Memberships 2021 St.Kilda Membership Thread (FINAL TALLY - 55,832)

[St Neil]

We win a flag, we will have 75k members

I agree. St Kilda would become one of the power clubs very quickly. On and off the field.

Quite amazing considering the last decade of struggle and the lack of Premiership success.

 

[sunny3193]

I hate to put a downer on this kumbaya moment, but we are not a sleeping giant.
Unfortunately, far from it.
That is from the club’s own literature, the President, and my own research.
What we are is a small club with an untapped but middling supporter base.
What we could be is a middle sized club.
Again, the President’s words.
But that involves us doing stuff we have proved incapable of over the last 150 odd years.

 

[Mowman]

I hate to put a downer on this kumbaya moment, but we are not a sleeping giant.
Unfortunately, far from it.
That is from the club’s own literature, the President, and my own research.
What we are is a small club with an untapped but middling supporter base.
What we could be is a middle sized club.
Again, the President’s words.
But that involves us doing stuff we have proved incapable of over the last 150 odd years.

Which President ?

 

[Mowman]

I hate to put a downer on this kumbaya moment, but we are not a sleeping giant.
Unfortunately, far from it.
That is from the club’s own literature, the President, and my own research.
What we are is a small club with an untapped but middling supporter base.
What we could be is a middle sized club.
Again, the President’s words.
But that involves us doing stuff we have proved incapable of over the last 150 odd years.

Disagree,
Like JB said earlier win a flag we will be a 75000 member club

 

[St Neil]

I hate to put a downer on this kumbaya moment, but we are not a sleeping giant.
Unfortunately, far from it.
That is from the club’s own literature, the President, and my own research.
What we are is a small club with an untapped but middling supporter base.
What we could be is a middle sized club.
Again, the President’s words.
But that involves us doing stuff we have proved incapable of over the last 150 odd years.

Disagree. During our history when we have had periods of contending we have been one of the strongest drawing crowds in the competition. Going as far back as the mid 60s.

In the early 90s the AFL were fixturing us to play Collingwood at the MCG because of the drawing power of the two clubs. Crowds of about 70,000 to 80,000.

Even in the 2000s we were regularly drawing large crowds to Docklands. The club has a very large supporter base. Latent, but large. Which is amazing considering the historical lack of success.

With respect, I think you’re underestimating how big the club could quickly become. In this professional era where administrations are expert in turning supporters into members, this can quickly see fortunes reverse.

 

[#saintsfooty]

44.5k

People starting to realise they won’t be attending the football without being a member

 

[George]

I hate to put a downer on this kumbaya moment, but we are not a sleeping giant.
Unfortunately, far from it.
That is from the club’s own literature, the President, and my own research.
What we are is a small club with an untapped but middling supporter base.
What we could be is a middle sized club.
Again, the President’s words.
But that involves us doing stuff we have proved incapable of over the last 150 odd years.

Can you provide examples

 

[sunny3193]

Which President ?

Current

 

[PoppedCorn]

Yeah i cant see 75 thousand either tbh


Happily wrong tho

 

[sunny3193]

Can you provide examples

Certainly, you know of one at least.
The Reconciliation Statement that the club issued a couple of years ago stated our support base as 294,000 (p 9). I pointed that out to you at the time, if I recall.
(you can find that here:
https://s.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL...ty/St Kilda FC Reconciliation Action Plan.pdf )

Which is consistent with the Morgan Research of 2020 which had the supporter base at 297,000.
(you can find that here:
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8507-afl-supporter-ladder-june-2020-202009070647 )

To name two that are publicly available.

And to put that into perspective: we have less than half the support of Collingwood, West Coast, Adelaide and less than two thirds of the support of Essendon, Richmond, Carlton and Geelong.

Sorry to rain on the parade but this myth that we are some sleeping giant is not true and has never been true.
The closest we ever got to being a power club was in the 60’s.

 

[Joffaboy]

There was research done a while back and I remember maybe Finnis telling KB on SEN our latent suppory was on a par with Richmond.
That was obviously before their 3 flsgs in 4 years.
I reckon if we win a flag in the next two seadons 75k is easily obtainable.

 

[no1saint66]

Current

St Kilda should be a mid-sized club with 60,000 to 70,000 members and not reliant on AFL cash, according to chairman Andrew Bassat, who said that had it not been for the COVID-hijacked season the club would have made similar strides off the field as they did on it in 2020.
The Saints climbed the ladder last year to play finals, broke a new membership record and made an operating profit of $1.24 million but a net loss of $946,000. They remain an AFL-reliant club with a large debt and a membership unreflective of the size of their fan base.

The Saints celebrates a goal during their breakthrough elimination final win over the Bulldogs in 2020. CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“We have the potential to be a mid-tier club – we are not a small club but right now we are a bottom-quartile club,” Bassat said.
“We have the potential to get our membership through 60,000 up to 70,000 and become less reliant on AFL distributions.
Advertisement

“We are optimistic we will be financially independent of the AFL. No one wants to be a recipient club reliant on the AFL for distributions – you do not have much of a voice (with the AFL) when you are financially reliant on them.
“We are more reliant on the AFL than we should be and we are in more debt than we should be.
“We should have a membership of 60,000 to 70,000. We would have easily achieved 50,000 members had it been a regular season last year (the club had a record 48,775 members last year in a season in which fans could not attend games in Victoria).
“We would have been optimistic of making a (net) profit in normal circumstances last year.”
The club’s debt grew last year by another $1.6 million to $13.8 million. With money cheap through low interest rates, the club prioritised completing the rebuild of its Moorabbin facilities and the Danny Frawley centre ahead of driving down debt.
Advertisement

St Kilda president Andrew Bassat.CREDIT:JUSTIN MCMANUS
The club had only 2 per cent of members request a refund and had many offers from members to pay the membership of those fellow members who were in hardship and had needed to ask their money back.
“We are optimistic of our ability on the field and that will help us improve our financial situation off the field,” Bassat said. “There is no point spending less money and being poor on the field.”
Bassat said improved on-field performance was the fastest way to improve club finances in the short term. Once the club was in a stronger position, it could work to improve financial streams so as not to be reliant on the often cyclical nature of on-field performance for financial health.
Because of the later-than -normal finish to the season and the understaffed AFL membership services, St Kilda deferred the annual membership roll-over for 2021 by a month.
Advertisement

That meant that $2.3m in cash that would ordinarily have gone into the accounts for last financial year was deferred to this year. Thus the Saints start this year $2.3m ahead in revenue.
“All clubs benefited massively from JobKeeper and the lower cost base [of cutting staff numbers] from COVID, but our gate revenues were down, obviously,” Bassat said.
“That didn’t affect us as much as some other clubs. The clubs that have the biggest reliance on match-day receipts and attendance struggled the most.
“That’s why some of the clubs like us and North Melbourne were not as affected as the biggest clubs like West Coast and Collingwood who budget on big attendances at games.”

 

[no1saint66]

Certainly, you know of one at least.
The Reconciliation Statement that the club issued a couple of years ago stated our support base as 294,000 (p 9). I pointed that out to you at the time, if I recall.
(you can find that here:
https://s.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/StKilda/Community/St Kilda FC Reconciliation Action Plan.pdf )

Which is consistent with the Morgan Research of 2020 which had the supporter base at 297,000.
(you can find that here:
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8507-afl-supporter-ladder-june-2020-202009070647 )

To name two that are publicly available.

And to put that into perspective: we have less than half the support of Collingwood, West Coast, Adelaide and less than two thirds of the support of Essendon, Richmond, Carlton and Geelong.

Sorry to rain on the parade but this myth that we are some sleeping giant is not true and has never been true.
The closest we ever got to being a power club was in the 60’s.

Sydney Swans with most AFL supporters for seventh straight year

www.roymorgan.com

this was done in 2012 and shows us just a bit more than Richmond.

 

[sunny3193]

St Kilda should be a mid-sized club with 60,000 to 70,000 members and not reliant on AFL cash, according to chairman Andrew Bassat, who said that had it not been for the COVID-hijacked season the club would have made similar strides off the field as they did on it in 2020.
The Saints climbed the ladder last year to play finals, broke a new membership record and made an operating profit of $1.24 million but a net loss of $946,000. They remain an AFL-reliant club with a large debt and a membership unreflective of the size of their fan base.

The Saints celebrates a goal during their breakthrough elimination final win over the Bulldogs in 2020. CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
“We have the potential to be a mid-tier club – we are not a small club but right now we are a bottom-quartile club,” Bassat said.
“We have the potential to get our membership through 60,000 up to 70,000 and become less reliant on AFL distributions.
Advertisement

“We are optimistic we will be financially independent of the AFL. No one wants to be a recipient club reliant on the AFL for distributions – you do not have much of a voice (with the AFL) when you are financially reliant on them.
“We are more reliant on the AFL than we should be and we are in more debt than we should be.
“We should have a membership of 60,000 to 70,000. We would have easily achieved 50,000 members had it been a regular season last year (the club had a record 48,775 members last year in a season in which fans could not attend games in Victoria).
“We would have been optimistic of making a (net) profit in normal circumstances last year.”
The club’s debt grew last year by another $1.6 million to $13.8 million. With money cheap through low interest rates, the club prioritised completing the rebuild of its Moorabbin facilities and the Danny Frawley centre ahead of driving down debt.
Advertisement

St Kilda president Andrew Bassat.CREDIT:JUSTIN MCMANUS
The club had only 2 per cent of members request a refund and had many offers from members to pay the membership of those fellow members who were in hardship and had needed to ask their money back.
“We are optimistic of our ability on the field and that will help us improve our financial situation off the field,” Bassat said. “There is no point spending less money and being poor on the field.”
Bassat said improved on-field performance was the fastest way to improve club finances in the short term. Once the club was in a stronger position, it could work to improve financial streams so as not to be reliant on the often cyclical nature of on-field performance for financial health.
Because of the later-than -normal finish to the season and the understaffed AFL membership services, St Kilda deferred the annual membership roll-over for 2021 by a month.
Advertisement

That meant that $2.3m in cash that would ordinarily have gone into the accounts for last financial year was deferred to this year. Thus the Saints start this year $2.3m ahead in revenue.
“All clubs benefited massively from JobKeeper and the lower cost base [of cutting staff numbers] from COVID, but our gate revenues were down, obviously,” Bassat said.
“That didn’t affect us as much as some other clubs. The clubs that have the biggest reliance on match-day receipts and attendance struggled the most.
“That’s why some of the clubs like us and North Melbourne were not as affected as the biggest clubs like West Coast and Collingwood who budget on big attendances at games.”

Yes, that’s the article.
Thanks for posting.

 

[Joffaboy]

So Bassett is saying we should have up to 70k but we wont get to 75k by winning a flag?

 

[gringo2011]

There was research done a while back and I remember maybe Finnis telling KB on SEN our latent suppory was on a par with Richmond.
That was obviously before their 3 flsgs in 4 years.
I reckon if we win a flag in the next two seadons 75k is easily obtainable.

Those polls are getting shown up these days too. Demographics would be very dependent on the areas of Melbourne that were polled. If you called inner north suburbs we probably don't rate much at all. We really do have a very large south east supporter stronghold though.

 

[StCicatriz]

Certainly, you know of one at least.
The Reconciliation Statement that the club issued a couple of years ago stated our support base as 294,000 (p 9). I pointed that out to you at the time, if I recall.
(you can find that here:
https://s.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL...ty/St Kilda FC Reconciliation Action Plan.pdf )

Which is consistent with the Morgan Research of 2020 which had the supporter base at 297,000.
(you can find that here:
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8507-afl-supporter-ladder-june-2020-202009070647 )

To name two that are publicly available.

And to put that into perspective: we have less than half the support of Collingwood, West Coast, Adelaide and less than two thirds of the support of Essendon, Richmond, Carlton and Geelong.

Sorry to rain on the parade but this myth that we are some sleeping giant is not true and has never been true.
The closest we ever got to being a power club was in the 60’s.

How many do Sydney have in that report?

What was the sample size?

 

[George]

Certainly, you know of one at least.
The Reconciliation Statement that the club issued a couple of years ago stated our support base as 294,000 (p 9). I pointed that out to you at the time, if I recall.
(you can find that here:
https://s.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/StKilda/Community/St Kilda FC Reconciliation Action Plan.pdf )

Which is consistent with the Morgan Research of 2020 which had the supporter base at 297,000.
(you can find that here:
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8507-afl-supporter-ladder-june-2020-202009070647 )

To name two that are publicly available.

And to put that into perspective: we have less than half the support of Collingwood, West Coast, Adelaide and less than two thirds of the support of Essendon, Richmond, Carlton and Geelong.

Sorry to rain on the parade but this myth that we are some sleeping giant is not true and has never been true.
The closest we ever got to being a power club was in the 60’s.

That Morgan "research" surveyed only 14,353 people. Out of around a million club members, this is hardly evidence to suggest anything. Especially Sydney who apparently have 300,000 more supporters than West Coast and Richmond, haha.

I have seen with my own eyes AFL reports that show us on par with Richmond in terms of latent support. This was before the three flags, so let's say 75,000 is what we can achieve before a premiership.

Lastly it then becomes a subjective discussion of what you view as a large club. I would say 75,000 members puts us in that category.

And even if that incredibly small sample size from Ray Morgan holds true, we would only need 1 in 4 Saints supporters to become members to reach 75,000 (On that report Richmond are 1 in 5).

Pretty confident we can hit 55,000 this year and granted the on field performance keeps improving I can see us at somewhere in the 60,000's within the next 5 years. A premiership will catapult us into the 70's from there. You also have to take into consideration the Bayside is the most AFL active area in Victoria and we own it - I in 4 club members along the Bayside are St.Kilda members. From Port Melbourne to Portsea is the club target area for membership growth given the huge amount of St.Kilda support.

This year we are projected to increase membership by almost 20,000 from when Finnis took over (when we started to become a properly run club). A 20,000 increase just from a change in messaging because we sure as hell didn't increase anything through performance.

This year we are expected to increase membership by 3000 after a pandemic put us in a recession (we were already headed for one but that's another story lol). We haven't had this big of an increase since, funnily enough, last year, also a pandemic year, where we increased membership by 5000. Absolutely massive numbers even without the current financial climate. We have led the AFL for a few years now in member retention and that wasn't any more evident than last year where 99% of members retained their memberships and even chipped in to pay for others who couldn't afford it (we did this on here too), a sign of the support this club has.

Again, we had the same amount of support as Richmond in 2012, what changed since then is two things. Richmonds flags and Richmonds targeted campaigns to areas of Vic that were Richmond heavy. We are doing the latter at the moment and have been for the last few years in targeting the Bayside and growing our presence in that area. What we need is a flag, and you will see how big of a football club we are.

A 14,000 person survey won't tell you that but some silverware definitely will.

 

[sunny3193]

That Morgan "research" surveyed only 14,353 people. Out of around a million club members, this is hardly evidence to suggest anything. Especially Sydney who apparently have 300,000 more supporters than West Coast and Richmond, haha.

I have seen with my own eyes AFL reports that show us on par with Richmond in terms of latent support. This was before the three flags, so let's say 75,000 is what we can achieve before a premiership.

Lastly it then becomes a subjective discussion of what you view as a large club. I would say 75,000 members puts us in that category.

And even if that incredibly small sample size from Ray Morgan holds true, we would only need 1 in 4 Saints supporters to become members to reach 75,000 (On that report Richmond are 1 in 5).

Pretty confident we can hit 55,000 this year and granted the on field performance keeps improving I can see us at somewhere in the 60,000's within the next 5 years. A premiership will catapult us into the 70's from there. You also have to take into consideration the Bayside is the most AFL active area in Victoria and we own it - I in 4 club members along the Bayside are St.Kilda members. From Port Melbourne to Portsea is the club target area for membership growth given the huge amount of St.Kilda support.

This year we are projected to increase membership by almost 20,000 from when Finnis took over (when we started to become a properly run club). A 20,000 increase just from a change in messaging because we sure as hell didn't increase anything through performance.

This year we are expected to increase membership by 3000 after a pandemic put us in a recession (we were already headed for one but that's another story lol). We haven't had this big of an increase since, funnily enough, last year, also a pandemic year, where we increased membership by 5000. Absolutely massive numbers even without the current financial climate. We have led the AFL for a few years now in member retention and that wasn't any more evident than last year where 99% of members retained their memberships and even chipped in to pay for others who couldn't afford it (we did this on here too), a sign of the support this club has.

Again, we had the same amount of support as Richmond in 2012, what changed since then is two things. Richmonds flags and Richmonds targeted campaigns to areas of Vic that were Richmond heavy. We are doing the latter at the moment and have been for the last few years in targeting the Bayside and growing our presence in that area. What we need is a flag, and you will see how big of a football club we are.

A 14,000 person survey won't tell you that but some silverware definitely will.

George,
I’d love for all that to be true but it ain’t.
You asked me for evidence.
I have quoted you two: one from the club’s own literature and the other is a publicly available survey.
Plus the words from our current President is in a post just above.
There is three independent and public sources for you: two of which are directly attributable to the club while the third supports them.
Your counter argument rests on information that you claim to have seen.
I‘m not doubting you, but in a discussion such as this you need better data to support your post.
We had the chance to be a power club in the 60’s and muffed it.
To be a power club now requires from us something we have not been able to deliver in a 150 years.
That’s not to discount that we might be a power club.
But it would require sustained and sustainable success both on and off the field for a generation.

 

[Joffaboy]

I would love for us or sunny to be actually proven wrong by the Saints winning a bloody flag

Then we can argue to our hearts content

 

[phantom13]

I think in terms of goals getting us to a point that we are self sustainable and paying off debt should be the goal.

75k members on being in the Richmond convo is a piper dream at this point, walk before you run.

 

[BrutThough]

George,
I’d love for all that to be true but it ain’t.
You asked me for evidence.
I have quoted you two: one from the club’s own literature and the other is a publicly available survey.
Plus the words from our current President is in a post just above.
There is three independent and public sources for you: two of which are directly attributable to the club while the third supports them.
Your counter argument rests on information that you claim to have seen.
I‘m not doubting you, but in a discussion such as this you need better data to support your post.
We had the chance to be a power club in the 60’s and muffed it.
To be a power club now requires from us something we have not been able to deliver in a 150 years.
That’s not to discount that we might be a power club.
But it would require sustained and sustainable success both on and off the field for a generation.

An article posted in here quotes our president saying the aim right now is to get us to between 60-70k members over the next few years.

If thats the current short-medium term goal, how is 75k completely unachievable if we were to win a premiership?

 

[George]

George,
I’d love for all that to be true but it ain’t.
You asked me for evidence.
I have quoted you two: one from the club’s own literature and the other is a publicly available survey.
Plus the words from our current President is in a post just above.
There is three independent and public sources for you: two of which are directly attributable to the club while the third supports them.
Your counter argument rests on information that you claim to have seen.
I‘m not doubting you, but in a discussion such as this you need better data to support your post.
We had the chance to be a power club in the 60’s and muffed it.
To be a power club now requires from us something we have not been able to deliver in a 150 years.
That’s not to discount that we might be a power club.
But it would require sustained and sustainable success both on and off the field for a generation.

A survey of 14,000 people is hardly evidence and when a club like Sydney allegedly has 300,000 more supporters than a club that just won 3 of the last 4 flags I think we should question the credibility of it. And you clearly do doubt what I say, it was in a 2015 report by the AFL on membership and support, which had us level with Richmond. I didn't say anything outlandish in my comment regarding this, so if you choose to not believe it that's fine.

As for the club saying our support was 280,000. It still doesn't make any difference to us being a huge club when you consider Richmond were level with us in supporter base and now have 100,000 members.

If there's any myth it's the myth that we don't have the support to become a big club (75k members).

I also don't understand the point of coming in here to what looks like an attempt to hose down any kind of momentum we have with information that can easily be disputed. You don't think we can be a big club. What do you classify as big? 75k? A flag will get us there easily.

 

[George]

An article posted in here quotes our president saying the aim right now is to get us to between 60-70k members over the next few years.

If thats the current short-medium term goal, how is 75k completely unachievable if we were to win a premiership?

Yes. Exponential growth.

 

[phantom13]

A survey of 14,000 people is hardly evidence and when a club like Sydney allegedly has 300,000 more supporters than a club that just won 3 of the last 4 flags I think we should question the credibility of it. And you clearly do doubt what I say, it was in a 2015 report by the AFL on membership and support, which had us level with Richmond. I didn't say anything outlandish in my comment regarding this, so if you choose to not believe it that's fine.

As for the club saying our support was 280,000. It still doesn't make any difference to us being a huge club when you consider Richmond were level with us in supporter base and now have 100,000 members.

If there's any myth it's the myth that we don't have the support to become a big club (75k members).

I also don't understand the point of coming in here to what looks like an attempt to hose down any kind of momentum we have with information that can easily be disputed. You don't think we can be a big club. What do you classify as big? 75k? A flag will get us there easily.

Sydney also has the bulk of a city of 5.2 million people as "supporters" (how many of them would be members is questionable) opposed Richmond who have to split 4.9 million people amongst 7 other clubs (arguably 8)