This was the first time Cahill had played in a HAL game in Australia (bar Melbourne where he will play most of his games). Brisbane were always going to get a bump. The same reaction would have happened fro Perth, CCM, Jets, Adelaide, WSW and SFC. Any of those clubs would have loved the opportunity to market that game.

Hopefully the effect continues, but it is almost certain to dissipate as the novelty wears off.

@ patjennings

It will reduce as the season goes on, there's a pronounced drop in crowds between the first, the middle and the last nine games as it is.

When ADP came first up we got 21,500 at Suncorp, and 18,500 the second time he came. Which still isn't bad.

Figures overall are on the rise...more teams will contribute to this!

How strong is the correlation between having a good season and memberships? Adelaide haven't seemed to pick up a lot of extra members this year.

Shitty - 11,373
SFC - 11,420
Blaze it fgt!

It was actually 22970 & 19010. Cahill will have a probably similar but less pronounced effect (eg it will wear off a bit quicker) 

@ primetec

You're more precise than i was but that fall off at around 10-15% is about right. Interestingly Cahill isn't yet boosting home crowds, certainly not in the way other name marquees have?

Yeah thats an issue for sure. Haven't noticed any boost in MCFC home crowds at all. Wouldn't be helped by the issue they had of so many home game close together early on and now a Thursday night game. Still, pretty poor showing.

Melbourne people can see him any time. He has only played away in Brisbane and they had a decent uplift.

At the end of the day, it's up to those hosting clubs to sell it in the market that Tim Cahill Is coming to town!

To have a more positive effect on the competition every weekend we probably need at least 5 marquees. 

You have to take a look at the scheduling. Something people keep ignoring. When you play 6 home games in the space of 3 weeks, it is going to have a dramatic effect on turnout, then you get the FFA scheduling games on a Thursday night which is just ludicrous. 

Membership wise, they are well, well up from last year. I'd expect them getting better crowds around the Christmas and January holiday period. And if they end up with more than a 20-30% increase in overall avg crowds for their home games by season end, then the Cahill effect has well and truly worked. Anyone expecting their crowds to double in average for the whole season is delusional. He doesn't have that much pulling power. You would need someone like a Drogba, Gerard, Lampard or Pirlo (of 2 years ago). These are players that have achieved incredible success and are massive on the world stage. 

Cahill at home games should be adding 15-30% max. He's just one player that australians have seen play many times. When City play away, you would expect an increase in ticket sales of 25-40% as they are one off games.

The real effect of a marquee player will be felt when you bring a big international star that gets the eurosnobs interested like it did when ADP was here. 

Exactly. I've been saying that for ages, that the league can't rely on one player to do all the work. You need at the very minimum 3 marquees, and they have to each be playing in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. 3 faces of the league representing the 3 biggest cities. Ideally you would want 5 so that both Sydney and Melbourne have star power. 

Once this new deal gets over the line you would want to expect at the very minimum a shift in this direction with regards to more big name players playing on our shores. With a boost in salary cap too, should mean an increase in foreign talent coming our way, even though no doubt some of the average home grown aussie players will be getting a pay rise even without adding much real value.

@ Davo1985

Nothing you've said seems unreasonable. But the truth is Cahill is not having an impact on average crowds at home which are about the same (slightly down) as last years average when you exclude derby matches. I think it's fair to account for a rain affected game and the Thursday night game both of which impacted attendances but certainly no positive impact yet, not even a modest uplift and for city's sake let's hope that does occur.

It will be interesting to see if Wanderers draw a big crowd on Friday, if the Cahill effect is confined to away games and media ratings only I guess that will do but it would be nice for city to get a home uplift too.

Club Total 2016/17       [%] (Total 15/16) (Total 14/15)

1) Melbourne Victory:   25,742  [95.2%]    (27,054) (24,200) 
2) Western Sydney Wanderers:  18,869  [102.8%] (18,349) (18,706) 
3) Sydney FC:    11,708  [89.0%]    (13,153) (11,510)
4) Melbourne City:   11,570  [124.4%]  (9,298) (11,759)
5) Adelaide United:  9,621  [110.3%]   (8,720) (9,505)
6) Newcastle Jets:    8,387  [90.5%] (9,264) (10,003)
7) Perth Glory :   7,140  [100.4%]   (7,109) (6,298)
8) Brisbane Roar:  6,219 [116.3%]  (5,347) (12,113)
9) Central Coast Mariners:   5,859 [96.9%] (6,048) (6,242)
10) Wellington Phoenix:  4,547  [90.3%]  (5,035) (4,185)

TOTAL:  109,662   (109,377) (114,521)

15/16 = 109,377 ........ as of round 1 2015 membership count was:   89,437
14/15 = 114,521 ........ as of Round 1 2014 membership count was:  97,252 
13/14 =   94,520 ........ as of Round 1 2013 membership count was:  86,352

Legend: #black= no change since update. #blue = change < 100 since last update, #green = 100 - 500, #violet = change > 500 since last update. 
Stats are taken from the individual club membership pages, the main a-league tally as well as directly from club representatives.

We've now surpassed last year's total figure. 

I think post Christmas we will probably end up at around 112k - 114k, which is all things considered a fantastic result considering the issues we had last season and this pre-season. 

What does everyone think of the way memberships have gone this season?

If we get close to your prediction by the end of the year it will be a great result.

Looking at the figures right now, the clubs I think that have underperformed (MV, WSW, SFC and NJ) I am confident can rebound next year and onwards.

The clubs that are doing well (MC, AUFC,PG) are clubs that should have been doing this well for a while now. I'm not sure if the underlying reasons for growth are sustainable but I hope so (I don't know what's driving it across these clubs).

CCM and WP I'm not sure about. Their figures are low and I'm not confident in the way the clubs are being run that their numbers will increase as it is. I hope for their sake the TV deal and distribution of funds dramatically increases so they can invest in the clubs and bring in what is needed to build the popularity. But for the purpose of discussing overall memberships, the clubs are pretty irrelevant.

Going very well, although the Roar's numbers look a bit on the low side

Forgot to mention Roar. I think it's too hard to judge their numbers given the mix of crap off-season news followed by good football over the last few seasons.

If they continue playing good football and have an off-season of positive news (or even just the absence of bad news) it would be interesting to see what the numbers are. I'm surprised they are up from last year which is a great effort IMO.

Roar membership numbers should be lauded as really it was looking like it could have been the lowest membership number ever before the start of the season. I feel like a broken record trying to explain why numbers have been down so I'm not going to bother anymore. Any one that has a slight interest in the A-League should know the shit storm that has followed Roar in the off season.

I have given up on expecting anything good to happen in the off season, it will never go away with our current owners as they seem to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. I never renewed mine this season for obvious reasons, treat the fans the shit and you get the same back, I will always support the players and so far this season the Roar have been doing a good job from a marketing perspective.

But when the season ends, whether it is on a high or a low the off season awaits and I can guarantee there will be trouble waiting. 

Low membership numbers for Roar but crowds have been very good. Fans are taking a stance against the owners but will never stop supporting the club and players.

Overall memberships up on last season so happy times. 

Having a mental brain snap. How do you add jpeg images on here? For the life of me I have forgotten how to do it. 

I assumed I click Insert -> IF code -> Image and then place the url of image inbetween but doesn't seem to be working. Dropping the image doesn't seem to be working either. Any help would be great. I just wanted to share a membership tally pic i created yesterday.

right click, copy and paste mate :)

'
I think you can just paste the url now and in your post preview you should see it appear?

If not, try the codes '['img']'*image url here*'['/img']' . My next post/update will be an example.

The latest membership figures from www.A-League.com.au/membership: