How Relevant is your (victorian) club (The Age June 3)

[Silent Alarm]

Pretty clear it is relevance to marketers in terms of knowing how much bang for their buck they will get, and therefore how much they should pay. It is a quantifiable measure that you should pay at least 3x more to sponsor Collingwood than North.

Mero was saying once that sponsors should choose the Bulldogs over North, St Kilda, or the Demons. Because Bullies' fans buy more merchandise per head. That's not to say more people in caps and jumpers with Mission on it is going to help you out. Of course the television numbers and amount of Channel 7 games is going to be a big factor. But it is worth something.

The doggies seem to have room to grow their supporter base in the growing western suburbs.

I think Melbourne is in a tougher position long term.

I don't believe in this segregated, geographical concentration. We're seeing it linger through zones and suburban grounds. People who grew up in Wangaratta 40 years ago grew up knowing guys from school who went to Melbourne to play for North Melbourne, lived in a town where Kangas players did clinics, and resided in the knowledge that when they were good enough (because of course as a kid it's a matter of time not possibility) they'd be playing VFL for the Kangaroos. Just like someone in 1975 saw Hawks players all the time around Glenferrie Road, or a kid in Clifton Hill was able to jaunt down to Vic Park to watch the Pies. Those people have had kids and their kids are probably taking in those allegiances and inevitably, Aussies being quite parochial and attached to their locale, plenty of people will be in the same (rough) area.

This is probably intensified with St Kilda having the beach burbs. Because they played for so long and so late at a ground right near, accessible, to those people. And up until the 1990s. Hawthorn playing a lot at Waverley until 2000 helped that intensify and resonate so strongly – but in 35 years, I'm sure the concentration of Hawks fans in the Waverley plain will be no different to the number of Essendon fans in Essendon in 2014.

It's hard to explain but you do notice certain trends. So many kids in the east are Hawks and Tigers fans. The only few people I know near Albert Park, St Kilda, Middle Park are all Sydney fans. The kids I know down the south-east are Sainters. But interestingly enough, I seem to meet a lot of girls who have one slavic or Italian or Greek parent, live in and around the Essendon Footy League area, and support the Blues. But these trends appear mostly for big clubs. I don't really know many Bulldogs or North fans. In fact I know more Kangas supporters in WA.

So the most important things in noticeably geographic rules of fandom are no different to general fandom: the clubs with big supporter bases are the clubs you can vaguely associate geography with. They're the sides who inherit supporters and win supporters through their flags. If you don't win anything or have fewer fans, then any intense geographical concentration isn't likely.

I just don't see too many impressionable young kids, potentially migrants with no parents to guide them, choosing the Bulldogs. The Hawks win, they have big name players, they're fun to watch, a heap of other young kids support them... or maybe you'll go to school and through a law of averages, end up mates with a Pies and Tiges fan and one of them will convince you to join his side. Clinics and free stickers only go so far.

 

[Mero]

To explain, I was going off a 2007 study that the AFL conducted that found Essendon and Collingwood had four times the support of the Bulldogs and North, yet the two 'smaller clubs' supporters were twice as likely to buy merchandise. StKilda has a reasonable supporter base, who spend money when things are going well, but they disappear when things go pear shaped. (At the time StKilda were regular finalists) Melbourne has a small supporter base, and their supporters don't buy much merchandise.
I was surprised at the time because I thought you could wrap up a turd in a Collingwood logo and their supporters would buy it.
But that was the result of their study.

 

[Hill2Pav]

The doggies seem to have room to grow their supporter base in the growing western suburbs.

I think Melbourne is in a tougher position long term.

They'd had decades to grow their supporters in the western suburbs but haven't. Geelong i'd have to say would have more supporters than the Doggies in places like Werribee than the Dog's would.

 

[Kwality]

I think people are making the mistake of thinking that the Sweeney Report and the graphic with numbers at the top of the article are related. They are not. The graphic says it comes from Bastian http://www.bastioneba.com.au/

The Sweeney report uses a different methodology http://sweeneyresearch.com.au/sport-market-research/sweeney-sports-report

I doubt the rankings would change that much year on year. Club support is more long-term than that.