No more Club memberships ....TV Subscriptions only.

[Port Adelaide 1870]

According to a radio report...

With in 15 years Club memberships will no longer be a priority or economic for clubs to maintain.

Subscriptions will be available to supporters ..for minimum base packages of $ 200- $300, todays money.

Football stadiums will be too costly to maintain and continue to expand. Current seating will be for Corporate Sponsors, guests, Families, Football officials etc.

No more money need be spent on stadiums upgrading etc.

No need to try and extract money from fans for memberships and entry fees to grounds etc.

T.V subscriptions to Club only channels, will allow you to view all your clubs games
plus 24 hour interactive Club programs, player interaction, access to old games, Walk thru your club, and a whole host of other interactive facilities to add value for money.

Subscription T.V. will replace membership or be a form of membership..You can watch your game on Digital T.V., pick any player on field and have 2 or 3 cameras follow him, Have access to a number of cameras around the ground that you can access on screen at any one time..stats etc.

Also you can acces thru your club , special purchasing credit cards that will allow you purchase rights through your club subscription..i.e Digital TV purchasing, your club will then have access to your purchasing patterns, your age, your job description, your salary....they can then target your computer/T.V. ..You for special offers or upgrades they can sell you..


If you dont want to subscribe.......read about your club in the Paper.


What do you think ?

PA1870

 

[Mudholian]

I think Carlton's victory in the legal wars last year indicates that forward thinkig clubs see the future as being about expanding and diversifying the way people can watch football and form some association with a club. Virtual memberships are a certainity, however virtual premierships still don't count.
MH

 

[AlfAndrews]

This vision of the the future is horrific. But it's also probably pretty close to spot-on. I'm sure this is something like what it's coming to.

As for me ... when I can't afford to go to matches any more, I will lose interest.

And that day is very close, I might add.



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**floreat pica**

 

[CJH]

PA1870 - Who / Where was this report made?

The vision contained in this scenario will seem to make going to the football a sterile clinical experience, as will probably watching it on TV.

While I don't doubt that TV Memberships will become a reality, I don't think that crowds will suffer.

English Premier League who are much more advanced in this than us still seem to draw healthy crowds for most matches and are intent on continual stadium development (Middlesborough, Southhampton and Fulham are 3 that spring to mind (OK Fulham will soon be premier league1))


------------------
This is a hallucination and these faces are in a dream. A computer generated environment; a fantasy island you can do anything and not have to face the consequences.

 

[Grendel]

Alf, again im with you. What a dire version of the future. Its like something out of 1984, except were being made to watch by BigBrother, instead of watching him.

Hopefully this is another scenario that the pundits have wrongly predicted. At least im hoping so, i guess worst comes to worst, i coudld be dead in 15 years so id never have to witness it first hand.

 

[WCE_2000]

I'M WITH ALF ON THIS ONE

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

Total rubbish

Yes, in the coming age of a better, faster, high capacity Internet, you will be able to do all those things, and clubs will relish the opportunity to value add the Footy product for those supporters who wish to subscribe.

But live footy is not dead - and won't die in a hurry either.

Anyone with even a passing interest in this game would know that its greatest appeal is in its Live spectacle. The fact that Aussie Rules is best enjoyed live is something that is not lost on most footy supporters - and they will vote with thier feet and still turn up in droves to watch their club.

The Datacasting and access to the World Wide Web via your Digital TV will be the standard broadcast format for the next 20 years or so - of course footy clubs will be looking to exploit this technology to add value to their product and broaden their revenue base, but to people who think this spells the end of the world as we know it - well, jeeeez, LIGHTEN UP GUYS

cheers

 

[Phil Doyle]

In the latest issue of Overland I have an article about the corporatisation of the major Australian Football codes. i quote from an earlier interview i did with Phil Cleary during the Republican debate.
"The greatest change that’s occurred has been between the clubs, the barrackers and the territory." Says Cleary of football over the
last 25 years. "That connection in many ways is very wobbly now. In some aspects it’s been severed, and there’s been an interception by
television."
"The game’s been transformed more into a television entity. This is something we have to worry about. We need the exposure of
television to a wide audience. But you must be careful not to undermine the tribal
relationship between territories and people with the game of football. Because if you do the game’s tenure will be based on it’s television audience."
"In a global world television audiences are volatile, if you don’t have the great strength of the tribalism to protect you, to fortify you, then you can find yourself in pretty vulnerable territory."

Ironically Cleary himself is a television commentator. i think in the whole he's right. the marketing gurus that service Jolimont think they're packaging a seasonal product like Ice Cream, or pies. 16 different flavours of the same product. But what they are in fact selling is passion, and unfortunately that passion isn't theirs to begin with.
I was watching footage from the Richmond v Carlton grand Final from the early seventies and the boundary fence was plastered in signs from fans of both teams exhorting their sides passionately. MIGHTY BLUES! TERRIFIC TIGERS! try doing that today!
your sign will be removed by some Gorillas with a wire hanging out of their ear. And if you have a problem with that then you'll be removed as well.
It is no longer 'our' culture.
And what have we recieved in return?
A santised game that is produced by and for a corporate marketing machine.
If you want to live in a fascist state that's your business. But to watch something that was built by the very real sacrifice of generations of Australians being used to make some slick yuppies richer is truly sickening.
And if you think it's fine then why don't you piss off back to the United States where you belong.
And anyone that thinks that the direction of the game is helping grass roots football must have very little involvement with it.
Bunch of sheep, that's what you are. A bunch of bloody sheep.
Wake up to yourselves!

Phil


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Remonstrating with the goal umpire

 

[AlfAndrews]

Well said, Phil Doyle.

------------------
**floreat pica**

 

[Ms.Storm]

Phil,
I really enjoyed reading your post.
It is so TRUE.

Its happening before our own eyes and not many can see it.
Cheers
GO DEMONS
GO THE STORM

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

More emotive, irrational rubbish from Cleary

Phil if you really truly believe the game has been taken away from the 'people' - why do you still follow it ?

Why does anyone still follow it ?

The same thing is happening in Rugby League - several very high profile South Sydney supporters vowed never to watch another game of Rugby League ever again if Souths were thrown out of the NRL.

And thats exactly what has happened - true to their word, these supporters don't watch any Rugby League anymore.

Phil if you really, truly think that Australian Rules Football has been hi-jacked by big business and has lost the support of so-called ordinary old fashioned supporters such as yourself, well, why don't put your money where your mouth is and boycott the game ?

Of course I doubt whether you will - wanna know why ?

because you, like me, are a footy fan and you can't get enough of it.

Think footy is crap these days ? - yeah right, try doing without it and then we'll see whether you really mean it or whether you are just another Victorian having a whinge -

"oh boo hoo those nasty suits have taken my little suburban game away from me and turned it into a national sport - oh boo hoo"

Don't like it ? - don't watch it.

Simple

 

[Same Old's]

Originally posted by Phil Doyle:
And if you think it's fine then why don't you piss off back to the United States where you belong.

What's the United States got to do with this?

 

[ptw]

Phil

gotta say I agree with BSA....

I would guess that in the past you have watched a game of footy on the telly ???

Everyone who watches footy on the telly is part of the "problem", and I think that means all of us....the more passionate you are about the game, the more matches you watch on the telly, and the more you contribute to the changing of the game.

Now....

the fact is that Telly raises more money than entrance fees...take the total attendance last year (say 6 Mill) multiplied by $15 = $90 Mill). The TV rights have just been sold for $100 Mill p.a. This is a fact...you cannot sitck your head in the sand and say you want it back the old way, and still watch games on the telly...once you do that you increase the number of ads you also watch and away you go.

Victorian clubs (and some fans) are getting what they deserve. You wanted a national comp (most of you not all) and you decided the best way of doing that was to expand the VFL rather than start again and leave the VFL in place. That means that as the national comp changes with the times so does Essendon (or not in the case of the Roys).

Me....I follow Port. I can watch Port Adelaide "Power" at the ground for a large price and on the telly repeated 5 times a week if a want. Then I can take my kids to Alberton and watch the Magpies play and drink beer from a can and go onto the ground at 3/4 time.

If you follow the Saints you cannot (although this is what they are trying to do in the VFL) since you (or your club) decided that the way to a national comp with all that entails was to expand the VFL....sorry but you make your bed and you lie in it.

ptw

 

[Phil Doyle]

BSA and ptw,

First of all football is emotional rubbish. That's why I love it.
Have you ever actually met Wayne Jackson and, another genius administrator, Ken Gannon?
I've interviewed both of them in regards to footy, and the views and perspective of these men is truly frightening.
I think you're both missing a fundamental point.
Football is not a privately owned product. It does not belong to these people. Yet they trade it like it was a quarter acre block on Collins Street.
Yes, I will continue to watch football, but like many others I no longer contribute financially to the game.
Of course, the AFL can survive without our humble support - after all they've gone to great pains to replace it with the corporate dollar. But do you think that the corporate dollar is motivated by 'emotional rubbish'? Of course not!
They want their pound of flesh.
It might be hard for you to imagine, but nothing is cast in stone once you embrace great changes. There is no guarantee at all that News Limited will be around in five years, let along fifty, or a hundred. Yet Rugby League, for one, is literally banking on this being the case.
BSA, you state that the value of football, as a commodity, always rises. If that's the case then can you explain PBL's share price over the last seven days? Unfortunately for those who think the market is our saviour there is this uncomfortable concept called gravity.
Now footy has placed itself in the pocket of PBL. I have an intimate knowledge of the workings of this particular organisation and if you think that they will act in the best interests of football you're mistaken.
It's the tribalism, the traditions and the heritage of football that make it worth the dollar value that these people are trying to place on the game. And these people have done nothing to contribute to any of those things. in fact, they've dispensed with and ignored them when it has been in their machiavellian interests.
I continue to watch football because I've played the game, I have a keen sense of irony and I refuse to accept that it is not mine to enjoy as I see fit. If nothing else it's a fabulous example of why John Singleton said; 'No one ever went broke treating the Australian public as complete idiots'.
Maybe concepts like culture and community aren't high on your list of priorities, but for me these things are integral to having anything like a worthwhile society.
If I give up on football I give up on a lot more than thirty six blokes chasing a pig skin around. And it would be a sad sterile world if the only measure of worth was a people who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.

 

[Robert Besborrows]

I started following football in 1989,
I had never really liked or understood the game up until my mate asked me to play the game, but once I got invovled I loved it,
I read as many books as I could find on the game, I read about the history and anything I could find out about the game,
I watched as many video's as I could, and on grand final eve I would set up my video and tape as many old games as I could from the Football marathon,
I would eat sleep and breath the game, The first game I saw was Collingwood V's Melbourne at VFL park back in 1990, althought I didn't actually watch much of the game as I spent most my time walking around the great stadium,
But it was an awesome feeling when I walked underneath the second level stand and saw the playing arena,
Ok this may seem a bit boring and a bit meaningless but for me it was something I will never forget,
I played the game for about 6 years until I finally relised that I wasn't much good at it and also because I wanted to go and watch the game in Melbourne,
I've saw games at the Western Oval, Princess Park and the MCG, and dare I say it that evil heap of crap next to Spenser ST The Craplands, I used to travel from the LAtrobe Valley and when you don't have a lot of cash to spare you want to get the most out of your money, I used to love the game, but as far as Im concered when Footscray left the Western Oval (and changed the name not taking anything away from the great man Ted Whitten) and when Fitzroy Folded my interest in the game started to go, and for me the closing of Wavelery Park was the final straw.
Im a passionate person, Players are over paid, the real supporters the ones who have followed the game all there life are being have have been screwed over by heartless money grabbing bastards,
As far as Im concerned the only way Football will survive in Victoria is for the AFL to fold, At least then a new league could be started, I can't see this happening but I think its the only way football can return to the people of Victoria, I don't know how the AFL has affected other interstate league clubs and to be totally honest I don't really care, Football is a VICTORIAN GAME, Not and AUSTRALIAN game, lets just get this point sorted out now, Just becuase other states have adopted the game as there main sport its still VICTORIAN, at least Sir Kennith Luke had Victorian football at heart, Other wise Waverley would never had been built, and if it wasn't for The state governments and the MCG Waverley would be the biggest stadium in Australia right now,
So Up yours wanye die you bastard and too all the other arse holes out there who agree with the AFL get F Ucked

 

[ptw]

Originally posted by Robert Besborrows:
Football is a VICTORIAN GAME, Not and AUSTRALIAN game, lets just get this point sorted out now, Just becuase other states have adopted the game as there main sport its still VICTORIAN, at least Sir Kennith Luke had Victorian football at heart

oh is it now....???

funny....I thought it had been played in S.A. for about 130 years !!!!


ptw

 

[Mudholian]

Originally posted by ptw:
oh is it now....???

funny....I thought it had been played in S.A. for about 130 years !!!!


ptw

Correct. The rules adapted by Wills were in use by Acraman in SA from 1854, or 4 years before Wills used them.
Mud

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

Football a Victorian game ptw ?

Oh and I suppose you don't want anybody else playing it then ?

Attitudes like that very nearly killed this game stone dead. If you really love footy like you say you do then how could you subscribe to such asmall minded, petty and stupid contention.

This game is bigger than you or me, its bigger than Victoria in fact its bigger than Australia itself.

What exactly is your point ?

Oh and BTW I'll debate the origins and history of this game with you anytime mate because quite simply you are WRONG.

cheers

 

[ptw]

BSA

MAAAATE !!!

Think you have got the worng person there BSA...suggest you read the posts again. I am the last person on this board who would suggest such a thing (just ask Dan !!)

I will accept your written apology in the morning.

ptw

 

[Carey_is_King]

Originally posted by CJH:
PA1870 - Who / Where was this report made?

The vision contained in this scenario will seem to make going to the football a sterile clinical experience, as will probably watching it on TV.

While I don't doubt that TV Memberships will become a reality, I don't think that crowds will suffer.

CJH,
Remember our debate (27 Dec) about my theory that clubs would be less and less reliant on memberships in the future. This report sounds like more of what I was saying. Doesn't make it right, of course, but at least I am not the only one thinking this way.



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Trample the Weak,
Hurdle the Dead.

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

ptw

oops - i fu*ked up - it was the other guy saying that stuff, not you.

sorry !

 

[Mudholian]

Originally posted by Bloodstained Angel:
ptw

oops - i fu*ked up - it was the other guy saying that stuff, not you.

sorry !

Well if I was the other guy bring it on Mr Angel. Should be fun.
Mud

 

[Pessimistic]

Amid all the hype about TV rights etc I have thought for a bit and find it weird that no-one has pointed out that this is a good old fashioned price rise for consumers (footy fans). This will manifest itself in a few ways(and some we haven't even thought of yet)

- Footy fans will need to subscribe to foxtel to see certain games of footy. Which isn't so bad but you have to buy the standard foxtel rubbish then purchase footy as an 'extra'. Its like me having to buy a seson ticket to KFC and Hoyts before I can buy a footy ticket WHY CANT YOU JUST BUY THE FOOTY CHANNEL

- Perhaps ad breaks after every goal rather than every other goal.

-etc etc.

And most of this money will go to paying players more, or paying salaries for old hack players and coaches who now seem to be able to get another 'cushy' job somewhere.

Very little will go to support the clubs, in fact the fer is the AFL will build up a 'war chest' to fund relocating clubs to somewhere dubious like southport (Southport pokieaddicts FC)

NOT HAPPY WAYNE

 

[Silver]

I'm not too sure that we have to seriously worrie about memberships and crowds becoming obsolute(sp??). In about 10-20 years when pay per view becomes common, clubs will prolly need about 30-40,000 members at an inflated cost of about 150-200 dollars, which is about $6mil. Even with the aus dollar the way it is, that is a heck of a lot of money

p.s. this is my first post so i would just like to say "Hi"

 

[Same Old's]

Originally posted by Pessimistic:
Footy fans will need to subscribe to foxtel to see certain games of footy. Which isn't so bad but you have to buy the standard foxtel rubbish then purchase footy as an 'extra'. Its like me having to buy a seson ticket to KFC and Hoyts before I can buy a footy ticket WHY CANT YOU JUST BUY THE FOOTY CHANNEL

I'm not sure if you going to have to pay "extra" to see football. You'll have to pay the basic subscription rate, of course but since Fox Sports is on the basic cable package then you won't have pay extra. However, Foxtel could always change this.

I thought one of the reasons the AFL gave the pay tv rights to Fox Sports was that it was available on the basic cable package on Foxtel.