this is bullshit

[FFC Mariner]

Surely a better market to attack is to the North???

Piss poor admin, poor marketing and less media clutter to cut through.

I reckon up as far as Swansea is fair game for us. Especially as Con seems determined to bring the whole club down around his ears.

 

[skilbeck]

as i said Cessnock and Toronto are fair game for us. But I do believe there is a reasonable attack market to the south in the north sydney area but i guess that is going to be more reliant on fans from that area bringing people along. we should though, have a preseason game at North Sydney Oval or Brookvale, in addition to the regional game in order to get some support for the mariners in the north parts of the sydney

 

[dibo]

northern sydney's a perfectly sensible target - for many north of epping, grahame park is easier to get to than moore park. in a situation where you've got limited resources to use on getting more fans, it kinda makes more sense to look to the bigger market too. i'm not so sure about cessnock, but lake macquarie and toronto etc. make sense, though you're looking at a smaller market.

 

[Jesus]

Yeah. Nth sydney he didnt rule out. But that far south is never going to work.

 

[Bex]

I don't mind where pre-season games are played, but in my opinion it is not really the sort of thing thats going to inspire people in the north of Sydney or the south of Newcastle to attend a game and become fans. It certainly wouldn't have worked on me (and hasn't with NRL). I think it could work in places like Cessnock, Orange, Dubbo, Bathurst, etc, but I'm doubtful about it working in a city where they can go to e.g. an NRL/AFL/Rugby match where they have their own team playing.

Isn't the strategy with those other areas to do things like send Mariners players to the schools and to have a player responsible for each club in the region? This targets future generations to back the Mariners, especially with the implementation of a Youth League where those kids can actually see a clear path towards an A-League future. It misses the older kids and parents though.

Do we actually need to seek support from so far outside the Central Coast? I would hope that a more affective strategy would be to continue to focus on the local presence to a point where A-League games are the place to be if you're a coastie and if you're not a Coastie you wish you were. We're almost there already with a near full stadium for the last 4 home games. I wonder if some of that will carry over to the start of the A-League season this year.

Anyway, I think we need more of the same. The buy-in from the local radio and printed media is great and should continue to be fostered. If anything, the Mariners should just try and augment promotion of the team locally in some way. Reaching out to Coasties that have not been to a match is what is needed in my opinion. I don't know how to do that, but there are people at the Mariners that are smarter than me with marketing that are getting paid to do that job.

 

[skilbeck]

yeah but these is only a limit of support you are going to get from your local area it might be 1% ~= 3000 ppl 10% ~= 30000 ppl. i dont think you would be able to get anymore regularly to mariners games and even 10% is pushing it

 

[dibo]

yeah, there's a maximum density of support that you'll hit.

we do fantastically well at the moment - the central coast's population is about 300k and our crowd average is about 13k so we're getting something like one in 23 people or a bit over four people per hundred residents to the games (this figure's a little off because of people coming from sydney and newcastle, but it's the best rule of thumb figure i've got).

that absolutely dwarfs any of the capital city clubs, but adding more people to draw from would help.

hornsby LGA has a population of 155,971. even if only one in 100 comes to the games, that's another 1500 through the gate.

add in the 108,760 for kuringgai and 56,829 for pittwater and you've got 321,560 total that could yield another 3k per week if we could get one in 100 to games.

 

[skilbeck]

and then if we could own ryde thats another dent in the ever shrinking block of empty seats

 

[dibo]

and then if we could own ryde thats another dent in the ever shrinking block of empty seats

average year on year crowd growth over the last two seasons was 27% per annum. if we do half as well this year, we're going to be nudging an average of 15,000 and almost certainly sell out derby matches (thus putting a ceiling on how far we can grow the average). i'd expect we won't have a match below 10,000 this coming season without bad weather intervening.

a few years of this sort of thing and stadium expansion will be almost certainly on the cards. but to keep the growth going, new markets and new territory must be worked on. while the central coast is at present and will likely continue to offer better support to the mariners than just about any sporting team gets anywhere in the country (perhaps challenged only by the cowboys in the NRL), there will come a time that the mariners' growth stops because the lemon is dry and there's nothing more we can squeeze from the central coast.

 

[Jesus]

I think the biggest dent in our average crowd this season will be people turned away from derby matches, and possibly new years eve. Knowing that 4 games were sold out last year, we could have potentially had say 1000 more people at those 4 games. Maybe more? This year that number missing out will likely increase. We need to push bigger crowds earlier in the season, if we do that the average will be well up. Late season in holidays builds crowds well.

I dont think we need much pushing in non-coast areas to build our crowds that much long term. As the team grows more and more on the coast. But those people help with crowds, and tv numbers. Also probably with bling derby numbers.

 

[Bex]

Yes, they're good points Skilbeck and Dibo. It got me wondering why someone from Pittwater, Hornsby or Toronto might go to Bluetongue rather than the SFS. One thing in our favour is a railway station right at the door of the stadium. The SFS is a bit of problem in that respect but Broadmeadow station is right on top of Energy Australia Stadium. For us, convenient rail transport should be a positive for all of the Northern Sydney suburbs on the rail line and up towards Wyee, but I don't think it would help for Pittwater or Newcastle suburban areas.

Why else would fans come from Sydney or Newcastle to Bluetongue? Any ideas? I still don't think a pre-season game will help and I certainly do want to avoid having a home game in Sydney.

 

[adz]

....nudging an average of 15,000 and almost certainly sell out derby matches (thus putting a ceiling on how far we can grow the average). i'd expect we won't have a match below 10,000 this coming season without bad weather intervening....

IMO this would be the ideal situation, then the only way to guarantee a seat at the big games is to become a member, and that would prod people to attend the other games. And if the club can't turn a profit on these sorts of numbers then what were they thinking when they started up in Gosford? I think the reasoning behind moving a big game to Homebush is purely GREED. I would rather see sellout crowds at Bluetongue and Mariners tickets being the hottest tickets in town, than than moving games to a bigger stadium where we might half fill it if we're lucky.

 

[dibo]

....nudging an average of 15,000 and almost certainly sell out derby matches (thus putting a ceiling on how far we can grow the average). i'd expect we won't have a match below 10,000 this coming season without bad weather intervening....

IMO this would be the ideal situation, then the only way to guarantee a seat at the big games is to become a member, and that would prod people to attend the other games. And if the club can't turn a profit on these sorts of numbers then what were they thinking when they started up in Gosford? I think the reasoning behind moving a big game to Homebush is purely GREED. I would rather see sellout crowds at Bluetongue and Mariners tickets being the hottest tickets in town, than than moving games to a bigger stadium where we might half fill it if we're lucky.

good call. create the problem of scarcity to build the value of membership and with membership comes a belonging and loyalty that sees the club through for many years.

hiving big money matches off to homebush cheapens the whole thing and exposes it as a money grubbing venture. it would erode that much goodwill for which the club has been worked so hard for nearly 4 years.

 

[Bex]

Here, here!!!!!!!

I think we're all agreed on that now so consider the problem solved.

Seriously though, this whole Homebush thing probably needs to be followed up. I hate how the marketing/political machine plans this stuff. They release a small rumour about it in off season to test the water and at a time when its not going to blow up in their face. They keep fuelling the rumour slightly every now and then to chip away at the protesters nerve and then, by the time the general public hear about it, the people that care the most have kind of given up fighting it and the general public wouldn't give much of a rats anyway. Lets hope it doesn't go that way and that they're getting the message now.

 

[Pete]

....nudging an average of 15,000 and almost certainly sell out derby matches (thus putting a ceiling on how far we can grow the average). i'd expect we won't have a match below 10,000 this coming season without bad weather intervening....

IMO this would be the ideal situation, then the only way to guarantee a seat at the big games is to become a member, and that would prod people to attend the other games. And if the club can't turn a profit on these sorts of numbers then what were they thinking when they started up in Gosford? I think the reasoning behind moving a big game to Homebush is purely GREED. I would rather see sellout crowds at Bluetongue and Mariners tickets being the hottest tickets in town, than than moving games to a bigger stadium where we might half fill it if we're lucky.

good call. create the problem of scarcity to build the value of membership and with membership comes a belonging and loyalty that sees the club through for many years.

hiving big money matches off to homebush cheapens the whole thing and exposes it as a money grubbing venture. it would erode that much goodwill for which the club has been worked so hard for nearly 4 years.

I agree that those points are all good. Surely a packed or near packed Bluetongue - ALL season, would be better than a one off, more than half empty ANZ for the bucks?

But Dibo, you seem to be building up hopes about loyalty and belonging that don't correlate to the business model of the Mariners.

They are a franchise, for better or worse.

'Members', as we have seen, get given what the 'club' behoves them and consumer laws says they must tell us (and public demand and outcry demands them to do as the right thing). Nothing more, nothing less. Every thing else can be "business in confidence" and we find out when they need to announce it. No say in anything the 'club' does by any 'member', no AGM, no Special Meetings to bring the board to account on issues such as this. In the end we are nothing more than customers to them, albeit ones who get some perks out of buying a season ticket.

We can all love the team and the club for as much as we want to, but if the business model decrees that they have to whore the team around to western Sydney for the big bucks, or take a pre season game off the 'members' for charity to promote their good guy image, or sit on their hands while everyone screams about pathetic GF ticketing arrangements, they will.

So really the love and loyalty will be extended by us to them for as long as we believe they are doing the right thing by us, I guess. But how much loyalty and love can the club give back to the fans? Certainly they are not showing much at present by the mismanagement of this issue and teasing the fans with a speculative press report and vague-ish disclaimers by Gorman.

 

[dibo]

i'm looking at what they've done in the past and what they would logically choose to do. i'm working on the basis that a desire for short-term cash from whoring themselves out would be outweighed by a longer term strategic imperative to shore up their central coast heartland.

you're right, like any other privately owned sporting club they are a franchise and they don't 'need' us for meetings and votes, but they do need us because we are the ones who are there in the rain or on thursday nights or when we've missed the finals. their need to satisfy us and their accountability to us is in a purely commercial sense.

i think there's less in it for the club to go to homebush than there is to maintain and deepen our gosford base and attempt to extend our marketing reach to the northern fringes of sydney (or the disputed territories as kevrenor calls them).

i'm going to be cynical about this issue and suggest that while we're getting ourselves in a lather, there are about 200,000 other people who take an interest in what the mariners are doing but have no idea this idea's even been floated and if they have they haven't given it a second thought.

 

[FFC Mariner]

Talking to a CCM supporter based in the Hills area, he gave an alternate view which I post out of interest.

He is active in the local football community and believes thaty SFC have no presence in their area. He feels that CCM have a massive opportunity to showcase the club in the area from (say) Brooklyn - Gordon - Parramatta triangle.

There are far more registered players there than on the CC (so he says) and getting up to BT from there is no worse than trying to flog your way into the SFS.

A pre season game would be a good advert for the club to take advantage of SFC's lack of presence. giving up a comp game sucks but you can see how some minds at CCM might be thinking

 

[dibo]

Tear down bluey, one side at a time and build a better stadium, with larger capacity, and at least a partial roof

issues here - to get around the problems of the roads and railway you need permission to build over the top.

railway may be ok with it if you build entirely across the top (think chatswood or st leonards' stations) but the costs that come with this are *big*. there are bound to be a set of design rules though that are available and with sufficient consultation railcorp might be able to be sold on the idea. opens the possibility of a new north western entrance to the ground as well.

roads are if anything a simpler matter, simply because it's done in other places often enough.

the southern end is still a no-go zone though, so the task is to design a 3-sided stadium that can be brought up to* 40k capacity in the future within the given parcel of land. that means that you're looking at the sort of dimensions that a 4-sided stadium might have if it were 50-60k capacity. think along the lines of a 3-sided suncorp.


...actually, that is a seriously tasty thought. i'm not going to be able to get rid of that thought for days.

*i.e. it doesn't need to go there straight away

was mucking around with google sketchup the other night, and made up the following simple mockup of what a vastly expanded bluetongue might look like:

a view of how far the stadium would go over the railway - you'd essentially build that part as a big platform across the tracks.

southern elevation - looking at it from brisbane water

plan - see how far it hangs over the edges of the existing site! 

view from what would likely be a camera position

view from the top corner of the eastern stand across to the north western corner

 

[skilbeck]

hmmmm it would be good dibo but it seems unlikely since they would be treading a fine line with the residential area above the train line. did you scope the amount of people it would fit?

 

[dru]

was mucking around with google sketchup the other night, and made up the following simple mockup of what a vastly expanded bluetongue might look like:

That looks good dibo but can you highlight the areas that will be terraces?

Also where is the high security away bay going to be? Best to let newieutd know where he will be sitting in the future.