CCM Fans and the club

[Capn Gus Bloodbeard]

Any football fan with any sense will have pissed off Foxtel and signed up for Kayo streaming. Cheaper, HD and without 50 other channels of crap.

yeah, they really need to ensure that online is taken into consideration - Kayo, Foxtel Now, and the Foxtel digital you get with your conventional subscription.

I wonder how many people would be watching illegal streams, or using a VPN to access the MyFootball YouTube stream....

 

[Timmah]

Foxtel averages across the season have been around 60-70k - Ten Bold do not regularly release their figures, but they are higher than Foxtel’s. Only one team’s viewership has dropped out of line with general trends. Want to guess which team that is?

And yes there has been a general drop over this period (high amount of games, cricket); however, as Foxtel and other tv execs have said to the FFA, these are not new factors. The Mariners knew this and, instead of improving their operations, they made a decision to chase Bolt.

I don't know where you get your ratings but I'm calling bullshit on your figures.

The Grand Final re-match played immediately following Wellington v Mariners last night netted just 31k. A quick scroll through @MediaWeekAus on Twitter shows most matches are rating somewhere between 30k and 45k, the exceptions being derbies (most recent Melb Derby for example got 65k, Sydney Derby 60k). By all means if you think you have facts to substantiate your claim, go for it, but from the brief amount of research I did, the average range is absolutely not 60-70k.

As for our figures "dropping out of line with general trends", the City-Roar match on Friday rated 39k (with the benefit of being lead in for AUS v PLE), only 7k more than the 32k who watched Sydney v CCM the Friday before. Our figures are really not that different to the norm - we've always rated less than the bigger clubs, it's a by-product of our small market. Same applies to the Nix.

Also - there's no knowing if it's the "lowest ever" either, as there have been quite a few matches in recent years that fell below reporting thresholds (i.e. outside the top 20 on Fox for the day). And I'm positive that includes a number of previous Nix-CCM clashes.

And for what it's worth, last night's figure is disgusting but I don't know why anyone would expect differently when it's the smallest team in AU playing the Nix.

 

[FFC Mariner]

Opera browser has an inbuilt free VPN for pc.

Just saying

 

[Wombat]

Ok crowd prediction for Wednesday nights home game? It all adds up to a big crowd Wednesday night
Playing well
Holidays
I’m predicting 4000 if lucky

6021.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

6021.

+ 2. Me and Ancient Mrs.
Do not tell her I referred to her by that name.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Crowd 4,800

 

[Martin Rayner]

+ 2. Me and Ancient Mrs.
Do not tell her I referred to her by that name.

Well make that 3 as I’ll be there too

 

[Wombat]

Good man.

 

[midfielder]

Maybe I am being paranoid, but I have a bad feeling about this upcoming 1-to-1 meeting with the FFA.

There has been no new signings and as far as I am aware no players have had their contracts renewed.

It's as if the club has no plans for next season.

The talk from MM saying, we hope to get a few players in towards the end of the season sounds like a lie.

With all that, coupled with our poor on-field performance I can only speculate that something bad is coming.

My understanding from way back when clubs were issued licences tho to 2034 is two critical clauses were or are in all A-League franchise licenses. First is FFA has or maybe thats had the right to introduce P & R and if a club was regulated because of P & R then so be it. With the new Hal body headed up by the clubs whether or not this clause will still be included is unknown. My understanding based on media reports is PG, MV, Jets, SFC & WSW want the clause to remain, AU, MV, Bris are undecided by leaning to no ...with the Nix and us are against keeping the clause....

The second clause and something I think only 3 clubs actually have passing grades is to keep your license you need to have base metrics, measured over, crowds, media space, ratings & memberships. The sword does hang over us again if the new body keeps this clause. There is a legal issue with this in that with only I think, MV, SFC & I think the Jets meeting whats required, then saying a club failed by more than another would allow a half decent lawyer to argue if the rule applies then apply it to all. However again this presupposes the new Hal body will keep the rule.

The Nix are gone for all money, under P & R and under metrics, especially P & R as if regulated then funding a year or years in div 2 would be beyond their resources I think.

Another aspect is FFA refused MC when he asked to move the club to North Sydney, and also refused to allow MC to sell to a new buyer if the license was to leave the Coast. Gallop told MC our license is for the CC only and he has to make it work on the CC or hand it back. Again how the new Hal body will react if similar requests come is unknown. My thoughts for a while have been MC wants to sell to the highest bidder and my gut tells me that will be one of the unsuccessful bidders for the new teams.

Essentially the new Hal body will decide our fate, if they follow FFA's course then our license is for the CC only and MC can sell but only to someone who will run the team out of the CC. The other aspects on P & R and metrics, again it's up to the new Hal body to see if they plan to keep them. My gut say they will keep both, but thats just a gut feel based on if a team totally tanks they will wanta kick them out.

 

[MrCelery]

Any football fan with any sense will have pissed off Foxtel and signed up for Kayo streaming. Cheaper, HD and without 50 other channels of crap.

You still get approx 50 channels of crap. Other sports I have absolutely no interest in. When they offer a football only package for $10 a month I might be interested.

But I take your point.

 

[midfielder]

Figures are down across the board. Apparently the take up of streaming is having an effect. @midfielder can probably talk to the effect better.

This is a complex issue as across the world ratings for traditional sports is falling on traditional broadcast platforms.

Football's fan base in Australia is highest in the under 30 demographic and most under 30's don't watch FTA TV and few watch subscription TV platforms.

Interestingly in a recent survey, people where asked to name their favourite Australian sporting teams. It was broken down by over 50, between 30 & 50, between 20 & 30 and under 20.

Over 50 cricket by light years.
30 to 50 cricket but with a big shift to Football.
20 to 30, Socceroos, Cricket & Matilda's
under 20, Socceroos, Matilda's, a big gap Cricket.

In the US the only code growing its base is the MLS and that is off a very low starting base, however NASCAR rating and crowds have almost collapsed, Hockey, Baseball hurting badly, Basketball & Gridiron both falling. Football as well in Europe is struggling to hold ratings on traditional platforms. In fact Amazon recently purchased some English Football rights out bidding traditional bidders.

Two things have stood out, first the increase in rating of both E-games [massive growth] and X-Games [BMX, Surfing, Ironman etc] and these are taking eyeballs away from traditional codes. Second is as mentioned the under 30 in particular simply wanta stream and don't wanta watch traditional platforms.

Football in Australia, has a younger demographic, so traditional platforms will suffer, but added to this are some recent changes to broadcasting rights. Telstra is free if you are a Telstra customer or only $ 99.00 dollars a year if you are not to watch all A-League, W-League, Socceroos and Matilda games.

Telstra is said to be over the moon with its take up and is refusing to share ratings claiming business reasons, insiders are saying and there is no way of either proving or disproving this that Telstra is equal or higher than Fox in the ratings.

Fox have reacted to the streaming issue by offering their own cut price sports offerings, which again is said to have a high take up but Fox like Telstra is refusing to release rating data.

There has also been the break caused by Optus of EPL & A-League, how many have gone to Optus who used to watch the A-League again is difficult to determine.

However add the 3 together, i.e Testra streaming, Fox Streaming & EPL at Optus then it has to have had a huge effect on Fox ratings.

To add to the complexity is the last 3 years of civil war between FFA and the clubs where FFA getting positive media was near impossible so as has been often the case in our past Australian Football fans torn the game apart each chasing their own wants and ideas. hopefully peace can be declared and we can again start talking up the league even SBS might write something positive.

Then we have the collision code media bias, add the ABC and the summer of Cricket and today we struggle for media in general, especially so since 9 purchased Fairfax and Fairfax went back to calling us soccer.

Finally their is the failed Fox's bid to get 10. America's CBS got 10, and Fox then withdrew all its programs it could from 10. One thing it could not was the A-League rights and CBS did not wanta help Fox, so our FTA partner in 10 is in a war with Fox and we are the mugs caught up in their little game.

There is much more to add but without key data tis impossible to be other than speculative..

I have spoken to a guy in Melbourne who says ...."" don't worry""" when the new body comes in they will expand to 16 teams fairly quickly, with a second Div up and running within 3 years ... further he says the media deal will be bigger and will not include Fox as a bidder for the rights, but Fox will buy the rights to some games .

 

[midfielder]

^^^^^^
This is not a bad article and shows some things about NASCAR but it equally applies to other US sports but not to the same degree.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveca...ontinue-racing-away-from-nascar/#7e9df4991df5

 

[Ancient Mariner]

My understanding from way back when clubs were issued licences tho to 2034 is two critical clauses were or are in all A-League franchise licenses. First is FFA has or maybe thats had the right to introduce P & R and if a club was regulated because of P & R then so be it. With the new Hal body headed up by the clubs whether or not this clause will still be included is unknown. My understanding based on media reports is PG, MV, Jets, SFC & WSW want the clause to remain, AU, MV, Bris are undecided by leaning to no ...with the Nix and us are against keeping the clause....

The second clause and something I think only 3 clubs actually have passing grades is to keep your license you need to have base metrics, measured over, crowds, media space, ratings & memberships. The sword does hang over us again if the new body keeps this clause. There is a legal issue with this in that with only I think, MV, SFC & I think the Jets meeting whats required, then saying a club failed by more than another would allow a half decent lawyer to argue if the rule applies then apply it to all. However again this presupposes the new Hal body will keep the rule.

The Nix are gone for all money, under P & R and under metrics, especially P & R as if regulated then funding a year or years in div 2 would be beyond their resources I think.

Another aspect is FFA refused MC when he asked to move the club to North Sydney, and also refused to allow MC to sell to a new buyer if the license was to leave the Coast. Gallop told MC our license is for the CC only and he has to make it work on the CC or hand it back. Again how the new Hal body will react if similar requests come is unknown. My thoughts for a while have been MC wants to sell to the highest bidder and my gut tells me that will be one of the unsuccessful bidders for the new teams.

Essentially the new Hal body will decide our fate, if they follow FFA's course then our license is for the CC only and MC can sell but only to someone who will run the team out of the CC. The other aspects on P & R and metrics, again it's up to the new Hal body to see if they plan to keep them. My gut say they will keep both, but thats just a gut feel based on if a team totally tanks they will wanta kick them out.

My gut instinct on the sale of licences is the same as yours Middy.

The reason MC was told he either kept CCM on the Coast or handed the licence back was purely self interest by the FFA.
If MC was allowed to sell his licence to say Canberra the FFA gets nothing and MC pockets $15m and Canberra are in.
New licences are money to the FFA, hence they make existing ones non transferable. If you are an owner you sell the Club and licence in place. If not you hand it back to the FFA.
I see no reason for the new body controlling the HAL to change this.

The threat to CCM will come if the controlling body decides that the Club is not viable and resumes the licence. In this scenario everybody involved in CCM loses including MC. This is the threat overhanging the Nux. And now possibly us as well.

Yes only three teams are satisfying their KPI metrics, and I cannot see any controlling body chopping 7 licences. However that may not stop them shaving from the bottom up.

The Nux are probably gone as they had a short guarantee with the FFA whereas ours is the same as the other clubs. Whether this carries over in the future is anyones guess.

I suspect MC's thinking in fighting for an independent A-League was possibly to make it easier for him to sell the licence, however it may come back to bite him on the bum.

The whole future of MC salvaging anything from his investment may hinge on him making CCM a competitive Club rather than one on life support. At the moment I suspect they are trying to mount a convincing argument that things will turn around for us with the FFA.

Interesting times.

 

[Insertnamehere]

My gut instinct on the sale of licences is the same as yours Middy.

The reason MC was told he either kept CCM on the Coast or handed the licence back was purely self interest by the FFA.
If MC was allowed to sell his licence to say Canberra the FFA gets nothing and MC pockets $15m and Canberra are in.
New licences are money to the FFA, hence they make existing ones non transferable. If you are an owner you sell the Club and licence in place. If not you hand it back to the FFA.
I see no reason for the new body controlling the HAL to change this.

The threat to CCM will come if the controlling body decides that the Club is not viable and resumes the licence. In this scenario everybody involved in CCM loses including MC. This is the threat overhanging the Nux. And now possibly us as well.

Yes only three teams are satisfying their KPI metrics, and I cannot see any controlling body chopping 7 licences. However that may not stop them shaving from the bottom up.

The Nux are probably gone as they had a short guarantee with the FFA whereas ours is the same as the other clubs. Whether this carries over in the future is anyones guess.

I suspect MC's thinking in fighting for an independent A-League was possibly to make it easier for him to sell the licence, however it may come back to bite him on the bum.

The whole future of MC salvaging anything from his investment may hinge on him making CCM a competitive Club rather than one on life support. At the moment I suspect they are trying to mount a convincing argument that things will turn around for us with the FFA.

Interesting times.

Great analysis

 

[turbo]

The reason MC was told he either kept CCM on the Coast or handed the licence back was purely self interest by the FFA.
If MC was allowed to sell his licence to say Canberra the FFA gets nothing and MC pockets $15m and Canberra are in.
New licences are money to the FFA, hence they make existing ones non transferable. If you are an owner you sell the Club and licence in place. If not you hand it back to the FFA.
I see no reason for the new body controlling the HAL to change this.

I agree. There's no way the FFA doesn't retain some sort of power or veto over sales, relocations, etc.. even under an independent league. Otherwise what happens when the next big offer is from Southern Expansion mk2? Sydney opposes it and everyone sees dollar signs and forces it through. Canberra wants to join the league but someone with deeper pockets is going to buy out our license and instead bring in another Melb team in a saturated market - the whole thing would be a mess in 5 or so years. How can an asset be considered transferable if you can't sell it freely?

If we're talking about metrics I'd hope they go by market sizes. Realistically SFC have not drawn the numbers they should with their performances and market, City arent anywhere near where a Melbourne team should be. We're a region of approximately 350k give or take and regularly get 6k+ to our games even after years of under investment and rubbish. Other teams should have multiples of our crowd. Brisbane has 2 mil and is averaging 12k. Adelaide 1.3m 9k, Perth 2mil 9.6k for example. The club that's really punching above it's weight is Newcastle and that's the levels we should be aiming for and could realistically hit if we invest and get back in to the community.

Lastly before the FFA can look at taking licenses for metrics they need to own their mismanagement of the league. TV numbers, crowds, general awareness all comes back to their management and it's been quite poor.

 

[Pirate Pete]

Dear Shaun.

When you meet with the FFA could you ask if we could have the VAR referee from the Perth v WSW game.
I don't know what is name is but I think he'll be easily recognisable next to his guide dog.
thanks.

 

[Capn Gus Bloodbeard]

Dear Shaun.

When you meet with the FFA could you ask if we could have the VAR referee from the Perth v WSW game.
I don't know what is name is but I think he'll be easily recognisable next to his guide dog.
thanks.

Nah, we'd be on the WSW end of that.

 

[Insertnamehere]

I agree. There's no way the FFA doesn't retain some sort of power or veto over sales, relocations, etc.. even under an independent league. Otherwise what happens when the next big offer is from Southern Expansion mk2? Sydney opposes it and everyone sees dollar signs and forces it through. Canberra wants to join the league but someone with deeper pockets is going to buy out our license and instead bring in another Melb team in a saturated market - the whole thing would be a mess in 5 or so years. How can an asset be considered transferable if you can't sell it freely?

If we're talking about metrics I'd hope they go by market sizes. Realistically SFC have not drawn the numbers they should with their performances and market, City arent anywhere near where a Melbourne team should be. We're a region of approximately 350k give or take and regularly get 6k+ to our games even after years of under investment and rubbish. Other teams should have multiples of our crowd. Brisbane has 2 mil and is averaging 12k. Adelaide 1.3m 9k, Perth 2mil 9.6k for example. The club that's really punching above it's weight is Newcastle and that's the levels we should be aiming for and could realistically hit if we invest and get back in to the community.

Lastly before the FFA can look at taking licenses for metrics they need to own their mismanagement of the league. TV numbers, crowds, general awareness all comes back to their management and it's been quite poor.

What should really happen with expansion is the FFA or HAL board come and say we want 2 teams. 1 from here and 1 from there, bring us your best offers. Rather than soliciting every man and his dog. It's what happens in MLS and it works.

 

[turbo]

I think that's where they'll get to with further rounds now they've done both Sydney and Melbourne in this round. I could definitely see them saying we're looking to expand within the following markets, these are our selection criteria. But I'd still expect those focus markets to have a few options so they don't get boxed in to a two horse race with two average bidders. Rather than saying South Queensland as a set location they'd probably target any of SQLD, WA and SA as options for example. Same with regional NSW if you were to just say that you're probably defaulting to the Wolves but if you open up to other markets you might get TAS or an NQLD bid in the mix too (I'm assuming Canberra is in by then). I'd also hope they aren't completely blind to opportunities that have specific timing like the TAS bid which had stadium funding tied to if we win the Women's WC. It would be a shame to say we arent in an expansion phase right now if the factors were all aligning but might go away without a successful bid.

 

[Spacks]

And the award for shit take of the week goes to this guy.

yeah alright you got me there bud

Just sick and tired of this shit