Club Mgmt. EFC Membership 2016 - 'Where Do You Stand?'

[aCunningPlan]

Never heard a good enough reason for anyone to actually drive to Etihad.

Agreed, I haven't driven to the Etihad since 2001.

 

[dave10]

Lets be realistic, the clubs that have out grown us are clubs that have had success. We have been rubbish for 15 years and now have this saga to go through. We have approx. 60k real members. We dont have bandwagon numbers in our membership tally. If we get through this rubbish, have a sustainable successful period, then watch the numbers grow. That and we dont play majority of our games at the MCG with greater capacity.
I like that we play at etihad though. Park underneath, catch a lift to my seat and never get hit by a drop of rain. High mark seating is unparalleled veiwing of a game

Lets be realistic, the clubs that have out grown us are clubs that have had success. We have been rubbish for 15 years and now have this saga to go through. We have approx. 60k real members. We dont have bandwagon numbers in our membership tally. If we get through this rubbish, have a sustainable successful period, then watch the numbers grow. That and we dont play majority of our games at the MCG with greater capacity.
I like that we play at etihad though. Park underneath, catch a lift to my seat and never get hit by a drop of rain. High mark seating is unparalleled veiwing of a game

I'm not letting the club off the hook. We have been falling off the pace for years in membership. Only Carlton has arguably performed worse that Essendon in membership the last 15 years. Richmond is proof you can grow memberdhip without success and Essendon has a bigger national supporter base than Richmond. I wish we would stop forgiving the club for every excuse known to man to explain our poor membership figures. We have 1 million fans, a huge following as proven by attendances in Vic and at our interstate matches and there us no reason until now (ASADA) why we wouldn't have comparable numbers to the other big Vic clubs.

For a start we should be setting reasonable targets. You can't be serious when we set a target of 60,000! That's what Geelong abd North should be chasing.

Big clubs are well past 60,000 and staring down 80,000 this year abd probably 100,000 in the next 3 years. Yet Essendon aspires for 60,00-65,000!! That's where our problem starts. We should be engaging and tapping into our mass national appeal and challenging ourselves to be the first club to reach 100,000. Or do we wait for Richmond to get there first.

I just saw on Bigfooty we are 16,000 behind Hawthorn, 13,000 behind Richmond. We screwed up by forcing members to have set seats, took away GA, booking fees on top, the club is largely responsible for the position we find ourselves in. We just have to be honest and conclude that other clubs are doing better than us and have been for some time.

When this current ASADA thing passes, I'm sure the club will review this total fiasco as an exclamation mark on what has been a decade which saw the club lose focus on it's supporters as it erred in and moving away from the open and inclusive club that it was in the late 1990's when it drew huge crowds to the G and had the biggest membership in Vic, all before it won the flag!

I remember the late 1990's when Essendon was the boldest, most innovative, hard nosed and progressive club in the land. I want Eesendon to resume this mindset in membership at least.

 

[Maddogm]

Never heard a good enough reason for anyone to actually drive to Etihad.

friday night games, when I had a choice between a 20-30 min drive from work or a nearly an hour drive home followed by 40-60min train/walk

the choice to drive became easy

 

[Kakkle]

friday night games, when I had a choice between a 20-30 min drive from work or a nearly an hour drive home followed by 40-60min train/walk

the choice to drive became easy

Where do you live out of curiosity? And how much does parking at Etihad cost?

 

[table tennis]

Richmond have only bounced back since the club has given thier fans the first sniff of finals for 30 years.

It can only be compared to the moon landing.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

Richmond have only bounced back since the club has given thier fans the first sniff of finals for 30 years.

It can only be compared to the moon landing.

This isn't quite true. The reason for our rebound has been on the back of the 3-0-75 program IMO. Under that program, each dept in RFC had internal kpis, with mini kpis set up within this. Being the "75" in this program, nit surprisingly there was a lot of focus on membership.

Our numbers historically have been okay, esp considering our onfield shitness. However there were two factors against us.

Firstly the MCG size meant we had a very much walk up culture. There was rarely a lock out in the public section (it would be snug, but you never missed out), so it was easy enough to just pay at the gate if you didn't go to all home games and wanted to save a few bucks. This is where the push of the three gamers has been great for us. It gets these casual attendees financially committing to the club, it gets their contact info in the hands of the club, and most importantly it actually gets them committed to rocking up (assuming they want value from the membership). Once you get them in the habit of rocking up, the membership dept then start the upgrade push to H11.

Just a minor note on this, we were also one of the first (if not the first) to start including non access members in our numbers. The reason for this has been bandied about this forum, with many saying it was just an effort to artificially boost our numbers. gale explained it well one day. He basically said who are they to say you are not a member, just because you live interstate or overseas, or you work weekends, or your personal finances are not great? If you are prepared to put your hand in your pocket, contribute what you can, and call yourself a tiger, you are a member in the eyes of the club. Some may dismiss this, but gale is a pretty genuine bloke, and I agree it's an indicative of the club wanting to be much more inclusive.

Secondly we had sfa premium members. Coteries rarely sold out, and our reserved seat allocations were very poor. Again it was due to our shitness. With no need for a finals guarantee, and no pressure to get a seat at most home games, you could easily get away with just a H11. Club has spent a lot of resources on getting more reserved seats from the MCC, and then upgrading members progressively (speak from experience here, I doubled my spend off one of their programs). We are still earning pretty poorly on a per member basis, but this is changing year on year.

Finally like most clubs the auto renewal has been a wonder at killing churn. As we saw last year, 4 bad losses can effectively kill new sales, so auto renewal in the off season avoids this risk factor.

Our situation is very different to yours. With Etihad, you have capacity issues. Why would I buy a membership for the Dons if I don't get the access I want? Yes this hurts numbers, but it does mean you can charge a s**t load more for premium packages (you still have a very strong per member income). For me this is the big limiter for your club. Unless you get fans buying non access memberships (similar to eu football), Etihad really hamstrings your efforts to raise the number of individual members you have

 

[dave10]

Richmond have only bounced back since the club has given thier fans the first sniff of finals for 30 years.

It can only be compared to the moon landing.

We have had a sniff of finals too don't forget. I don't believe Richmond are a 20% bigger club than Essendon as memberdhip figures indicate. It says Richmond are doing a better job in building it's membership.

 

[Maddogm]

Where do you live out of curiosity? And how much does parking at Etihad cost?

I was living in Heidelberg (I included walking to the station in that time and the variance is supposed to represent waiting for the train)

generally parked at harbourtown which was $10 iirc (also street parking can be cheaper still), the further away you parked in that area of docklands the cheaper parking was and the easier it is to get out after the game

 

[Doss]

There is no doubt whatsoever that Etihad is the thing that holds us back.

 

[CourtzMajora]

46,041

 

[Whispering_Jack]

I'm not letting the club off the hook. We have been falling off the pace for years in membership. Only Carlton has arguably performed worse that Essendon in membership the last 15 years. Richmond is proof you can grow memberdhip without success and Essendon has a bigger national supporter base than Richmond. I wish we would stop forgiving the club for every excuse known to man to explain our poor membership figures. We have 1 million fans, a huge following as proven by attendances in Vic and at our interstate matches and there us no reason until now (ASADA) why we wouldn't have comparable numbers to the other big Vic clubs.

For a start we should be setting reasonable targets. You can't be serious when we set a target of 60,000! That's what Geelong abd North should be chasing.

Big clubs are well past 60,000 and staring down 80,000 this year abd probably 100,000 in the next 3 years. Yet Essendon aspires for 60,00-65,000!! That's where our problem starts. We should be engaging and tapping into our mass national appeal and challenging ourselves to be the first club to reach 100,000. Or do we wait for Richmond to get there first.

I just saw on Bigfooty we are 16,000 behind Hawthorn, 13,000 behind Richmond. We screwed up by forcing members to have set seats, took away GA, booking fees on top, the club is largely responsible for the position we find ourselves in. We just have to be honest and conclude that other clubs are doing better than us and have been for some time.

When this current ASADA thing passes, I'm sure the club will review this total fiasco as an exclamation mark on what has been a decade which saw the club lose focus on it's supporters as it erred in and moving away from the open and inclusive club that it was in the late 1990's when it drew huge crowds to the G and had the biggest membership in Vic, all before it won the flag!

I remember the late 1990's when Essendon was the boldest, most innovative, hard nosed and progressive club in the land. I want Eesendon to resume this mindset in membership at least.

3 words. Melbourne Cricket Ground.

friday night games, when I had a choice between a 20-30 min drive from work or a nearly an hour drive home followed by 40-60min train/walk

the choice to drive became easy

This is the same as me. The only times I ever drive to a game (either Etihad or MCG) is Friday night games when I drive in. I'm already in my car on the way home from work - I'm not going to drive home to Essendon and then train it back to the city.

 

[Whispering_Jack]

I was living in Heidelberg (I included walking to the station in that time and the variance is supposed to represent waiting for the train)

generally parked at harbourtown which was $10 iirc (also street parking can be cheaper still), the further away you parked in that area of docklands the cheaper parking was and the easier it is to get out after the game

If you get there early enough there's heaps of street parking that is free after 6/7pm even on match days.

 

[Harlequin]

I did notice last year that my son's MCC renewal also came with the option of paying an extra $100 for a Richmond FC supporter

This option is definitely a great coup for the Tigers membership

 

[jmoo wan]

I did notice last year that my son's MCC renewal also came with the option of paying an extra $100 for a Richmond FC supporter

This option is definitely a great coup for the Tigers membership

We used to have the option of an MCC membership as well. It gave entry to Etihad home games only

 

[aCunningPlan]

We used to have the option of an MCC membership as well. It gave entry to Etihad home games only

The club still offers that, fair enough really. No point making MCC members paying twice for games at the MCG.

 

[table tennis]

We have had a sniff of finals too don't forget. I don't believe Richmond are a 20% bigger club than Essendon as memberdhip figures indicate. It says Richmond are doing a better job in building it's membership.

But our supporters expect finals. And have had regular success in era preceding this one.

Richmond have gone 3-4 eras of submissive football. The fact they have supporters is due to bloodlines.

For the best part of 40 years, they have had nothing to drag the crowds in.

Benny Gale has done a wonderful job.

Unfortunately the soft wayne Campbell under belly exists and the tiges pick and choose when they want to play

 

[table tennis]

Where do you live out of curiosity? And how much does parking at Etihad cost?

Etihad parking is $30

 

[table tennis]

You don't need to convince me. I already pay for 2x adult high Mark memberships, a pet membership, and sponsor $100 as part ofthe bigfooty syndicate.

I don't think its the clubs fault, 100%. Some of the blame needs to go back to the barrackers to become supporters and actually put some of their hard earned into the club. At the end of the day its an investment for their own entertainment.

I'm not letting the club off the hook. We have been falling off the pace for years in membership. Only Carlton has arguably performed worse that Essendon in membership the last 15 years. Richmond is proof you can grow memberdhip without success and Essendon has a bigger national supporter base than Richmond. I wish we would stop forgiving the club for every excuse known to man to explain our poor membership figures. We have 1 million fans, a huge following as proven by attendances in Vic and at our interstate matches and there us no reason until now (ASADA) why we wouldn't have comparable numbers to the other big Vic clubs.

For a start we should be setting reasonable targets. You can't be serious when we set a target of 60,000! That's what Geelong abd North should be chasing.

Big clubs are well past 60,000 and staring down 80,000 this year abd probably 100,000 in the next 3 years. Yet Essendon aspires for 60,00-65,000!! That's where our problem starts. We should be engaging and tapping into our mass national appeal and challenging ourselves to be the first club to reach 100,000. Or do we wait for Richmond to get there first.

I just saw on Bigfooty we are 16,000 behind Hawthorn, 13,000 behind Richmond. We screwed up by forcing members to have set seats, took away GA, booking fees on top, the club is largely responsible for the position we find ourselves in. We just have to be honest and conclude that other clubs are doing better than us and have been fr some time.

When this current ASADA thing passes, I'm sure the club will review this total fiasco as an exclamation mark on what has been a decade which saw the club lose focus on it's supporters as it erred in and moving away from the open and inclusive club that it was in the late 1990's when it drew huge crowds to the G and had the biggest membership in Vic, all before it won the flag!

I remember the late 1990's when Essendon was the boldest, most innovative, hard nosed and progressive club in the land. I want Eesendon to resume this mindset in membership at least.

 

[Harlequin]

Here's an email Richmond are sendng out to all MCC members via the MCC email base

 

[Whispering_Jack]

Ours has to be different as ours included reserved seat access at Etihad.

 

[VelvetSledge]

Etihad is still f*cking us, 15 years on. Was a great coup at the time but it's severely holding us back now.

 

[lenny2013]

Etihad is still f*cking us, 15 years on. Was a great coup at the time but it's severely holding us back now.

I think we are locked into Etihad until 2025, yes another ten years.

4 home games at the G isn't enough.

 

[table tennis]

I don't ever want to leave docklands. Its location, set up and atmosphere is second to none.

 

[Doss]

If we stay at Docklands we'll end up middle of the road numbers wise. We're already on the way. It does not leave us the room to grow that our supporter base requires.

I also personally don't find the atmosphere as good as the MCG, but that's just me.

 

[Eleven 38]

Until we consistently sell out etihad I refuse to believe it's holding us back membership wise.

I have no doubt we'd be pushing 70-75k this year if it wasn't for ASADA.