Nick and his other Nick’s turns over a new leaf.

[CQ SAINT]

The seats were more than likely paid for but not filled. Thats called 'sold out.

No, that's called '1700' people didn't show up.

It's incredibly naive to think that all the seats at Docklands are owned by footy fans let alone Saints or Geelong fans. It was a home and away fixture, not AN All league Grand final or an NRL State of Origin. But whatever you believe to be true is fine. People can't fill seats they can't buy.

[samuraisaint]

That's just misguided and incorrect fantasy.

I don't mean to be rude, but that's the exact delusion I was referring to.

Smart, intelligent, resourceful people - lose their ninds when talking about their football club.


I don't know where to start - aside frim the above post where ut shows as clear as day that we never have drawn big crowds.

Sydney moved states to grow thrir supporter base FFS. We could have done the same if we went to the Gold Coast.

Hawthorn grew their base 60 years ago! Different times.

The fans they collected in the 80s are bandwagonners and drop off very fast. Fact: they lost 28% of tbeir supporter base between 2018 and 2019!

The other thing to note, is back in the 80s there was only 1 game on TV each week. So good teams could actually lure supporters. Now, the big clubs get primetime - not the good teams. So even when they suck, the big drawi g clubs get the eyeballs.

This is no mistake. The AFL don't hide away from their trickle down economic strategy.


The Bulldogs played in prelims for a few years, then backed it up with a flag 10 years later. Their supporter base grew by about 20% after the flag - then dropped by 21% last year!


It's a myth.


Let's be ridiculous for a second, and pretend that we can somehow, magically buck the trend of the past 100 years and grow our supporter base faster than the big clubs. Let's pretend.

Then pretend we could somehow score 10000 more than all of them per year, somehow.

Firstly, in order to do that, we'd have to what no Victorian club has ever done before and that is grow their supporter base every year.

Then even if we magically bucked that trend - we'd have do it for 15 straight years to have the same supporter base as Richmond!

So that's assuming they don't grow at all (even with blockbuster fixtures every 2nd week) and we add 10000 new supporters every year!!!

It's just a laughable notiin when you remove the emotion from discussion, and consider reality.

Loving the debate on here. This is what Saintsational is meant to be for. I hope our CEO and President are reading.

Back to the discussion at hand; I am not suggesting that we are some sleeping juggernaut of the AFL, just that we have over 300,000 supporters and we are located in a very important location for the AFL strategically.

Richmond in the 90s struggled to get supporters - they nearly folded - remember SOS - Save Our Skins?

Hawthorn nearly merged due to lack of supporters in 1996 - they nearly merged with Melbourne who were the stronger partner in the merger - they were going to wear Melbourne jumpers! Don Scott rallied some influential bean counters to save them. That wasn't 60 years ago - just over 20.

'Dogs nearly merged with the 'Roys, with Fitzroy being the dominant club in that merger proposal at the time.

Geelong was in dire straits financially until Frank Costa came along and ressurected the club in the early 2000s.

We had to rattle the tins in the mid-90s too - and then two years later nearly won a Flag!

All of these examples are ways in which meaningful change has occurred at football clubs, bucking trends at the time.

But that is not really the point of my posts on this thread. My point is that playing BS matches in China, or New Zealand are not beneficial to us. We are being told on one hand that the club will just concentrate on winning games of footy but then we are told that we are playing a home game annually for the next three seasons at least against probably our most feared hoodoo opponent in the far off northern hemisphere. Doesn't add up for mine.

My take on this is simply that we should be compensated for these matches properly in the form of an academy/zone/proper funding etc because the reason we have to play at these ridiculous venues is because of our prohibitive Docklands Stadium deal which has been slowly strangling our club for twenty years.
If we are not being adequately compensated both in terms of talent and $$$ then we shouldn't be doing these things. Pure and simple.

Personally, I am quite happy just rocking up to matches and going with family and mates to see the Saints, win, lose or draw. In that way, I am probably a bit of a dinosaur. But if my home games are taken away then I do expect the team to have a good chance of winning - that is my point. I expect that if home games are sold off then I can at least expect the team to be competitive in them so that I can enjoy watching the match on TV.

[samuraisaint]

The seats were more than likely paid for but not filled. Thats called 'sold out.

No, that's called '1700' people didn't show up.

It's incredibly naive to think that all the seats at Docklands are owned by footy fans let alone Saints or Geelong fans. It was a home and away fixture, not AN All league Grand final or an NRL State of Origin. But whatever you believe to be true is fine. People can't fill seats they can't buy.

And during this period we are talking about, the late 2000s-2010 St Kilda was the most-widely watched AFL team on television. I remember that being reported at the time.

[asiu]

there was a great piece posted many years ago
that divided the ‘supporters’ of Afl clubs
into their socio economic boxes

we are loved by lefties , hippies , artists , musicians ,
no hopers , social workers , sex workers , health workers , dreamers and right wing fascists in training

quite the mix i thought
one can see how there could be a ‘latent supporter base’
of big numbers
... but getting a buck out of the above crowd
would be difficult for any marketeer

especially , if they are not , one of the above mobs

[BarryGrogan]

The seats were more than likely paid for but not filled. Thats called 'sold out.

No, that's called '1700' people didn't show up.

It's incredibly naive to think that all the seats at Docklands are owned by footy fans let alone Saints or Geelong fans. It was a home and away fixture, not AN All league Grand final or an NRL State of Origin. But whatever you believe to be true is fine. People can't fill seats they can't buy.

And during this period we are talking about, the late 2000s-2010 St Kilda was the most-widely watched AFL team on television. I remember that being reported at the time.

Firstly, I find that hard to believe.

However having said that, even if that is remotely true, that's really the case in point - Saints fans don't show up. When it comes down to it, going to the footy isn't the biggest priority in their lives.


And regarding China - if people watch the Saints on TV but don't rock up to games...doesn't that make us the ideal candidate for TV games like the China one?

[BarryGrogan]

Loving the debate on here. This is what Saintsational is meant to be for. I hope our CEO and President are reading.

Back to the discussion at hand; I am not suggesting that we are some sleeping juggernaut of the AFL, just that we have over 300,000 supporters and we are located in a very important location for the AFL strategically.

Richmond in the 90s struggled to get supporters - they nearly folded - remember SOS - Save Our Skins?

Hawthorn nearly merged due to lack of supporters in 1996 - they nearly merged with Melbourne who were the stronger partner in the merger - they were going to wear Melbourne jumpers! Don Scott rallied some influential bean counters to save them. That wasn't 60 years ago - just over 20.

'Dogs nearly merged with the 'Roys, with Fitzroy being the dominant club in that merger proposal at the time.

Geelong was in dire straits financially until Frank Costa came along and ressurected the club in the early 2000s.

We had to rattle the tins in the mid-90s too - and then two years later nearly won a Flag!

All of these examples are ways in which meaningful change has occurred at football clubs, bucking trends at the time.

My point is, that these clubs didn't grow their supporter base at all.

The bases of all clubs was built decades ago. In some cases 100 years ago.

It doesn't change much.

Hawthorn didn't 'find' 100000 new supporters to get them out of the merger era.

They have a large supporter base that was grown decades ago based on religious ties (I think they were a Protestant club?) and is a genuine bandwagon supporter base.

According the Morgan poll, their supporter base dropped 30% last year! The AFL have sacked them from 'big fixtures' already too.


Geelong obviously have an entire city as their supporter base. They have always been a huge club in this regard. The new ground paid for my the government to give the people down there something to do with their lives is how they've turned the huge supporter base into financial results.

And they, along with other 'single city' teams can actually grow their supporter base as the population of that city grows. However the reason these clubs are 'single city' is because no one really gives a f*** about the footy there. Hence Sydney having a huge supporter base - but tiny crowds.

Geelong, WA and Adelaide obviously don't fit that criteria.



We didn't start as a religious club that built a large supporter base off the back of it, we didn't start as a club in a densely populated inner city suburb where life sucked and footy was the only outlet.

And for Victorian clubs it's never really changed since.


But the biggest factor, is that Saints fans have better s*** to do. There's more important things in life.

That doesn't apply to Collingwood, Richmond, Carlton and Essendin fans. Those fuckers live and breathe the s***. They're tragic.

The facts are, they show up in bigger numbers when they're at the bottom of the ladder, than Saints fans do when we're on top.

And when they're on top, the numbers are insane.

The AFL know this.

They know that a big Richmond = big $$. Whereas a big St Kilda = meh.

A big Essendon and a big Richmond = massive f****** $$$! So massive that it allows them to use the money to keep small clubs alive and makes the league a juggernaut. They know that this would not be the case if they were reliant on St Kilda's fans to generate the same crowds and interest.
They also know that they need the small clubs alive in order to give the big clubs someone to play against and the TV channels 9 games to show each weekend.


So I really don't think the AFL give a stuff where, when or who we play. As long as it doesn't detract from the big clubs drawing huge numbers in 'Blockbusters' - and as long as the 200-300k fans don't turn off the TV and start following another sport then I don't think the AFL cares.

China, NZ, Tassie, Ballarat, Darwin - who gives a f***.

[skeptic]

Agree to a point... I think however that you can build a supporter base and grow it with sustained success over an extended period of time

The reason ours isn’t as big is because we’ve never had it. A big chunk of our supporter base now grew around Moorabbin in the 60s era... go figure right.

If we’d won some flags over the noughties and played finals since... IMO we’d be looking a lot bigger

[BarryGrogan]

If we’d won some flags over the noughties and played finals since... IMO we’d be looking a lot bigger

So where would have these new supporters appeared from?


The only thing that may have happened, may have, is that winning flags may have turmed the average Saints fan from a well wisher into a rabid supporter.

But I doubt it.


The Bulldogs won a flag, amd according to the Morgan poll, their base is the same now as it was prior.

[saynta]

Hey Barry can you tell me which team you really barrack for? You know, the one where you don't put s*** on the team or it's supporters.

Just asking.

[skeptic]

If we’d won some flags over the noughties and played finals since... IMO we’d be looking a lot bigger

So where would have these new supporters appeared from?


The only thing that may have happened, may have, is that winning flags may have turmed the average Saints fan from a well wisher into a rabid supporter.

But I doubt it.


The Bulldogs won a flag, amd according to the Morgan poll, their base is the same now as it was prior.

You miss the point... it’s not a one off flag. That’s not enough to build a supporter base.

People generally go to sport because they enjoy it and they gravitate towards teams that they enjoy watching.
Usually enjoying watching your team goes hand in hand with winning more often than you don’t.

When ppl first start watching, that’s when they identify what they do and don’t like hence to build a base and keep them entertained and engaged, winning over an extended period a key ingredient (along with a plethora of other things).

Most popular clubs in the AFL -
Collingwood
Essendon
Richmond
Geelong
Hawthorn
West coast

Because they’re generally contenders

Of that list, only Essendon aren’t the force that they once were along with Carlton as a dry patch + scandal has set the club back.

The Bulldogs fluking a flag and disappearing into the wilderness isn’t enough.

You want to attract and build a base you need to do it over years... a decade at least

[BarryGrogan]

When ppl first start watching, that’s when they identify what they do and don’t like hence to build a base and keep them entertained and engaged, winning over an extended period a key ingredient (along with a plethora of other things).

Most popular clubs in the AFL -
Collingwood
Essendon
Richmond
Geelong
Hawthorn
West coast

Because they’re generally contenders

Of that list, only Essendon aren’t the force that they once were along with Carlton as a dry patch + scandal has set the club back.

The Bulldogs fluking a flag and disappearing into the wilderness isn’t enough.

You want to attract and build a base you need to do it over years... a decade at least

That's just not true.

That's exactly what I'm saying is not true.

Those 'big clubs' are big because they have always had a large base. When they were created 100 years ago they had huge tribal bases.
They had the big supporter base - which meamt they had the money. Having the money meamt they had the players.

We didn't. North didn't. South didn't.

Nothing's changed FFS!! They still do - and we still don't!!

Richmond didn't win a final for 20 years - whilst we played finals for a decade and played off in 2 GFs and their supporter and crowds were still bigger than ours!


What you're saying is just factually incorrect.



Even in the US, teams have to relocate to increase their base. There are the 'big market' teams, then there's the rest. They attract fans when they are contending, thenose them just as quickly when they're not. But their base remains small. Many end up moving to find more fans as the concept of 'building a base' from an existing demographic is a myth.

Meanwhile, the big market teams still have a huge base no matter what.


That's what's just so ridiculous about people on here talking about building a supporter base from a town that already has 8 teams!!

Where the f*** are these new supporters meant to appear from??

[BarryGrogan]

Of that list, only Essendon aren’t the force that they once were along with Carlton as a dry patch + scandal has set the club back.

Did you not see the crowd numbers for these ckubs earlier in the thread?

Did you not read see the Morgan poll for supporter numbers??

Carlton and Essendon have sucked for years, cheated the salary cap, and had their whole team basiacally sit out an entrie season - yet their base and crowd numbers still dwarf ours!


The base doesn't change. It hasn't for 100 years.

[Sanctorum]

We can argue all we like about the what's and wherefor's of supporter bases until the proverbial cows come home, at the end of the day it is all about prolonged and sustained on-field success. Win games and get to play finals consistently over a number of consecutive years and the crowds will come flooding back - witness the Brisbane Lions in 2019. Become successful and the media will trumpet your glories, regularly, everyone loves to read about champions of sport, it sells newspapers and magazines both print and digital.

Yes, in professional team sports it will always be the case that the rich clubs get richer and there will always be a hierarchy of traditional clubs that are elite and we just have to accept the fact that St Kilda has never, nor is likely ever to become one. It is what I personally find so endearing about supporting the Saints, they are perennial under-achievers, so expectations are never high but when they start to string a few wins together, man, that is just terrific and makes me feel so immensely proud.

OK, that will be seen as pathetic by some but who cares, I just love my footy club! Despite this soul-baring, I do enjoy the cut and thrust of debate on this forum about the fortunes (and mis-) of St Kilda, so long as it is conducted civilly and without abuse and rancour; everyone is entitled to express an opinion and we are after all, each and everyone of us, an expert until proven otherwise!!

[barneyboyz]

Don't we hold the record for the largest crowd at Docklands. How did that happen?

Is is simple really. At the height of our popularity in recent times, playing a Victorian team in a Stadium that only fits 55,000. Our supporters turned up.

Considering the A-League squeezed 55436, and the NRL got over 56000 - it's actually a real insight that we couldn't fill it.

Sorry, if we were the only club (aka NRL) OR one of only two clubs (aka A-League) we'd fill the bastard twice every week. If Melbourne Storm had to compete with a club from Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Richmond and to a degree Geelong, do you think they'd still fill it? even once a year?

In reality the Saints do pretty darn good for a club that's only won a single premiership, when you have a good hard think about it. Things aren't going to change real fast, but if the competition ever expands further, say to Tassie or somewhere up north, we don't need to be letting the Kanga's or the Doggies get in front of us there. Make no mistake, if we expand as a comp, it'll be at the expense of one of us. North were stupid for not taking the GC option

[skeptic]

We can argue all we like about the what's and wherefor's of supporter bases until the proverbial cows come home, at the end of the day it is all about prolonged and sustained on-field success. Win games and get to play finals consistently over a number of consecutive years and the crowds will come flooding back - witness the Brisbane Lions in 2019. Become successful and the media will trumpet your glories, regularly, everyone loves to read about champions of sport, it sells newspapers and magazines both print and digital.

Yes, in professional team sports it will always be the case that the rich clubs get richer and there will always be a hierarchy of traditional clubs that are elite and we just have to accept the fact that St Kilda has never, nor is likely ever to become one. It is what I personally find so endearing about supporting the Saints, they are perennial under-achievers, so expectations are never high but when they start to string a few wins together, man, that is just terrific and makes me feel so immensely proud.

OK, that will be seen as pathetic by some but who cares, I just love my footy club! Despite this soul-baring, I do enjoy the cut and thrust of debate on this forum about the fortunes (and mis-) of St Kilda, so long as it is conducted civilly and without abuse and rancour; everyone is entitled to express an opinion and we are after all, each and everyone of us, an expert until proven otherwise!!

Correct
Decades of consistently excellent performance mixed with the outlier of a few down years is why those clubs have such a strong foundation.
Hawthorn were a basket case at one time...then cane glory for 3 of the next 4 decades

[cwrcyn]

Collingwood have the advantage of capturing most of the Greek population and Carlton have captured most of the Italian population. Don't underestimate what percentage those two groups make up of their total supporter base. Richmond had a massive following from the late 60s to the mid 80s. It could be argued it was bigger than Collingwood's, so it's no surprise they have huge membership now. They also have the overspill of Italians and Greeks who didn't follow Collingwood. Essendon have a huge local support base and benefitted from nearly three decades of success in the 80s and 90s, into the 2000s when TV coverage of the game spiked. It was a case of right place, right time.

In recent times, as pointed out in many previous posts, the elephant in the room is the AFL's agenda of maximising attendances and income, hence giving favourable scheduling and promotion to the clubs with the biggest supporter bases. Hawthorn manipulated this in the early 90's when their memberships magically spiked from 17,000 to about 40,000 in 18 months. Most of the numbers were crap/fudged, but they knew if they were seen to have the high membership, they could gain some leverage with the AFL, and boy, did they ever!!

[BarryGrogan]

We can argue all we like about the what's and wherefor's of supporter bases until the proverbial cows come home, at the end of the day it is all about prolonged and sustained on-field success.

??

I'm arguing the opposite of that. And I've presented shitloads of facts to support my argument.

[BarryGrogan]

Correct
Decades of consistently excellent performance mixed with the outlier of a few down years is why those clubs have such a strong foundation.
Hawthorn were a basket case at one time...then cane glory for 3 of the next 4 decades

??

They had their foundation the day they were created. Suburbs and to a lesser degree religion is what actually built football clubs back then.

The existence of the supporter base is what built the clubs - not vice versa.

Huge populations of certain areas actually generated the need for football clubs. Collingwood and Richmond and Carlton didn't start small and then build a base! The dense and desperate populations from those suburbs created the football clubs and instantly they were big.


That's why South Melbourne died, and why to this day North has a small supporter base. They were geographically squeezed between the big suburbs which founded the big clubs.


It's a complete myth that winning builds supporter bases, and there is absolutely zero evidence to support it.

[skeptic]

Try this...
From today, let’s go forward 30 years.

In that 30 years St.Kilda plays finals for 22 of them
7 years of that = 7 premierships
Couple of losing grand final efforts
Another 6-7 prelims

The lowest performance is 12th

Along the way, we play a winning brand of football and get bucketloads of Friday and Saturday night games
We’re fighting off major and cool sponsors with a stick
We have a number of marquee champions in the time

And finally, the other teams that win flags win them years apart, and certainly no sense of dynasty about it.


In this make believe scenario... in 30years time are we not one of the AFLs powerhouse, most supported clubs?

[BarryGrogan]

Hawthorn were a basket case at one time...then cane glory for 3 of the next 4 decades

And their base is the same funnily enough!

You realise they only have 90k more supporters than us right?

They dropped 30% from last year. So much for sustained success building the base!

[BarryGrogan]

Try this...
From today, let’s go forward 30 years.

In that 30 years St.Kilda plays finals for 22 of them
7 years of that = 7 premierships
Couple of losing grand final efforts
Another 6-7 prelims

The lowest performance is 12th

Along the way, we play a winning brand of football and get bucketloads of Friday and Saturday night games
We’re fighting off major and cool sponsors with a stick
We have a number of marquee champions in the time

And finally, the other teams that win flags win them years apart, and certainly no sense of dynasty about it.


In this make believe scenario... in 30years time are we not one of the AFLs powerhouse, most supported clubs?

Where are these supporters coming from?

Are you suggesting we will poach supporters from other clubs?

Ask North what a decade of success did for their supporter base.

[samuraisaint]

Correct
Decades of consistently excellent performance mixed with the outlier of a few down years is why those clubs have such a strong foundation.
Hawthorn were a basket case at one time...then cane glory for 3 of the next 4 decades

??

They had their foundation the day they were created. Suburbs and to a lesser degree religion is what actually built football clubs back then.

The existence of the supporter base is what built the clubs - not vice versa.

Huge populations of certain areas actually generated the need for football clubs. Collingwood and Richmond and Carlton didn't start small and then build a base! The dense and desperate populations from those suburbs created the football clubs and instantly they were big.


That's why South Melbourne died, and why to this day North has a small supporter base. They were geographically squeezed between the big suburbs which founded the big clubs.

It's a complete myth that winning builds supporter bases, and there is absolutely zero evidence to support it.

What really killed South Melbourne in the end was their worthless metropolitan zone at the time - ironically now in NSW they have a fantastic football academy/nursery to draw young players from.

You are correct about North - squeezed in between Carlton, Essendon and Melbourne, with Footscray right across the Maribyrnong too, of course. But even they have a lot more supporters around than they used to have - even from ten years ago.I put that down to little kids who started barracking for them in the 90s have now grown up and have kids themselves.

[BarryGrogan]

In recent times, as pointed out in many previous posts, the elephant in the room is the AFL's agenda of maximising attendances and income, hence giving favourable scheduling and promotion to the clubs with the biggest supporter bases.

Absolutely.

Back in the 80s, the best teams were the only ones that were on TV. So the successful teams on-field for exposure.

The reality was though, that the successful teams back then were the wealthy ones that bought the best players.

So their size and power dating back to their inception facilitated their success - which enhanced their exposure.


These days however, as you state - on-field success doesn't increase exposure. The AFL base their fixture on maximising eyes which means the clubs with big supporter bases that show up each week get the big games.

[BarryGrogan]

Hey Barry can you tell me which team you really barrack for? You know, the one where you don't put s*** on the team or it's supporters.

Just asking.

?

I'm flattering the supporters. I'm suggesting that the average Saints fan is not a mindless cretin that hangs his or her self-worth on the results of the football team they follow.

[saynta]

Hey Barry can you tell me which team you really barrack for? You know, the one where you don't put s*** on the team or it's supporters.

Just asking.

?

I'm flattering the supporters. I'm suggesting that the average Saints fan is not a mindless cretin that hangs his or her self-worth on the results of the football team they follow.

Right.