Central Coast - RL or Football Heartland

[bikinigirl]

If the club ever get serious about marketing, use data from Ticketek and aim everything at the (say) 7,000 coasties at the GF who don't go to every game or aren't members.

. at the fan forum last year (or thereabouts) it was suggested to the 'marketing guy' that the club contact the lapsed members from seasons past ... ask them if they would like to renew and any reasons that they would not. that way you may be able to shame them into renewing or at least gain some valuable insight into why they were no longer interested

. the response was ... oh we changed our system a while back and no longer have access to that database

 

[BrisRecky]

I think the majority of NRL supporters on the coast go to the Souths, Parramatta, Tigers and St George games. These are old traditional clubs with long histories and their supporters probably grew up watching them live at Redfern, Kogarah and Leichhardt and Parramatta.

Indeed, Even though I'm of dutch dna (and even lived there for a while) I spent many an afternoon back in the 80's at Cumberland Oval/Parra Stadium watching the EELS play...but then, I also spent time at Belmore watching Sydney Olympic run about...BUT...I do know my preferred version of "football" and its got f**k all to do with scrums.....

 

[midfielder]

Many moons ago I worked for a productivity consultancy they where and still are the biggest of their type in the world...anyway a question they always asked management was do you need that information or is it nice to have... meaning only information that was needed was kept and paid for everything else was let go...

So I wonder aloud to many on the Coast .... are we nice to have .... or are we an essential part of the fabric of the Coast... me thinks for most we are nice to have ... like if we said if we don't get 14K to our next three matches we leave .... do we think 14K would come...

Just an aside up until recently I lived in Sydney and the group I come with [six of us] live in Sydney.... and I wonder what percentage of our crowd come from Sydney my gut fell is somewhere between 15 & 20 percent and in time and because of the Drive Byes this will start to fall... one of our six lives in Dundas a 10 minute bus trip to Parrmatta... just saying...

 

[MrCelery]

.... the group I come with [six of us] live in Sydney.... and because of the Drive Byes this will start to fall... one of our six lives in Dundas a 10 minute bus trip to Parrmatta... just saying...

I live in Newcastle, 10 minutes from the Jets ground. They are the reason I will always drive the extra 50 minutes to follow the Mariners. And I'm not alone.
Just saying!

 

[MrCelery]

As for RL. What's an RL?

 

[Phish Phart]

.

. how do you overcome this sort of thinking? this is coming from a guy who would not be on minimum wage and who, judging by his ethnicity, can not fall back on generational conditioning to nrl/afl

Get to the kids to work on their parents. Isn't that what successful marketers do?

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Already some great thoughts emerging on here. I think Middies statement about a new feedback thread for the mariners and Mr Charlesworth definitely needs to happen. The club should really be in contact/consultation with CCMfans/Adz on this truth to be told. Out of curiosity how often has the club made contact with you over the years Adz?

It surely makes sense in this day and age of the inter webs to be driving traffic here and using the most established CCM fans forum doesn't it?

Anyhow what are people thoughts on the best format for it...?

I'm thinking probably the most valuable things to identify are: what do people find are the key obstacles preventing them form attending games, and or becoming members, and what incentives and changes would they like to see + general comments and observations.

With a bit of promotion, (Someone can link on Facebook etc?) We could likely get more responses here than as Bikini mentioned you would potentially get in face to face forums. Not that that mitigates the value of those too. But you know what I'm saying. It will be hard to get non members to fan forums. If you can't get them to go to games, it will be even harder to get them to go to a forum to tell you why they don't go to games. Fortunately though the people who have been trying to bring the coast with them for the past eight years to games should have a pretty good idea of the obstacles they have been facing at the coal face all this time. I know I certainly have a lot of ideas, as I'm sure do many others on here.

Ok, some thoughts on the new feedback thread before we make one?

(And please try to restrain yourselves from the feedback on the feedback thread jokes if you can people Something a bit better than adhoc will be of more value in the long run I'm thinking)

 

[Phish Phart]

I completely agree with Bikini. The press maybe sensationalising his statement a little in emphasis, but there is no need to "challenge" RL, and i personally think it is the wrong mind set, and as Bikini states potentially quite a dangerous stance to take. i know too many RL fans who are also mariners fans. so i really dont think this is where the opposition is. nor does it need to be. as it clearly has bugger all to do with us pulling 10k instead of 15k in any case. and if polarises our community it would be a disaster.

After eight years of dragging other people to games, buying their tickets, talking them into and organising their memberships etc and living and breathing mariners, the list of obstacles, objections and barriers to entry that the people on here could put together would be pretty valuable feedback and pretty comprehensive too i would imagine.

Who'd like to kick it off?

The club should go back to square 1 and look at what didn't go to plan and why.
Presumably the club had to submit a detailed proposal for admission to AL and this proposal had to stand up in competition with applications from elsewhere.

So whatever was spelled out in that proposal in terms of goals and underlying assumptions, premises, projections, strategies etc must have looked hunky dory at the time and hopefully was based on more than wishful thinking. Sadly, apart from (over)achieving on the field, off-field performance hasn't met certain critical expectations or the club wouldn't have ended up in this precarious position.

I have been a supporter from day one but am completely in the dark as to what the original thinking was. Without understanding the antecedents it is difficult to suggest solutions without falling into the same traps as before.
.

 

[FFC Mariner]

. at the fan forum last year (or thereabouts) it was suggested to the 'marketing guy' that the club contact the lapsed members from seasons past ... ask them if they would like to renew and any reasons that they would not. that way you may be able to shame them into renewing or at least gain some valuable insight into why they were no longer interested

. the response was ... oh we changed our system a while back and no longer have access to that database

i was told that they didn't actually have a CRM until last season (beyond belief but true)

They can't go back to lapsed customers because they don't know who they are.

I would be stunned if you couldn't get historical data from ticketek though.

 

[pjennings]

The club should go back to square 1 and look at what didn't go to plan and why.
Presumably the club had to submit a detailed proposal for admission to AL and this proposal had to stand up in competition with applications from elsewhere.

So whatever was spelled out in that proposal in terms of goals and underlying assumptions, premises, projections, strategies etc must have looked hunky dory at the time and hopefully was based on more than wishful thinking. Sadly, apart from (over)achieving on the field, off-field performance hasn't met certain critical expectations or the club wouldn't have ended up in this precarious position.

I have been a supporter from day one but am completely in the dark as to what the original thinking was. Without understanding the antecedents it is difficult to suggest solutions without falling into the same traps as before.
.

Yes the club did need to put in a detailed proposal - but no it did not need to stand up in competition since we were the only regional application that was the 8th spot in the first season.

With all the talk of the salary cap being covered - the destructive role of the PFA should also be noted. The original premise was a 1.5mill cap to move by small increments each year. 80% was to be covered by grants from the FFA. The PFA pushed hard for larger increases and were successful. This only meant that the grants could not increase in line with the salary cap as the FFA had to support clubs that couldn't handle the steep increases that were not part of the original agreement.

 

[bikinigirl]

As for RL. What's an RL?

. reduced level - reference to a surveying datum ... typically not relevant for football discussions

 

[bikinigirl]

Ok, some thoughts on the new feedback thread before we make one?

. that it be heavily moderated so the messages are simple and concise

. someone needs to cut out all the crap ... like the stuff i post ... otherwise the real messages may get lost

 

[Roy Law]

. while i am in a sharing mood i will recount an experience the beau had at work the other day. he works in an office in the city and wore a mariners shirt everyday ... yes it got a lot of attention...

. how do you overcome this sort of thinking? this is coming from a guy who would not be on minimum wage and who, judging by his ethnicity, can not fall back on generational conditioning to nrl/afl

Invite the guy to games with you.
My new neighbour a couple of years ago claimed to be a fan but hadn't been to any games. I took him to the first ACL series (you know, the one where we didn't even score at home in three games) and he was hooked. He has been a member ever since and regularly takes mates with him.

 

[offtheball]

I don't think the Mariners engage with schools as well as they did in the early years.

Damian Brown does a great job with development but that is it.

I think a simple promotion would be each Central Coast School is provided with a family pass for each home game. Families wanting the pass could go in a lucky dip. This is all advertised in the school newsletter or on the schools notice boards. About 80 Central Coast Schools would cost the Mariners 320 seats per game but a lot of good will and lots of relatively cheap advertising.

 

[pjennings]

A reported 10,131 on a beautiful afternoon at BTS today for a Bulldogs match. Looked a lot less.

 

[promdi442]

The thing that concerns me more than rugby league fans is that we have thousands of people all over the Coast on weekends playing and watching local football, enough to fill the stadium a few times, but how many of those people go to every game?
By the way if you disagree, just say it, I don't take it personally

Absolutely couldnt agree more. We hear the excuses from individuals within the football community as the scheduling is wrong coz someone has to play when the Mariners are playing. But not everyone of the CC football community is playing at the same time as the Mariners. So convert those who are involved in CC football and dont go to the Mariners game and then obviously the crowds will improve. That should be enough as ADZ says to fill the stadium several times over without having to try and convert non football people to the games.

 

[FFC Mariner]

Maybe ask members which club they play for (if any) then create a Mariners ambassador program

Let those people have a few free tix to spread around.

 

[bobandbill]

A reported 10,131 on a beautiful afternoon at BTS today for a Bulldogs match. Looked a lot less.

This seems like a joke. The crowd looked pretty poor from what I saw on the tv... and the commentators were also asking where was everyone. Hardly sounds like the sort of comments to make for a 10k+ crowd.

That alone suggests to me that the coast may not be quite RL heartland as stated. Granted, a lot that live here probably do support the sport, but as others say give it a good while and that may shift when kids grow up with the Mariners, which have a far bigger impact rather than the odd visit from rugby teams from outside the coast.

 

[MagpieMariner]

I would say neither of the two teams today would have a large following up here (especially Cronulla), unlike say Manly or Rabbits, so this would affect the crowd size. Shouldn't make any assumptions from this match.

 

[scoober]

I would say neither of the two teams today would have a large following up here (especially Cronulla), unlike say Manly or Rabbits, so this would affect the crowd size. Shouldn't make any assumptions from this match.

It's not just this one, this year no NRL game has cracked 13k from memory! Which is ordinary compared to recent years.