Sydney Swans will be Australia's biggest sporting club

[PhatBoy]

They're one bottom 10 season away from sub 20k crowds and asking for hand-outs.

They're just lucky that they are extremely good at turning people who take a passing interest in them into attendees and members because nobody watches them on TV in Sydney still.

As someone who, I'm assuming lives in WA, you're obviously well positioned to comment on how they're perceived here.

As someone who lives 3 hours away, in a rugby league heartland, the Swans have a LOT of serious fans.

 

[Grongey]

If we survived the early 90s, we can survive anything. My goodness they were tough years.

Make no mistake, we are firmly entrenched in the Sydney sporting landscape. Rugby league is going the other way, all they've really got is State of Origin and the GF.

Soccer is coming, as long as the A-League i) don't shoot themselves in the foot, and ii) keep bringing the marquee players like Fornaroli at Melb City. He's a class above in the A-League. But the Friday night game being relegated to SBS2 is not a good sign.

 

[Colonial]

Yep, Sammy Hagar.

No no. Im sure its more along the lines of comments and theories like your comment i qouted.

Silly.

 

[Saint]

The Swans are several fold bigger than the "Sky Blues"

I'm not sure what basis they are likely to turn towards soccer than AFL. Perhaps soccer more so to some extent in a participation sense but ultimately if the NRL declines in Sydney than the AFL is almost assured of (if it isn't already) absolute victory in the football "code wars". Also, it is the AFL that goes head to head with the NRL, not the A-League

In the west soccer, in the October window it has to itself, just drew 12,000 to a game between WSW and another NSW side, less than the Giants averaged at spotless going head to head with the NRL. It's hard to see how NRL's decline in Sydney helps the A-League more than the AFL

I was thinking they could both benefit from a decline in the NRL which appears pretty likely. In participation, as long as the kids are playing soccer instead of NRL, I assume the AFL would be pleased (even more so if all the kids switched to AFL).

A-League does the work in dragging the kids away from participating in NRL and the AFL reaps some of the benefits.

Take out the direct competition first. That was my line of thinking.

Two teams in a city the same size as Melbourne which carries 9 teams, I'm sure Sydney could out-grow Collingwood, plenty more scope. Some of that growth will be gobbled up by GWS, no doubt.

 

[manicmagpie]

Why?

Seems to have worked for Collingwood.

Shhh, you're giving away our secret!

 

[Nostradumbass]

Yep, Sammy Hagar.

 

[NoobPie]

I was thinking they could both benefit from a decline in the NRL which appears pretty likely. In participation, as long as the kids are playing soccer instead of NRL, I assume the AFL would be pleased (even more so if all the kids switched to AFL).

A-League does the work in dragging the kids away from participating in NRL and the AFL reaps some of the benefits.

Take out the direct competition first. That was my line of thinking.

Two teams in a city the same size as Melbourne which carries 9 teams, I'm sure Sydney could out-grow Collingwood, plenty more scope. Some of that growth will be gobbled up by GWS, no doubt.

Yeah if Australian football continues to grow in Sydney then support will grow around the Swans and the Giants to the point that the former could easily end up the biggest in the country...they may not be that far off already if you look at this analysis

https://hurlingpeoplenow.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/how-much-money-does-your-club-make/

The big qualifier on this comparison is that clubs have varying control over venue revenues and facilities however if you strip out gaming revenue and AFL distributions the Swans are about ball park with the crows, port, the bombers and geelong all achieving about 33 to 34 million in memberships, gate, merchandise, corporate and sponsorship revenue etc. They were behind West Coast (~$54m), Collingwood ($~44m), Freo ($~41) and Hawthorn ($~38m). Obviously these compare favourably to the (by far and away) the biggest non Aussie rules football club in the country the Brisbane Broncos who achieve about $30 million in non NRL distribution revenue

 

[Xtreme]

According to the Swans' chairman, Andrew Pridham, Sydney is destined to be bigger than Collingwood in the future.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...e/news-story/cf6178a627c19b1bf0ae028f1b9c2f33

ASADA is too busy chasing down GWS, while they should be going in the other direction to find out what's going down at Swans land that makes them dream up these scenarios.

One french fry short of a happy meal!

 

[Papa G]

Why is the myth that Collingwood are the biggest sporting club consistently perpetuated? Rhetorical question (historical reasons and the Malbun media A(V)FL set the agenda). West Coast have been constrained by stadium size but I have no doubt they trump Collingwood in almost every way (bar 3 game memberships). Absolute powerhouse. Brisbane Broncos would have a to be up there as well. League mad City of nearly 2 million to themselves.

 

[LoungeLizard]

Why is the myth that Collingwood are the biggest sporting club consistently perpetuated? Rhetorical question (historical reasons and the Malbun media A(V)FL set the agenda). West Coast have been constrained by stadium size but I have no doubt they trump Collingwood in almost every way (bar 3 game memberships). Absolute powerhouse. Brisbane Broncos would have a to be up there as well. League mad City of nearly 2 million to themselves.

You forgot the pets, don't forget the pets, they are members also, they have rights.

 

[Saint]

Why is the myth that Collingwood are the biggest sporting club consistently perpetuated? Rhetorical question (historical reasons and the Malbun media A(V)FL set the agenda). West Coast have been constrained by stadium size but I have no doubt they trump Collingwood in almost every way (bar 3 game memberships). Absolute powerhouse. Brisbane Broncos would have a to be up there as well. League mad City of nearly 2 million to themselves.

West Coast are the real powerhouse of the AFL as shown in those figures quoted above.

Collingwood have a long history of being a powerful club and with a Melbourne centric league, they're the one most often referred to.

The facts around Brisbane is that due to the way winter works, not as many of them are into the winter sports as interest in southern states.

 

[NoobPie]

West Coast are the real powerhouse of the AFL as shown in those figures quoted above.

Collingwood have a long history of being a powerful club and with a Melbourne centric league, they're the one most often referred to.

The facts around Brisbane is that due to the way winter works, not as many of them are into the winter sports as interest in southern states.

Yeah probably, though West Coast have the advantage of a much "cleaner" stadium where they don't have to compete with the MCC and the AFL at their home ground. They also made the GF compared to Collingwood finishing 12th in 2015. I think you could certainly still make a case for Collingwood particularly if you start including "intangibles" though you are very much in the land of the subjective.

This applies to the likes of Collingwood and West Coast as well but I suspect that the Broncos would be have far larger revenues if they got to sell their own TV rights, or if rights revenue was distributed at least partly based on viewers like it is in european soccer leagues. (I'm not endorsing this though, I am for retaining a "progressive" distribution of TV revenues)

 

[Roddy]

Yep, Sammy Hagar.

I actually didn't mind some of Hagar's work. The 'Live Without a Net' DVD is awesome.

 

[Garlic muncher]

Pains me to say it but WCE are the biggest club, 10,000 people who pay to stay on a waiting list that inches along means they are pretty big, in fact each member on that list is entitled to buy 4 memberships and most people buy at least 2 - that means up to 40,000 people are waiting for a seat and of course the thousands that couldn't be bothered for a multitude of reasons decide not to join the waiting list.

Sydney needs to sell the SCG out through membership like the WCE, Dockers,Adel and Port do before even thinking themselves the biggest.

 

[NoobPie]

Pains me to say it but WCE are the biggest club, 10,000 people who pay to stay on a waiting list that inches along means they are pretty big, in fact each member on that list is entitled to buy 4 memberships and most people buy at least 2 - that means up to 40,000 people are waiting for a seat and of course the thousands that couldn't be bothered for a multitude of reasons decide not to join the waiting list.

Sydney needs to sell the SCG out through membership like the WCE, Dockers,Adel and Port do before even thinking themselves the biggest.

Bold is a fair call / test

 

[LB#16]

The increased gentrification of Sydney in general (excluding Western Sydney) will probably see more people turning away from NRL over the next generation.

But it looks like they'll turn towards soccer than AFL.

I reckon a Swans-Sky Blues partnership would wreak havoc on the NRL and could become the two biggest clubs in Australia. There's a lot of commonality and little overlap between the Sky Blues and the Swans.

I suppose the biggest competition would still be Winter junior sport.

Sydney has seen an enormous about of gentrification over the years and soccer has not taken over. Australia as a whole has an enormous amount of immigration over the years and despite "immigrants will bring their preference and stick with it!" soccer has not taken over. It's completely delusional to think it will ever supplant the AFL or NRL in the top two codes in Australia.

 

[Mr Gurns]

As someone who, I'm assuming lives in WA, you're obviously well positioned to comment on how they're perceived here.

As someone who lives 3 hours away, in a rugby league heartland, the Swans have a LOT of serious fans.

I'm not disputing that they have a good number of devoted fans, I'm just saying they have an exceptionally high crowd:ratings ratio. I mean they get what, 30k odd per game? Yet the ratings rarely crack 100k, there's nowhere else in this country that has such high attendances with such low TV ratings. All it says is the Swans fans have a very strong attendance culture and they are good at bringing in less hardcore supporters to the actual match as opposed to watching on telly.

 

[im_a_lazy_sod]

Thread about club x

Started by poster of rival club on main board

First few posts are all posters from rival club posters

Takes until 27th post for poster of club x to reply. None since

Never change Bigfooty. Never change

 

[NoobPie]

I'm not disputing that they have a good number of devoted fans, I'm just saying they have an exceptionally high crowd:ratings ratio. I mean they get what, 30k odd per game? Yet the ratings rarely crack 100k, there's nowhere else in this country that has such high attendances with such low TV ratings. All it says is the Swans fans have a very strong attendance culture and they are good at bringing in less hardcore supporters to the actual match as opposed to watching on telly.

Well, the games are on 7 mate...also, presumably a lot of swans fans have foxtel subscriptions as well

 

[Catsnlakers]

I highly doubt this will happen, but it would be interesting to revisit this thread in 10 years time, as having cousins live in lidcombe they say AFL gets bigger and bigger every year out that way!... I know the Giants help that considering they are close but no doubt the support is growing!

 

[wal]

Pains me to say it but WCE are the biggest club, 10,000 people who pay to stay on a waiting list that inches along means they are pretty big, in fact each member on that list is entitled to buy 4 memberships and most people buy at least 2 - that means up to 40,000 people are waiting for a seat and of course the thousands that couldn't be bothered for a multitude of reasons decide not to join the waiting list.

For this reason alone North Melbourne should be relegated to the VFL and a third club established in WA.

 

[Garlic muncher]

For this reason alone North Melbourne should be relegated to the VFL and a third club established in WA.

Living in WA - I reckon there is more Norf fans here than in VIC

 

[Giant Heart]

How did I get on the GWS board?

You didn't! You're just grappling with the reality of GWS becoming relevant, is all...

 

[The_Reaper]

West Coast is actually the biggest club

 

[GWBogan]

Sorry Prids, but there's a Giant obstacle standing in your way.