TV audiences vs Attendences, Priorities?

[shanegrambeau]

OK. Here comes another naive question from your favorite fringe ruckman from 1973. NRL has much smaller attendances and slightly higher TV audiences than AFL. I read that the last China game was expecting the highest audience ever, a paltry crowd and at least one minnow team.

St Kilda failed in their NZ experiment by what metric? We left Tasmania because why? (Is that a sentence?) I don’t want us to disadvantage ourselves or sacrifice four points for a buck, but what is going on? How is important is it for smaller teams to get a TV audience?

Perhaps we should host a game in St Kilda island in the outer Hebrides off Scotland. (It’s a national park, so , and takes three days to get there, not withstanding)

Seriously, for teams like Footscray, North Melbourne, Us and Melbourne... are numbers at games less important than numbers one TV compared to big hitters like Hawthorn, Collingwood, Essendon, Richmond and formely the rabble Carlton?

[Mr Magic]

TV numbers are a big item when selling yourself to prospective sponsors.
It's part of the pitch that :-
'your logo on our jumper was seen by 'x-million' viewers'

[chico2001]

You must keep winning to get prime time viewing and you must win to get your supporters to the game, if you continue to do this, then the team gets more exposure = memberships and sells more club gear and this puts money in the bank. Logos are important, easily seen on TV but at the game you don't look for then IMO. But why would a sponsor throw a million bucks at a team that is not winning and/or not competitive. If you keep winning , you are not a minnow. There will be various stats thrown up to dispute this.
Poor crowds at the NZ games although from memory one year the crowd was bigger than a few Suns and GWS games.
Cant compare to the NRL, they have lower crowds, also an international team. Would like to see crowd sizes for the Rugby union super 12, which is also an international competition.

Is Footescray still a team?

[skeptic]

For me, our major focus should shift to growing our membership base and attendances at games in view of the fact that we're not a successful team -
trying to draw members with the notion that we have a 5 year plan or some other crap just isn't going to work anymore at least until we look like a threat and even then, it's only a temporary flux.

The club needs to evolve it's approach to membership and make it more enticing to fans that are bandwagon supporters or not wanting to go to 11 games per season.

[rodgerfox]

Sometimes you just need to accept your lot in life.

St Kilda has a relatively small supporter base, and/or a demographic of supporter that doesn't particularly give a s*** about the footy.

Having low TV audiences and small crowds isn't anyone's fault necessarily, it's merely a symptom of the above.

Winning and being more successful than Richmond and Carlton for 30 years didn't change it. Nothing will ever change it.


So the question really should be:

How does the club increase its supporter base?

How do they change the demographic of their existing supporter base?

These are the only factors that influence fixturing.


I'd argue that the answer to the second question is 'you can't'.

I'd argue that the only way to increase the supporter base is if a club folds and we get their supporters, or we somehow find a new market out there. Like, I don't know...China or something?

And even then, by increasing your supporter base, you're not locking in 30 year die hards like the 50000 Essendon and Richmond ones that front up every weekend regardless.
You're basically going to be getting theatre goers or well wishers that will drop off just as quickly as they jumped on.
The die hard supporter is an antique. If you don't have them, you never will.


Sometimes, you've just got to accept your lot in life.

St Kilda will never, ever be a 'big club'. The system simply doesn't work like that.

[shanegrambeau]

Sometimes you just need to accept your lot in life.

St Kilda has a relatively small supporter base, and/or a demographic of supporter that doesn't particularly give a s*** about the footy.

Having low TV audiences and small crowds isn't anyone's fault necessarily, it's merely a symptom of the above.

Winning and being more successful than Richmond and Carlton for 30 years didn't change it. Nothing will ever change it.


So the question really should be:

How does the club increase its supporter base?

How do they change the demographic of their existing supporter base?

These are the only factors that influence fixturing.


I'd argue that the answer to the second question is 'you can't'.

I'd argue that the only way to increase the supporter base is if a club folds and we get their supporters, or we somehow find a new market out there. Like, I don't know...China or something?

And even then, by increasing your supporter base, you're not locking in 30 year die hards like the 50000 Essendon and Richmond ones that front up every weekend regardless.
You're basically going to be getting theatre goers or well wishers that will drop off just as quickly as they jumped on.
The die hard supporter is an antique. If you don't have them, you never will.


Sometimes, you've just got to accept your lot in life.

St Kilda will never, ever be a 'big club'. The system simply doesn't work like that.

Interesting. Let’s assume that it is fact.
The hardcore fan landscape is fossilized, forever. Hard core fans came from an era long gone, never to be repeated barring a calamity that blows up the internet and returns us to the days when entertainment=sport=cricket and footy.
Then back to the question, are we as a permanent minor small team, with a cast of rather fickle supporters who have a romance for the patchiness of our performance and a black sense of humor even if it is deep in the hearts it doesn’t translate into attendance or membership.

That being so, should we play only close to home and let the big teams and the new franchise teams fight for China New Zealand etc., or should or even could we market that romantic type of attitude and maybe pick up a few international fellow-fickle fans? Artistic types? In the way a guy like Phil Tufnel got loved overseas?

[rodgerfox]

That being so, should we play only close to home and let the big teams and the new franchise teams fight for China New Zealand etc., or should or even could we market that romantic type of attitude and maybe pick up a few international fellow-fickle fans? Artistic types? In the way a guy like Phil Tufnel got loved overseas?

I think the answer to that is....we do whatever the AFL tells us to do.