...

Yes - i agree with what you are saying - but let's look it at in another way.

When Sydney, WSW, Victory and City dominate 60% of Australia loses interest. The Ange Arnie years where probably the height of the ALM. Adelaide's youth pipeline and right size stadium is always compelling.

Then you look at the 'financial fragility' as you put it. The ALM started for the most part with relatively small owners. The reality now is far from that. When you look at the 7 biggest owners Sydney FC owners come in 6th with net worth of over half a billion dollars. The rest well north of of a billion each going up to CFG. Now imagine an ALM where these 7 (out of 12) bought in real marquees a la Yorke and ADP.

The cumulative ALM financial strength of the owners has never been stronger. The spread is the problem. But 3 of those 7 are outside your Sydney Melbourne axis
 
patjennings said:
Yes - i agree with what you are saying - but let's look it at in another way.

When Sydney, WSW, Victory and City dominate 60% of Australia loses interest. The Ange Arnie years where probably the height of the ALM. Adelaide's youth pipeline and right size stadium is always compelling.

Then you look at the 'financial fragility' as you put it. The ALM started for the most part with relatively small owners. The reality now is far from that. When you look at the 7 biggest owners Sydney FC owners come in 6th with net worth of over half a billion dollars. The rest well north of of a billion each going up to CFG. Now imagine an ALM where these 7 (out of 12) bought in real marquees a la Yorke and ADP.

The cumulative ALM financial strength of the owners has never been stronger. The spread is the problem. But 3 of those 7 are outside your Sydney Melbourne axis
Click to expand...

To be honest I've never really thought about it too much in terms of the owners actual wealth....

And it's a perspective that reframes the entire debate by cutting straight to the core contradiction of modern club ownership in Australia.

That the money exists, but the alignment doesn't.

And it highlights a glaring operational failure of the APL.

When people (like me) talk about the A-League's financial fragility, it isn't because football in Australia is completely devoid of wealthy backers. Rather, it exposes a systemic inability or unwillingness to deploy that capital effectively.

So you could easily say that the problem isn't a lack of aggregate wealth in Australian club boardrooms, it’s a failure of imagination and leadership from a governing body that has spent years managing decline rather than leveraging its own stakeholders immense firepower....
 
patjennings said:
Yes - i agree with what you are saying - but let's look it at in another way.

When Sydney, WSW, Victory and City dominate 60% of Australia loses interest. The Ange Arnie years where probably the height of the ALM. Adelaide's youth pipeline and right size stadium is always compelling.

Then you look at the 'financial fragility' as you put it. The ALM started for the most part with relatively small owners. The reality now is far from that. When you look at the 7 biggest owners Sydney FC owners come in 6th with net worth of over half a billion dollars. The rest well north of of a billion each going up to CFG. Now imagine an ALM where these 7 (out of 12) bought in real marquees a la Yorke and ADP.

The cumulative ALM financial strength of the owners has never been stronger. The spread is the problem. But 3 of those 7 are outside your Sydney Melbourne axis
Click to expand...
Sorry Pat but what use is the owners financial strength when they don't chose to use it?

CFG, as you mentioned, could bring Ronaldo AND Messi to Melbourne City this season yet will never do so... why?
 
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