Coast Football Ramble Podcast

[pjennings]

Should

Should be 10k now, coasties just don’t suppprt their team. I don’t live on the coast and I don’t understand it. No matter what happens it will not change, if the last two seasons couldn’t get them off the lounge nothing will. Such a shame.

Forget about the population argument by itself. The big thing against us in comparison to the Sydney FC and WSW is population density

Gosford LGA population 181406 - density 191 people per square kilometre
Parramatta LGA population 283204 - density 3210 people per square kilometre
Sydney CBD LGA population 231086 - density 8260 people per square kilometre
Campbelltown LGA population 184 784 - density 593 people per square kilometre.

It is hard to be 'tribal' when the tribe is so spread out.

Then consider the surrounding areas. Drive for 30 minutes in any direction from our stadium and you get to around 360,000. From Parramatta you are talking over 2.7 million people.

 

[sydmariner]

Agreed. Crumbling NRL ground. No roof, no decent food and bev outlets.
Roof is a pre requisite

As is safe standing in bay 16.

 

[pjennings]

There's no real incentive to spend money on it though.

It sells out 2 NRL fixtures and a couple of finals (maybe) in a year. Why would you upgrade a venue that sits idle most of the year?

Comm bank has 3 NRL teams using it for home games plus they have concerts and events like nitro circus. Plus wanderers get more people than we do.

Same with Allianz.
Sydney crowds are better than ours plus they have roosters and Waratahs. Wests and Souths are playing games there and there is a wallabies test at the end of the year. Plus they have other concerts and events. And the Socceroos are there in March.

Comm bank stadium.
WSW - (excluding finals) use 34% capacity
CCM - (excluding finals) use 36% capacity

The 3 other teams plus extra events is what means there is an incentive to have a modern stadium. 13 ALM home games and 2 NRL games just doesn't provide a reason to upgrade.

 

[Coastalraider]

And I’ve said it before and stand by it - coasties in general don’t like soccer, they like occasions.

That’s why finals and new years are so popular, less to do with the game and more about the occasion. We are competing with everyone else for attention and money.

I don’t think any sporting team in any code in Australia has managed to make the game day experience so good that every week is an occasion - perhaps early Wanderers that the RBB experience was such that people would come to see that as much as the team .

I think it’s fanciful to think that peak crowds will be able to be replicated across the season.

Having said that, there is a lot more that can be done. For example - we have 24 clubs on the coast, and 14 home games. Remove peak events like New Years which get a large crowd, and focus on 12 home games where the club locks out 2 bays - a north vs south local club for example. Fill each bay with local club members and players, have the kids represent at half time, do a price on the big screen highlighting something about each club etc. - align the local club tribalism with the mariners and the gameday experience. Really create the community link. That’s obviously a longer term play, but that’s something I haven’t seen before.

 

[Spacks]

Academy trial day held in the lead up to the game. All members get 1 free entry (per family) to the trial day, purchase a ticket for a mariners home game and get entry to the trial day. I wonder what the attendance would be like then? Put one on each home game, either all ages or 1 age bracket per home game.

Sign em on the day and have Pete announce the new academy players during half time.

 

[Tevor]

100% agree that coasties only attend events. You don’t have to live on the coast to follow the team. I don’t. When doing the trips in Asia there are a good proportion of non coasties going compared to the born and bred. Not sure why the club doesn’t promote itself more in the north west area of Sydney. Let’s not get into games at Nth Sydney as that doesn’t suit the north west either.

 

[Ironbark]

There are a number of reasons that our crowd/membership numbers are where they are, including our demographics, but the most impactful ones are these 2:

1. Australian football has a low profile
- forget CCM, crowds and memberships are a pinch of what NRL and AFL get in Aus. The support is there, but it needs to be pried away from the grip of the other codes first.
This is insane when you consider football is the most played sport in the country. The fact it doesn't translate to a keen following is THE problem, and the one we suffer from as a small club.
Multiple reasons - including poor coverage, promotion and hype, and poor management.

We are only ever going to get a small slice of the football pie - and will continue to struggle while the pie is tiny as f.

2. The dark years did more damage than most realise
- once you have a rusted on contingent (where we got to by 2013 for example) you don't get exponential growth in members and crowds. You have gradually increasing growth in loyal regulars and memberships as people join friends bit by bit and discover the magic and get onboard.
The dark years did the opposite. It's one thing not to compete for silverware for 10 years - but to be so bad as to be ashamed of your team, well that burnt off the fringe dwellers and many of the rusteds alike.
The last 2 years have been all you could ask for but the once burned twice shy will take even longer.
As soon as it looks like we are repeating the last cycle of win the league then collapse entirely due to financial woes and those who were burnt before hold off committing - and we're seeing exactly this right now.


Most importantly, point number 1 needs to be addressed before anything really gets moving in the right direction now.
And point 2 simply can't happen again or it's nail in the coffin time.

 

[Spacks]

Just need to convert the euroclub supporters somehow.

 

[VonBowellski]

Really push the non ticketed members ut make it with 1 free ticket a year. How many people from Vanuatu (for arguments sake) follow the team thanks to Kaltak. Really push a cost effective non ticketed with benefits IF the member takes them up, otherwise no cost to the club. Bump member numbers up and possible tickets numbers eventually as people make it a yearly trip to come to one game each year

 

[pjennings]

I remember talking to Dan early on his tenure. I suggested approaching lapsed members with a 10% off sort of deal. He liked the idea but at that stage we had gone through so many membership systems that we only had the current years members to start with.

 

[FFC Mariner]

I remember talking to Dan early on his tenure. I suggested approaching lapsed members with a 10% off sort of deal. He liked the idea but at that stage we had gone through so many membership systems that we only had the current years members to start with.

A data dump from Ticketek wouldnt be too difficult then upload to your CMS and start looking at the data.

Not exactly a difficult or unusual task for a sales organisation

 

[Big Al]

A data dump from Ticketek wouldnt be too difficult then upload to your CMS and start looking at the data.

Not exactly a difficult or unusual task for a sales organisation

They can’t organise my emails to work now as a current member. Not much hope of spending time doing that. Unfortunately

And yes i called and told them and still nothing

 

[Corsair]

no decent food and bev outlets.

We were promised this would improve this season. It hasn't. And putting tv's above the bar that don't show the game only a beer menu or an advert is SO fkin irritating.

2 TV's neither showing the game.

 

[adz]

Might help if the club advertised memberships

 

[Spacks]

 

[Spacks]

 

[Tevor]

Great Pod and some great insight from MC.

 

[LG__]

Interesting point he made that various aspects of the COE have been sold off, assuming that was to keep the ship afloat during some tough times?

 

[crock]

And also confirmed shaun was helping out as well

 

[FFC Mariner]

Interesting point he made that various aspects of the COE have been sold off, assuming that was to keep the ship afloat during some tough times?

Yeah sold it off to pay down debt
Hence reduced income