Which club has the smallest supporter base?

[Mr_Moogle]

At least Gold Coast have the excuse of being an expansion club in a non-footy state. Melbourne have had 162 years in the heartland of footy to make their mark.

 

[Cotchins Hair Piece]

At least Gold Coast have the excuse of being an expansion club in a non-footy state. Melbourne have had 162 years in the heartland of footy to make their mark.

There’s 9 other teams in Victoria to compete with. We were s**t and have mostly been s**t since the game became big for viewers watching from TV.

 

[Guju]

How can Melbourne be around for 160 something years and have barely any supporters?

Melbourne are very lucky.

If the AFL did not bail them out during their disastrous decade, then they would of been insolvent. As a result, the Dees are largely controlled by the AFL now.

They get better treatment than the other smaller VIC clubs, such as two marque games every year against other big VIC clubs, plus they get all home games at the mcg because of mcc component.

The Dees have an aging supporter base, as they wouldn't have picked up many new young fans over the last few decades. They are still living off their historical name/oldest football club/mcc values.

 

[ItsAllAboutMe]

This is true, however as much as it’s a cliche, it’s also a reality that they are the football club of choice for the toff and have many wealthy benefactors that will ensure their survival.

 

[00Stinger]

I'm pretty sue if you take out GWS & Gold Coast Melbourne actually have the lowest supporter base

Figures for the interstate teams can be misleading though especially for Sydney and Brisbane. Purely becaue most people in the city can say the barrack for those clubs but actually pay very little attention to the game

Ditto Melbourne Storm in the NRL. I follow the Storm and if I was asked who I barrack for I would say the Storm but my interest in the game/team is very little and I hardly watch any games. So should I really be counted?

 

[00Stinger]

Melbourne are very lucky.

If the AFL did not bail them out during their disastrous decade, then they would of been insolvent. As a result, the Dees are largely controlled by the AFL now.

They get better treatment than the other smaller VIC clubs, such as two marque games every year against other big VIC clubs, plus they get all home games at the mcg because of mcc component.

The Dees have an aging supporter base, as they wouldn't have picked up many new young fans over the last few decades. They are still living off their historical name/oldest football club/mcc values.

lol

We are still afloat because large influential and wealthy supporters have bailed us out a few times.

We also get our homes games at the MCG as it has been our home ground long before anyone else

 

[Daddoo]

The best way to measure true support nationally for clubs is to count the social media numbers, followers for all of their SM channels. This gives a real genuine idea of support, who can be bothered to do this?

Not sure I agree with this. There are a ton of old supporters who don't follow any of the teams social media. My dad and I being two of them. I don't Facebook. I don't have a twitter account. I don't have an instagram account. But I am a Freo member. Believe it or not, you young whipper snapper, social media is not everything. lol.

 

[What else we can do]

Not sure I agree with this. There are a ton of old supporters who don't follow any of the teams social media. My dad and I being two of them. I don't Facebook. I don't have a twitter account. I don't have an instagram account. But I am a Freo member. Believe it or not, you young whipper snapper, social media is not everything. lol.

You need to include all measures not just social media. Eg facebook: hawthorn overall do not have 1 thousand less followers than Essendon lol or more followers than west coast, richmond, and carlton.

 

[What else we can do]

Smallest to biggest
1. Gold Coast
2. GWS
3. NM
4. WB
5. MEL FC
6.PA
7.Saints
8. Freo
9. BLions
10. Swans
11. Cats
12. Hawks
13. Tigers
14. Crows
15. Bombers
16. Blues
17. Magpies
18. WCE

 

[SunshineBoy]

Population of South Australia is just above 1.5mil, of the people that follow footy in SA which is generally about 50% of the population I would say 1/2 folow the crows, 1/4 follow Port and 1/4 follow other Vic or WA based teams.

No self respecting South Australian would follow a Victorian club. Just saying

 

[footyfan1978]

When I was a kid at primary school was hard to find many Fitzroy supporters. If you had 30 kids in class, probably over half in my area of Yarra Valley seemed to go for Carlton, Richmond or Hawthorn. Strangely only remember one kid going for Collingwood in my class back then, so they must live in other areas of Melbourne in vast numbers. As you got closer to Ringwood you would find more Essendon fans. The rest of kids grew up with from school years were sprinkled between the other 5 Vic based clubs. From what I understand Saints have a lot more supporters towards inner suburbs and south east bay areas than they did out my way and similar down other side of Port Philip Bay you got a lot more Geelong supporters. Western suburbs probably had more Footscray fans.
Demons fans seemed to be private school inner city suburb set historically.

in 2020 I suspect not a whole lot changes apart from the old club zones are gone so some areas they were strongly one club are probably less dominant as once were. Fitzroy no longer have an AFL club so their fans almost dying out with the Bert Newton's of the world. It still hard to come across many Demons, North, Dogs and Saints fans unless I at games live where they attend. If I ever come across a fan of a cliub from interstate it is a West Aussie or South Aussie living here going for Eagles or Crows. Oh, hang on have meet one Dockers supporters but no Port fans. Sydney have the odd old South fan going for Swans and a few Sydney siders living here they go for them. So interstate from other traditional footy states Dockes and Port numbers must be lowest from those states and probably overall I suspect clubs like Port and Dockers struggle to grow their real fan base much like North and Demons do here in Victoria.

If I talking true supporter bases and not membership number sales I suspect Port or North have smallest supporter bases in traditional footy states. Naturally in the non-traditional footy states Suns and Giants growing from nothing last decade have even smaller fan bases but to be expected given they are relatively brand new clubs with no supporter bases to even start with.

 

[footyfan1978]

No self respecting South Australian would follow a Victorian club. Just saying

Is there such a thing ?

 

[Farang83150]

Melbourne are very lucky.

If the AFL did not bail them out during their disastrous decade, then they would of been insolvent. As a result, the Dees are largely controlled by the AFL now.

They get better treatment than the other smaller VIC clubs, such as two marque games every year against other big VIC clubs, plus they get all home games at the mcg because of mcc component.

The Dees have an aging supporter base, as they wouldn't have picked up many new young fans over the last few decades. They are still living off their historical name/oldest football club/mcc values.

Nailed it, but how can a club be around for so long and have so little fans, may well be some kind of record!

 

[Bomberboyokay]

If it was location based North Melbourne is a no brainer, however could also mount a case for Richmond & Carlton.

North just purely in location size does not have enough residents in the area to be relevant, is jammed between Essendon which dominates everywhere from Ascot Vale - Tullamarine in that innner and outer north west and The Bulldogs which has everything from Footscray out to Werribee in the west..

You're stuck in the past if you think training location means anything for Melbourne clubs.

 

[projectv]

Well we have the dwarfism market cornered, so it surely must be the Saints.

 

[Great8]

No self respecting South Australian would follow a Victorian club. Just saying

I do.
Lifetime Norwood supporter and member for 40 plus years.
Essendon supporter and member for close to the same length of time.
Cant stand either SA sides

 

[SunshineBoy]

I do.
Lifetime Norwood supporter and member for 40 plus years.
Essendon supporter and member for close to the same length of time.
Cant stand either SA sides

A south Australian an essendon supporter that makes sense

 

[Great8]

A south Australian an essendon supporter that makes sense

The old man used to spend his time working between his Adelaide and Melbourne offices and my first VFL game of football he took me to was the 83 GF as an 8yo. Despite the result I got hooked on Essendon despite not knowing a lot about the VFL or the club apart from the occasional game on TV. From that point on I started going to more games and the TV coverage got better over here and here we are now. When I’m not working OS I travel over normally about a dozen times a year. Believe it or not there are plenty of South Australians who don’t like either of the teams here