Play Nice 2019 Non AFL Admin, Crowds, Ratings, Participation etc thread

I am sure that's true for some, but is it true for enough to justify it as a long term strategy? Myself, I wouldn't know Pogba from Adam, but my kids, who both played, certainly do. Not only didn't they go, neither even watched on TV. Youngest son (17), actually watched a few minutes, then went and studied (it's school holidays).

Seeing Pogba in the flesh, going at half pace in a game that doesn't matter might excite the real diehards, but most casual soccer fans I know would much prefer a real match with real consequences on TV.

As for Messi, good chance he doesn't play, and if the millions paid for them to come stipulate he does, then it's probably less than a half. Most people expect that.

We do not see Man U or Real. We see Man U and Real lite.

There are a lot of soccer fans in Perth, and apparently 20k people travelled to be here, and they still got no more than a decent Dockers crowd.

Admittedly, tomorrow's game is the main draw, but I doubt they can do this more than 3 or 4 times before a noticeable drop off. Not without giving it several years between games.



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Liverpool got 95k at the MCG in 2013 and 53k at Adelaie Oval in 2015. Both games were sell outs. If Liverpool play in Perth in 2020 or 2021, I'd put money on it being a sell out.

Euro soccer clubs have been coming to Oz since the 1960's. Does that get categorized as a long term strategy?

The big clubs have a s**t load of fans in Oz and those who will travel from Europe and Asia to watch. They play these games because they know they will sell out. Its why they play their best players like Messi and co play for a half. There is also the the corporate side of things to use their star players with them, Oz corporates and Oz subsidiaries of their main corporates from home base. Also Barcelona have set up academies in Sydney and Brisbane so they get brand recognition for them if they play here. They have set up 30 odd around the world.

Why did Brazil with Neymar and Argentina with Messi come and play at the MCG in front of 95k in June 2017 in a meaningless friendly?? Because there is easy money to be made. Did they play the full game? Flat out for 90 minutes? Not from memory. Only 50k turned up a few days later to watch the Socceroos play Brazil.

Real Madrid played Man City in front of 99k at the MCG and Ronaldo played the first half and scored a goal in Real's 4-1 win. The clubs make a lot more money playing a preseason game in Oz, USA, Canda, Japan, China etc than at home in the middle of summer when people are on holidays. This link for 2019 shows how many Euro teams go to the US every year, as there is money to be made playing several games there for each team

Its the lesser teams who struggle a bit and have to space out when they come to Oz and the stadium operators have to work out what a reasonable fee is to get them to play at their stadium.
 
Aug 14, 2011
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fans who have never seen Man Utd play and the die-hard fanboys who travel everywhere. I had a friend who travelled from Tassie to Sydney to watch Arsenal last year, as he had never seen them live.

I haven't watched one of these friendlies for years personally. There have been ads from a hotel selling this game on the tellie and meeting the players etc, so it must have been a disappointment. Reckon these friendlies have diminishing returns, as they become more common.

Those who see sport thru a very narrow focus clearly exist in a different world, & as a life long follower of Aussie Rules wherever I live, I have come across them regularly, & there are a couple of regulars on this thread.
I've spent my hard earned to travel to footy games, its what sports fans do.
 
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Euro soccer clubs have been coming to Oz since the 1960's. Does that get categorized as a long term strategy?

the 50s, Blackpool played a couple of 'tests' v Aus in the late 50s, remember my father explaining who Stanley Matthews was, comparing him to Haydn Bunton Snr .
 
Australia has the biggest British diaspora in the world at an estimated 1.2 million people. The USA and Canada are around 650k each and France and Spain around 500k each. So the big British clubs have seen the opportunity to make a $$$ in Oz for a long time.

Not so much now with the mega salaries, but a fully paid holiday to Oz was also seen as a good inducement and reward for the player's in that 1965-1990 period when jets made travel down under relatively easy in around 24 hour trip, unlike the 3 day flight or 5 week boat trip of previous eras.
 

jatz14

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Those who see sport thru a very narrow focus clearly exist in a different world, & as a life long follower of Aussie Rules wherever I live, I have come across them regularly, & there are a couple of regulars on this thread.
I've spent my hard earned to travel to footy games, its what sports fans do.
To a practice match? In the world of soccer, this is less than an AFL pre season game. People do go to AFL practice matches, but not a lot of them, and they dont pay much. And my comments are not based on the opinion of AFL fans, but on the opinions of soccer fans I know, none of whom rated it overly much as n event.
 
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To a practice match? In the world of soccer, this is less than an AFL pre season game. People do go to AFL practice matches, but not a lot of them, and they dont pay much. And my comments are not based on the opinion of AFL fans, but on the opinions of soccer fans I know, none of whom rated it overly much as n event.

a practice match, the sort of language used to discuss pre season AFL competition .... in soccer they are called friendlies & it goes on all over the world, been happening here since the 20s, google news this minute:

Take off those AFL branded blinkers, there is a world of sport here & sports tourism is a big dollar business, substantially more than a code wars put down.
 
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jatz14

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a practice match, the sort of language used to discuss pre season AFL competition .... in soccer they are called friendlies & it goes on all over the world, been happening here since the 20s, google news this minute:

Take off those AFL branded blinkers, there is a world of sport here & sports tourism is a big dollar business, substantially more than a code wars put down.
Changing its name doesnt change what it is. Glory threw in the kids to give them a taste, you know, some practice. There are real games, that have consequence for the club and the competition, then there are the others. If it toots your whistle to call them friendlies, go for it.
 
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Changing its name doesnt change what it is. Glory threw in the kids to give them a taste, you know, some practice. There are real games, that have consequence for the club and the competition, then there are the others. If it toots your whistle to call them friendlies, go for it.

Toot toot, it goes to your ongoing attempt to put down another code.
In Aussie Rules footy interclub scratch matches were the highest form of practice match - the friendly equivalent occurred post season. Toot toot !!
 

HavUEvaSeenTheRain

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a practice match, the sort of language used to discuss pre season AFL competition .... in soccer they are called friendlies & it goes on all over the world, been happening here since the 20s, google news this minute:

Take off those AFL branded blinkers, there is a world of sport here & sports tourism is a big dollar business, substantially more than a code wars put down.

What I think will be interesting in the future will be sports like Cricket possibly trying to leverage government for funding by moving games for the Ashes, India (in say 20 years) tour ect. Imagine threatening say WA or QLD or even Victoria that they will lose a game of the Ashes if they don’t increase funding. Obviously you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you but I imagine most of the the funding is from federal government anyway not state.
 
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What I think will be interesting in the future will be sports like Cricket possibly trying to leverage government for funding by moving games for the Ashes, India (in say 20 years) tour ect. Imagine threatening say WA or QLD or even Victoria that they will lose a game of the Ashes if they don’t increase funding. Obviously you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you but I imagine most of the the funding is from federal government anyway not state.

Like the competition for F1 has been for some time.

In AFL footy, its the sleazy backroom deal done for the Grand Final, its already happening over the NRL GF.
 
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Man U are also playing in Singapore next week against Juventus. It's hard to see too many travelling from Asia to watch them in Perth against 2 3rd rate teams when they could just wait a week and go to (much closer) Singapore instead against a far better opponent.

Also of note that hotel prices really aren't a lot more expensive than usual over the last few days. I could believe 21k hotel nights, but not 21k people. 21k people would put hotel rooms at a huge premium in Perth.

The other thing - and this happened with Chelsea last year as well - is that tickets were flogged off at bargain basement prices in the week before just to try and fill seats. People remember that sort of thing if they've paid $200 for a ticket only to see tickets advertised for under $50 later on. I can understand why they do it as it generates more revenue and empty seats for a club like Man U are pretty embarrassing. But it's going to affect ticket sales for similar future games in Perth. You'd have to be mad to buy a ticket early if there's another big European club in town next year.
 

jatz14

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Toot toot, it goes to your ongoing attempt to put down another code.
In Aussie Rules footy interclub scratch matches were the highest form of practice match - the friendly equivalent occurred post season. Toot toot !!
How have I put down another code? I have put down the value of meaningless big name matches if overdone, thats a long way from putting down the code, unless your hyper sensitive.
 

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Nine news reporting the Gold Coast Titans are looking to move permanently 8 home games to Brisbane's Suncorp stadium.
This will essentailly make the Titans a second Brisbane team.

Huge potential freekick to the Suns if they can ever get their house in order and become successful on-field.
 
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Nine news reporting the Gold Coast Titans are looking to move permanently 8 home games to Brisbane's Suncorp stadium.
This will essentailly make the Titans a second Brisbane team.

Huge potential freekick to the Suns if they can ever get their house in order and become successful on-field.
Going to be renamed too.

In saying that the media has said the same about multiple NRL clubs(Tigers to Perth, Sharks to Adelaide).
Titans are just this week's target.
 

abcde12345

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Going to be renamed too.

In saying that the media has said the same about multiple NRL clubs(Tigers to Perth, Sharks to Adelaide).
Titans are just this week's target.
I get the logic behind it, but I don't think in practice it makes a lot of sense to be honest if these moves eventuate.

NRL wants a Perth team for the timezone and Eastern State/NZ/South African expats. NRL wants a second Brisbane team for corporate dollars, although I suspect a second Brisbane team might not actually be as successful as they think (depends if they can capture all the Storm fans up here or not really).

Issue is, from what I remember reading at the start of the year when the big Sydney team relocation debate was ongoing, the TV networks think 16 teams is ideal for the league and don't want to incur the costs for broadcasting the extra games.

Puts the NRL in an interesting position. I think they'd be a bit mad to relocate the Titans to be honest. Great news for the Suns if they do though.

I get the idea behind de-congesting the Sydney marketplace too. I also think it would be a big free kick for the AFL if it goes through though. I remember Manly and the Tigers being the main "targets" in the talks. Manly relocating would be big news for the Swans, and Wests moving could only help GWS (and probably moreso the new South West A-League team to be honest).

It'll be interesting to see if it's just noise to distract from other issues, or if there's actually something behind it. Hard to see it actually coming to fruition to be honest.
 
Brisbane needed a 2nd team when the South Queensland Crushers were set up, but they weren't set up correctly and didn't have a distinctive geographical base say like Freo and Perth are 20km apart. That's why I reckon the Redcliffe Dolphins have better potential to work than the Crushers ever did or a copy of the Crushers.

Then as part of the ending the RL Super War, News Corp (News Ltd back then) basically said they had to go in any new amalgamated comp.

News Corp became majority ownership of the Broncos (still do with 68%) and had veto power of the new JV NRL between them and the ARL and said the Crushers are out and has basically kept a monopoly in Brisbane, like you have in NHL, were Toronto is hockey mad like Melbourne, but only has one team because of the monopoly no compete clause set up years ago back in 1967 expansion phase, so that you can't set up a team in a 50 mile radius. So not even a hockey made 700k city like Hamilton, very much like Geelong is to Melbourne, can't have a team despite its catchment area being several million people because its about 43 miles direct radius from Toronto - about 50 to drive.

News Corp majority owners of the Broncos and biggest newspaper in Brisbane and SE Qld means any new team has it stacked against them. The NRL has to do something about that massive conflict of interest if it lets in a 2nd Brisbane team.
 

Johnny Bananas

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Brisbane needed a 2nd team when the South Queensland Crushers were set up, but they weren't set up correctly and didn't have a distinctive geographical base say like Freo and Perth are 20km apart.
You could argue they did, given the Broncos vacated Lang Park for the southern suburbs and the Crushers moved in. They were a good 15-20 km apart. The real problem for the Crushers was that they were terrible on the field and badly run.
 
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They never left their inner city training facility at Red Hill, 3 or 4 kms NW of the CBD, they just went and played at a bigger stadium.

Sure the Crushers weren't good but they had 2 or 3 season before they were hit with the super league war for 2 years before they folded. Freo went many years before they were good in a 2 team town.

They didn't help themselves by marketing themselves as the team for anti Bronco supporters. They didn't have a true heartland to represent. That's why the Redcliffe Dolphins are potentially a good bet.
 
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Johnny Bananas

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Sure the Crushers weren't good but they had 2 or 3 season before they were hit with the super league war for 2 years before they folded. Freo went many years before they were good in a 2 team town.
Freo also had a baked in layer of support from two WAFL club fanbases. The Crushers had good crowds in their first year, then they finished last twice, getting belted every week. People don't turn up to watch teams getting belted every week.

They didn't help themselves by marketing themselves as the team for anti Bronco supporters.
Why is that a bad thing? There are plenty of people in Brisbane who don't like the Broncos and support the Cowboys, Storm, Dragons or Manly instead.
 
Freo also had a baked in layer of support from two WAFL club fanbases. The Crushers had good crowds in their first year, then they finished last twice, getting belted every week. People don't turn up to watch teams getting belted every week.


Why is that a bad thing? There are plenty of people in Brisbane who don't like the Broncos and support the Cowboys, Storm, Dragons or Manly instead.
Because marketing yourself as - come support us because we aren't the other blokes, isn't sustainable, especially in the bad years. You have to market what and who you are first, and you need a base and a heartland to build from and to represent.
 
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