You honestly don't think the afl would care when they have spent over $100m on something that Wsw did better with a $5m budget?

Yes, when it's all said and done, the Wanderers are a success story - but don't kid yourself the AFL would have the slightest care about that.

they key thing here is to remember that the afl have planned the giants for years and have pumped a ridiculous amount of money into the project.

wsw was put together on a shoe string budget in the space of 3 months.

yes the on field success has assisted the wanderers and has hindered the giants, but all things considering, i think the wanderers are far and away the success story of the two and the afl will have a tough battle if it wants to truly make inroads in west sydney because at the end of the day, there is a limited genuine underlying supporter base to tap into and hence they have to convert new supporters to follow them.

would be interesting to see what kind of crowds the giants could pull when they start becoming competitive on the field.

Sounds like a nice way of saying ~ Half. :)

As an aside, all of Wanderers members are counted as full season ticket holders... of which there are around the number you have mentioned. So for all of GWSydneys' push and $ promotion and cut-price memberships, they haven't been able to grow far beyond what a football club, set up a few months before the season with F/A promotion and some negative press and competing against ADP across town for support, has done.

Edited by 4wanderer4: 9/1/2013 10:49:00 AM

I would gladly give it if I had the details on hand.

But I recall various articles on this over the past 6 months or so.

I recall that around 1,000 members were outside of Sydney and Canberra (i.e. from Southern and Western NSW and other parts of Australia).

From memory between 3,500 and 4,000 were from Canberra, and the rest were from the Sydney metropolitan area.

Football heartland can only be measured when you are measuring the best/famous. Example Manchester United sold out a 80K stadium in 3 minutes playing a practice match against a team that does not even exist. Collingwood the AFL equivalent to Man U playing the lowly rank GWS, but in the best AFL competition in the world & you get 15K if lucky.

Now that is comparing football heartland.

To compare WSW to GWS is comparing the A-League (not even close to the top 20 leagues in the world) to the AFL (the best competition in the the AFL world).

You need to be very careful about comparing football to Australian rules football (AFL as promoted in Sydney) as opposed to A-League to the AFL.
In the world game, there is more than just the local product as opposed to AFL, where the local product is all there is.

Edited by robbos: 9/1/2013 10:39:50 AM

This. But WSW progress has been very encouraging

the fact that we are in the local papers, in the daily telegraph, that parramatta know about us, that if you wear your jersey your bound to have a chat with a fellow western sydney supporter, shows that we are doing very well.
it is only our first season, so we had to get our name out there. not only have we done that, but people are still becoming members this late in the season. we are still growing.
an average over 10k is great, that was our aim, and should be every clubs aim. so we are on track for that.
got to remember that the eels have 50+ years of history here. it shows that we are doing very well when the eels players come to our game and post on twitter about the passion and that they want us at their games.

we are doing very well, and should aim to grow every season

While we are excluding things....

they are all 0

also,

@misterfootball, would be good to see a breakdown of how many of those memberships are where and what type. I suppose I ask too much though.

Edited by Blackmac79: 9/1/2013 10:04:59 AM

The FFA-owned WSW are on track to win the championship in their very first season - and I say good luck to them - but if you can't pull a crowd in soccer heartland when you're going that well, you never will (e.g. SFC).

As for the Giants, the Australian game is relatively foreign in many parts of greater Western Sydney, so no surprise that they are rock bottom in every sense of the word.

Nevertheless, there's a glimmer of hope. Despite getting thrashed most games last season, their memberships in 2012 were 10,241.

Early January, their memberships sales for 2013 are already 6,888. So I would suggest that they are on track to surpass the 2012 number - an excellent result for a bottom team that got thrashed most games last year.

Source: http://membership.gwsgiants.com.au/

If you do not include the Canberra crowds for GWS, should the members on 3 games memberships in Canberra also be excluded from the GWS memberships? I would have thought you would need to include all "Home" games. I am not sure why they play out of Canberra if they are supposed to represent Western Sydney, besides financial gain funded by the government. North Melbourne & Western Bulldogs were doing this previously.

It would have been interesting what the WSW average would have been if the first (and even the second) derby were played out of ANZ instead of Parramatta. It appears WSW are using a strategy of sticking to their core market at their home ground to build a loyal supporter base.

NRL is the established code in the area but it will be interesting to see what becomes the second code. Early days yet for both new teams.

Edited by justafan: 9/1/2013 09:56:35 AM

Using the average crowd of Parra seems a bit disingenuous to me. Not only were the Eels the wooden spoon, but if we are going to be accurate we would need to add the average crowds of Parra, Canterbury, Penrith, and Wests minimum to show the amount of people attending NRL matches in Western Sydney.

It's a stupid thing we football supporters do (not talking about Roberts here). We see the average of our 2 teams in Sydney, or our 2 teams in Melbourne and think they are going alright compared to the other leagues - not realising that their supporters are diluted over upwards of 10 teams (NRL in Syd, AFL in Melb). I love the A-League and it is going amazing, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Moreover, as f1 and william said, it isn't a battle for Western Sydney residents. No-one I know (and I know diehard supporters of all codes) feels they have to embrace one over the others. If we buy into it it will only hurt football, not help.

You included GWS games played in Canberra and missed the eels games played at ANZ.

2012 GWS 8 matches (excluding 3 at Manuka Oval) - Total: 93,781, Average: 11,723
http://stats.rleague.com/afl/crowds/gws.html

2012 Eels 12 matches - Total: 201,633 Average: 16,803
http://stats.rleague.com/rl/crowds/parramatta.html

even with ffa handouts and free ticket giveaways, wsw still struggling in the supposed "heartland of football"

It is a battle - do you think GWS would love to sign Ono !!! They blow $2M on Folou...

I support all 3 actually, however I am no longer the passionate parramatta fan I use to be and I'm fully behind football and the wanderers in this 'battle'

and incredibaly inaccurate

There is no code battle. Nobody has been asked to follow one team to the exclusion of others.

Crusader - thats a good point !!!

And in the free tickets battle:

2012-13 Western Sydney Wanders 9 games total 102,141 Free Tickets 0

2012 Parramatta 9 matches total 113,344 Free Tickets 0

2012 GWS 11 matches total 119,073 Free Tickets 118,825

The code battle in Sydney’s West:

So far it’s a very even battle ----

2012-13 Western Sydney Wanders 9 games total 102,141 Average 11,349

2012 Parramatta 9 matches total 113,344 Average 12,594

2012 GWS 11 matches total 119,073 Average 10,825