Official Club Stuff Membership offering discussion opportunity for vic members
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Bacon8
Cancelled
You'll be alright Smooth.
Brentmeister
Club Legend
Tom rayner the first cab off the rank here at the precinct. Rocked up at 5.30 for a 7pm kickoff which is keen but not as keen as me I suppose. Had a very brief chat, nice bloke. Crows looking to pitch a new membership idea next year for those of us living in the evil empire.
Brentmeister
Club Legend
Good presentation by Fages and Tom Rayner in Melbourne tonight. Some really prudent steps being made to bolster the membership base in Victoria.
Bottom line is there are 30,000 AFC fans in Melbourne but only 800 members. Fages wants to turn more of those fans into members. The membership drive has nothing to do with a pissing contest over numbers. To attract truly national sponsors and drive sponsorship revenue, we need the membership numbers in Victoria to justify the additional sponsor dollars. As such nominal membership sales will have little to no actual revenue impact, it's all about:
- having a way of identifying our fans in Victoria.
- creating a "home away from home" atmosphere here.
- driving member numbers to drive sponsor revenue.
Fages, Tom and many others in the room noted that at many Crows games in Melbourne, we have a huge proportion (sometimes the majority) of the bums on seats. That's great, but we still only have 800 members in Victoria. So that's thousands of people that have a face but not a name as far as we're concerned. We need to capture that latent fan base.
From an SA standpoint, Fages also said our stadium capacity and our preference for 11 game memberships limits what we can do in some respects. Our stadium, member wise, is sold out. We only sell 10,000 tickets per game, the rest are already allocated. That means our SA membership is at maximum, unless we sell pet memberships. That also explains our older age demographic. Because we are bursting at the seams with members, our members are less likely to relinquish their membership because they know they won't get a seat, and they know they'll be on a waiting list if they return as members. So naturally, that favours older people over younger people. Fages says research shows we have just as many young fans as every other club, but our preference for full season memberships and a completely full stadium means our member demographic gets thrown out a bit. Still, that's not a blight on the club, it just means we have incredibly loyal members who stick around even when things aren't going great.
Anyway, the current Vic member offering is around $150 pp for 4 games. Tom's proposal (and he stressed it's only a proposal at this stage) is to offer a base rate ($30-50 pp per year to be a member) and then $25 a game. The idea being that you only pay for what you attend. You don't get lumped with a $150 4 game membership if you miss a couple of games for your grans' birthday OR, the more salient issue, if we sell Vic memberships and then a crappy fixture comes out that only gives us 3 games in Melbourne the following year, fans aren't out of pocket.
The consensus from those attending was that it sounded like a reasonable deal.
A few other questions were asked:
- Fages said he was very unhappy with the pathetic North side named today, and voiced his displeasure to the AFL. His view is that the AFL agree, but they've been stitched up by the wording of their own integrity rules, and North are exploiting a perfectly legal loophole. He thinks the AFL are too embarrassed to admit that, but will 'quietly' amend the rules by next year.
- Fages danced around the Dangerfield situation but said his choice will be based on family reasons and that our recruiters have contingency plans in place. The rest he said to keep quiet about and not share on bf
- At 8.15 he had to excuse himself and leave for a "meeting" which he refused to talk about! Possibly at AFL house re Norf's cheating? Who knows.
Anyway, I'll post more if I remember stuff I've forgotten. Needless to say Fages is a smooth performer, knows his stuff and has a great rapport with anyone he speaks to. And he gave out hats. Sweet!
Thanks to allefgib for the heads up!
Bottom line is there are 30,000 AFC fans in Melbourne but only 800 members. Fages wants to turn more of those fans into members. The membership drive has nothing to do with a pissing contest over numbers. To attract truly national sponsors and drive sponsorship revenue, we need the membership numbers in Victoria to justify the additional sponsor dollars. As such nominal membership sales will have little to no actual revenue impact, it's all about:
- having a way of identifying our fans in Victoria.
- creating a "home away from home" atmosphere here.
- driving member numbers to drive sponsor revenue.
Fages, Tom and many others in the room noted that at many Crows games in Melbourne, we have a huge proportion (sometimes the majority) of the bums on seats. That's great, but we still only have 800 members in Victoria. So that's thousands of people that have a face but not a name as far as we're concerned. We need to capture that latent fan base.
From an SA standpoint, Fages also said our stadium capacity and our preference for 11 game memberships limits what we can do in some respects. Our stadium, member wise, is sold out. We only sell 10,000 tickets per game, the rest are already allocated. That means our SA membership is at maximum, unless we sell pet memberships. That also explains our older age demographic. Because we are bursting at the seams with members, our members are less likely to relinquish their membership because they know they won't get a seat, and they know they'll be on a waiting list if they return as members. So naturally, that favours older people over younger people. Fages says research shows we have just as many young fans as every other club, but our preference for full season memberships and a completely full stadium means our member demographic gets thrown out a bit. Still, that's not a blight on the club, it just means we have incredibly loyal members who stick around even when things aren't going great.
Anyway, the current Vic member offering is around $150 pp for 4 games. Tom's proposal (and he stressed it's only a proposal at this stage) is to offer a base rate ($30-50 pp per year to be a member) and then $25 a game. The idea being that you only pay for what you attend. You don't get lumped with a $150 4 game membership if you miss a couple of games for your grans' birthday OR, the more salient issue, if we sell Vic memberships and then a crappy fixture comes out that only gives us 3 games in Melbourne the following year, fans aren't out of pocket.
The consensus from those attending was that it sounded like a reasonable deal.
A few other questions were asked:
- Fages said he was very unhappy with the pathetic North side named today, and voiced his displeasure to the AFL. His view is that the AFL agree, but they've been stitched up by the wording of their own integrity rules, and North are exploiting a perfectly legal loophole. He thinks the AFL are too embarrassed to admit that, but will 'quietly' amend the rules by next year.
- Fages danced around the Dangerfield situation but said his choice will be based on family reasons and that our recruiters have contingency plans in place. The rest he said to keep quiet about and not share on bf
- At 8.15 he had to excuse himself and leave for a "meeting" which he refused to talk about! Possibly at AFL house re Norf's cheating? Who knows.
Anyway, I'll post more if I remember stuff I've forgotten. Needless to say Fages is a smooth performer, knows his stuff and has a great rapport with anyone he speaks to. And he gave out hats. Sweet!
Thanks to allefgib for the heads up!
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Brentmeister
Club Legend
Also Tom and I had a quick chat at the start and he said the #weflyasone campaign is going fantastic, and the 19th man thing is slowly being phased out. The "team first" ethos will continue indefinitely.
I think I dislike that "19" on our merchandise more than the logo.
The concept feels forced and manufactured.
We Fly As One has become organic and has real meaning behind it due to the tragic events of this year.
The concept feels forced and manufactured.
We Fly As One has become organic and has real meaning behind it due to the tragic events of this year.
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Marty lives about 4 hours north of Brisbane now. He would have been all over this
Scorpus
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Good presentation by Fages and Tom Rayner in Melbourne tonight. Some really prudent steps being made to bolster the membership base in Victoria.
Bottom line is there are 30,000 AFC fans in Melbourne but only 800 members. Fages wants to turn more of those fans into members. The membership drive has nothing to do with a pissing contest over numbers. To attract truly national sponsors and drive sponsorship revenue, we need the membership numbers in Victoria to justify the additional sponsor dollars. As such nominal membership sales will have little to no actual revenue impact, it's all about:
- having a way of identifying our fans in Victoria.
- creating a "home away from home" atmosphere here.
- driving member numbers to drive sponsor revenue.
Fages, Tom and many others in the room noted that at many Crows games in Melbourne, we have a huge proportion (sometimes the majority) of the bums on seats. That's great, but we still only have 800 members in Victoria. So that's thousands of people that have a face but not a name as far as we're concerned. We need to capture that latent fan base.
From an SA standpoint, Fages also said our stadium capacity and our preference for 11 game memberships limits what we can do in some respects. Our stadium, member wise, is sold out. We only sell 10,000 tickets per game, the rest are already allocated. That means our SA membership is at maximum, unless we sell pet memberships. That also explains our older age demographic. Because we are bursting at the seams with members, our members are less likely to relinquish their membership because they know they won't get a seat, and they know they'll be on a waiting list if they return as members. So naturally, that favours older people over younger people. Fages says research shows we have just as many young fans as every other club, but our preference for full season memberships and a completely full stadium means our member demographic gets thrown out a bit. Still, that's not a blight on the club, it just means we have incredibly loyal members who stick around even when things aren't going great.
Anyway, the current Vic member offering is around $150 pp for 4 games. Tom's proposal (and he stressed it's only a proposal at this stage) is to offer a base rate ($30-50 pp per year to be a member) and then $25 a game. The idea being that you only pay for what you attend. You don't get lumped with a $150 4 game membership if you miss a couple of games for your grans' birthday OR, the more salient issue, if we sell Vic memberships and then a crappy fixture comes out that only gives us 3 games in Melbourne the following year, fans aren't out of pocket.
The consensus from those attending was that it sounded like a reasonable deal.
A few other questions were asked:
- Fages said he was very unhappy with the pathetic North side named today, and voiced his displeasure to the AFL. His view is that the AFL agree, but they've been stitched up by the wording of their own integrity rules, and North are exploiting a perfectly legal loophole. He thinks the AFL are too embarrassed to admit that, but will 'quietly' amend the rules by next year.
- Fages danced around the Dangerfield situation but said his choice will be based on family reasons and that our recruiters have contingency plans in place. The rest he said to keep quiet about and not share on bf
- At 8.15 he had to excuse himself and leave for a "meeting" which he refused to talk about! Possibly at AFL house re Norf's cheating? Who knows.
Anyway, I'll post more if I remember stuff I've forgotten. Needless to say Fages is a smooth performer, knows his stuff and has a great rapport with anyone he speaks to. And he gave out hats. Sweet!
Thanks to allefgib for the heads up!
Great summary of the night. Sounds like they'll be placing more of a focus on the Melbourne market in coming years, which is great
Melbourne really is the biggest growth area for club. It is the city with the biggest population of AFL supporters in the world, and we have a fair proportion of non member supporters there.
Plenty of times I go to games over there and chat with Melbourne locals at the game who support our club. I always ask if they are a member, rarely do they say yes. When I ask why the most common response is that it works out cheaper to buy match day tickets.
We need to fix that. Fagan says we have 30,000 Victorian supporters with only 800 members. If we can convert 10% of these to members at a net gain of $50 per member that is another $1.5m into our club.
Scorpus
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Well the club doesn't actually make money from the included games in the Melbourne membership, so it would probably be only ~$25 to the club for each membership.
However the money isn't important, the club is more focused on growing the supporter base and having people become members
I love the direction Fagan is taking this club, he seems genuinely interested in fan feedback which is a lot more than can be said for previous management regimes.
In the business of AFL football, and really any sporting club, membership means revenues.
Sure it is also an indicator of supporter base and a sense of belonging. But the cold reality is that a membership delivers revenue.
Serious question to those that attended. Did he mention how important a KPI website hits are to the current regime
?
If I understood Brentmeister correctly, it sounds like the club is looking to take a hit on the membership revenue so as to make the offer more attractive, but then use the fact we'll have increased Vic members to then increase sponsor revenue.
I think it's a pretty smart strategy. It apleases the Victorian members, gets more on board which then indirectly allows us to increase revenue through sponsors rather than supporters.
Just as a side note to this. Fagan mentioned during a recent AA interview that the club was keen to get access to the AO Ultimate members that are Crows aligned but not AFC members (I hope I've got this right), he mentioned that he's frustrated that he can't get their email addresses in order to connect and communicate with them.
It sounds like it's a similar strategy that they're wanting to implement in Victoria.
Happy to be corrected on any of the above.
It sounds like it's a similar strategy that they're wanting to implement in Victoria.
Happy to be corrected on any of the above.
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Can you put some stuffin the encrypted thread and reveal at the appropriate time?Good presentation by Fages and Tom Rayner in Melbourne tonight. Some really prudent steps being made to bolster the membership base in Victoria.
Bottom line is there are 30,000 AFC fans in Melbourne but only 800 members. Fages wants to turn more of those fans into members. The membership drive has nothing to do with a pissing contest over numbers. To attract truly national sponsors and drive sponsorship revenue, we need the membership numbers in Victoria to justify the additional sponsor dollars. As such nominal membership sales will have little to no actual revenue impact, it's all about:
- having a way of identifying our fans in Victoria.
- creating a "home away from home" atmosphere here.
- driving member numbers to drive sponsor revenue.
Fages, Tom and many others in the room noted that at many Crows games in Melbourne, we have a huge proportion (sometimes the majority) of the bums on seats. That's great, but we still only have 800 members in Victoria. So that's thousands of people that have a face but not a name as far as we're concerned. We need to capture that latent fan base.
From an SA standpoint, Fages also said our stadium capacity and our preference for 11 game memberships limits what we can do in some respects. Our stadium, member wise, is sold out. We only sell 10,000 tickets per game, the rest are already allocated. That means our SA membership is at maximum, unless we sell pet memberships. That also explains our older age demographic. Because we are bursting at the seams with members, our members are less likely to relinquish their membership because they know they won't get a seat, and they know they'll be on a waiting list if they return as members. So naturally, that favours older people over younger people. Fages says research shows we have just as many young fans as every other club, but our preference for full season memberships and a completely full stadium means our member demographic gets thrown out a bit. Still, that's not a blight on the club, it just means we have incredibly loyal members who stick around even when things aren't going great.
Anyway, the current Vic member offering is around $150 pp for 4 games. Tom's proposal (and he stressed it's only a proposal at this stage) is to offer a base rate ($30-50 pp per year to be a member) and then $25 a game. The idea being that you only pay for what you attend. You don't get lumped with a $150 4 game membership if you miss a couple of games for your grans' birthday OR, the more salient issue, if we sell Vic memberships and then a crappy fixture comes out that only gives us 3 games in Melbourne the following year, fans aren't out of pocket.
The consensus from those attending was that it sounded like a reasonable deal.
A few other questions were asked:
- Fages said he was very unhappy with the pathetic North side named today, and voiced his displeasure to the AFL. His view is that the AFL agree, but they've been stitched up by the wording of their own integrity rules, and North are exploiting a perfectly legal loophole. He thinks the AFL are too embarrassed to admit that, but will 'quietly' amend the rules by next year.
- Fages danced around the Dangerfield situation but said his choice will be based on family reasons and that our recruiters have contingency plans in place. The rest he said to keep quiet about and not share on bf
- At 8.15 he had to excuse himself and leave for a "meeting" which he refused to talk about! Possibly at AFL house re Norf's cheating? Who knows.
Anyway, I'll post more if I remember stuff I've forgotten. Needless to say Fages is a smooth performer, knows his stuff and has a great rapport with anyone he speaks to. And he gave out hats. Sweet!
Thanks to allefgib for the heads up!
Brentmeister
Club Legend
Is was being a bit tongue in cheek really. He didn't drop any bombshells. He basically just said we have contingency plans in place for all scenarios.
Brentmeister
Club Legend
Spot on. We can't really make anything out of away game ticket sales. And If this $30-50 vic membership happens, once you throw in a member pack and mail out a few details there's not much left over. Again, it's all about reviving that latent Victorian membership base and putting a name and a DOB to that face in the crowd.
Brentmeister
Club Legend
Funnily enough he did say we are top three with Essendon and Collingwood for "digital connection" with fans/members or something like that. That includes everything I think; website hits, YouTube views, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The Crows TV show probably helps that too and it's likely no coincidence that the others in the top 3 have their own shows.Serious question to those that attended. Did he mention how important a KPI website hits are to the current regime
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Brentmeister
Club Legend
One point raised last night is that there could be a dedicated online portal or forum for purely vic based members. Not sure if the bloke who raised it is a big footy member, but fages liked the idea either way.
To start with, we could either carry on with this thread, or start a new one for vic members. We can reach out to Tom Raynor to get some content (when it's available) on the final member offering over here when it's released, and also keep vic fans up to date with events, Melbourne game day innovations (which tom Also wants to expand) and anything else that can help the club turn those 30,000 Victorian crow supporters into members. The that current figure of 800 isn't good enough, but we can start the ball rolling on here.
To start with, we could either carry on with this thread, or start a new one for vic members. We can reach out to Tom Raynor to get some content (when it's available) on the final member offering over here when it's released, and also keep vic fans up to date with events, Melbourne game day innovations (which tom Also wants to expand) and anything else that can help the club turn those 30,000 Victorian crow supporters into members. The that current figure of 800 isn't good enough, but we can start the ball rolling on here.
I went to the function, and agree with most of what is posted above. The proposal for vic members is a really good idea, especially given we don't make any money out of the match day ticket component of any vic membership. Also allows the club to target free membership merch to ppl who don't have enough already, especially new members and kids, which is good for engagement. Fages and Tom were very impressive.
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Something like that would be beneficial for those Crows members who then travel to Melbourne to games who want to know where to meet up with other Crows members / get handy hints and tips on travel etc / how to get to after match functions. Hopefully helping to create a feeling of connection between the support base regardless of where we are based?
Thanks for the feedback. Interesting to hear that there are only 800 Vic members. I would have expected more.
Having said that, I did not renew my membership this year as I could not attend the first game.
The base memberships idea sounds great.
Having said that, I did not renew my membership this year as I could not attend the first game.
The base memberships idea sounds great.
