47k for sun arvo is pretty solid and not much different from previous years.
In fact,in the past, there have been many sun arvo games that didnt make the ratings minimum.

Also for the ABC ratings, the CCM game was one of the lowest profile games.So expectations were low.
Straight lines upward rarely  happen .Trends upward with higher highs and higher lows is an upward trend are much more normal.
Lets see what happens over the next few weeks.

the abc ratings are going up with no advertising or promotion and most of the games are low profile 

A positive sign for supporters of the game.  On the other hand, it would be killing some of the miserable sods around the place.

for all we know it might have pushed double those figures with streaming. but who the hell knows?

The chances of 50k watching this on kayo are zilch.

Not really

Its just a case of the optimists clutching at straws to find positives in the season

"No advertising and promotion" is just a "fact" of the game we accept without being able to substantiate. This mythical beast that should have in theory destroyed our game but we have succeeded despite it

If you were to compile a list of every place that mentioned the A League in any given week I think you'll find "no" as a vast exaggeration

And then "growing figures". Really? Chop a person's legs off and see a couple of scabs form around the stumps and you'd think they're on the road to growing their legs back

The ratings are embarrassingly poor. When it was first announced we were going to be on FTA I dont recall a single person saying "I hope we get less than what Fox is currently getting". In fact, if you recall, the FFA stormed away from SBS because ratings of 120k pre BBL and 70k post BBL was inexcusable

Now 58k is promising growth

I'd rather be a miserable sod than somebody who rationalises the benefits of a sinking ship

I dont think anyone is suggesting that Football is reaching its potential in this country, just giving some balance to the idea that the game is at deaths door. Clearly the game needs to be united and, in my opinion, this can only happen through a proper pyramid and a focus on genuine football culture and player development but the idea that the a-league hasn't been a big and important step in professionalising and giving it a wider audience in this country, I dont agree with. So I dont think being continually negative and hoping the league collapses and something better springs up in its place is the way forward. 

That's my opinion, I just dont think the game can grow unless these fundamental issues that hold us back on the global level are addressed.

Congratulations exhibit A, you've achieved your goal.  

Actually they’re not, I agree 50k is unlikely but the chance no one was watching is, zilch. 

Kayo is proving a hit for Fox Sports and sokkha fans love it. So the number will be somewhere between healthy and very good (25k-35k) 

but we don't know. 

Hope so. Do the a-league clubs know these numbers? Or do fox keep them secret

I’m told they don’t know them. 

Not good. Ratings already down an estimated 24% on last season. 

Neither do I

I have long said the turnaround was after season 6 when the FFA turned away from a progressive path to a football model and became a league of AFL / NRL style gimmicks to rescue metrics

The A League was an important step. But now we are trying to find ways to preserve that step and sell the step as the final product. A stepping stone is something that you recognise as relevant today, but useless tomorrow


I'll sum things up in a single example which is by no means my broader point. In season 5 Lowy introduced the top 6 in a 26 week season because the end game was 14 teams playing twice. He knew the A League needed a set start and end date like other codes and understood the importance of cementing it early on. The same way fans of other codes know what week their league kicks off and when the grand final is - we needed a consistent presence

A few years ago the top 6 was reformatted and reintroduced as a means of and exciting finals format and keeping fans of all teams excited. By not actually eliminating teams until round 27 then teams will always have something to play for, and fans will turn out in droves to see if their team that has won 25% of their games can scrape into an elimination away game


This is the difference between a "step" as a means to an end and rationalising the "step" as the product because its easier. So when do we kick the training wheels off the salary cap and go open? When do we go from a closed tier format to a multi tiers? When do we go from strategic markets to traditional clubs? When does the FFA cup become our national cup with an ACL spot?

I've worked for agencies before where necessary tentative evils turn into sacred cows and they never ever fucking go away until you have a full clean out of management. This is why I have long said we need to buy in external expertise. Suddenly these things that we "absolutely must have" or the league will die will be challenged and disappear

Yes they are. They’ve shifted to Kayo which would only need an average viewing audience of around 10k to force a rise in ratings overall. 

Does anyone know the ratings for the ABC news ,which follows the football?
At least we would know what we are chasing.

600k or there abouts 

ok the news isnt on immediately after the football in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, but nationally totals 582,000 metro.

The lead in half hour immediately before the football rated 80,000, the half hour immediately following the football rated 357,000 - Adelaide and Perth were the only places where the Football outrated the program immediately after. Brisbane and Adelaide both lifted on the program immediately before the match for the football.

Football ratings
Sydney - 19k 
Melbourne - 11k
Brisbane  - 10k
Adelaide - 13k
Perth - 5k

have to be more than 15,000 to be a rise overall.

I don't think thats unrealistic in the slightest. 

The Kayo bubble has burst! You would be lucky to get 6k watching at any one time.

I don't think that's correct, there would easily be 6k watching at any one time....but...ratings are an average of viewers over the whole 90 min, and we have no idea what that average viewership would be.
A reach of even 20k might only give you an average rating of 8k.

For anyone wondering, the W-league appears to have rated 40k in the metro areas on the ABC on Sunday.

thanks

That's good.

A little while ago I posted in part the following after the release of data that said that of the playing base in excess of 1.5 million 36% had an interest in Football and of that 34% who had an interest only 36% of the 34% watched Hal.

I posted in part  the following...



  This harks back to somewhat boring analysis based on behavioural science case studies, and the importance of regional associations. So if uninterested then I suggest you don’t read

What creates a movement, a new idea etc, is often simply usage and being seen.

The business world is full of examples of changing trends and often these changing trends reflect changing of long-established traditional methods to the new.

Two examples I will give are first what young people drink, 30 years ago most 30-year old’s in Australia drank VB or similar brand. Today you would be lucky to find a 30-year-old who drank VB or similar brand.

My next example is TV, there are many reports than the under 35 hardly ever watch TV.

What is clear is there is growing generational gap between life style choices between say the under 40 and the over 50. With those in the 35 to 50 age brackets mixed in their choices.

So how does all this effect Football.

What behavioural scientist, will tell you is there is a rapid pick up once a kinda cross over or tipping point is reached.

With say 12% of the playing base having and interest in Hal, then the group dynamics in most teams would be low.

An example assumes a team has 15 players and using the above 12% as the base. 15 players @ 12% is 1.8 so let’s say its 2 players out of 15.  

 2 players in 15 talking about Hal would not generate much interest from the group, and may actually discourage discussion.

However, if that number was 4 players, then discussion of Hal would be more and maybe seen as the new boys on the block with the cool knowledge.  5 players would be enough to get the team starting to talk about Hal.

Discussion and interest normally lead’s to viewing and with this demographic streaming would be much smarter.

To me it’s beyond obvious the answer lies with connecting to the player base and to do that needs connecting to the regional associations and thu the associations to the local park clubs.

Thats like trying to get more people to watch Australian films by increasing the number of drama students

We saw close to 200k watch the Socceroos play a lowly Asian team, and 2 nights later less than 25% watch an opening A League match. Same people, same demographic, same method of measuring interest

Dont forget: The interest in the Socceroos world cup qualification came first, and the number of (casual) people wanting to play the game second. When the Socceroos qualified it was a "what were you doing when" moment. For the A League to succeed, similarly we need more people talking about it in lunch rooms or at the pub. More people wearing shirts, more posters on people's walls

When the A League was launched despite the code being at its lowest fans were given something to talk about. Nobody would have tipped 50k attending a H/A game in a regular season, but we didnt even have to wait 2 years. Equally when the league hit tough times fans also had something to talk about, and most of it was echoing Pim's comments

Now its just AFL / NRL style gimmicks desperately trying to rescue metrics

We are part of the football world and we can't get interest by going against the grain. We opted not to have the biggest clubs of any football code in this country just so the smallest number of fans from the smallest teams can feel better that we are gifting them titles they otherwise wouldn't have won

I'd like to see a sensible football model with today's level of funding and interest before ruling it out as something that should never have been attempted. Because currently its about trying to get people interested in what we think is best for them

That stat might be true, is probably true, but equally I would suggest to you that 86% of the attendance at a State of Origin match, or 86% of the ratings of a State of Origin match, or even 86% of the 100,000 who might attend the AFL grand final, have never touched a football of any description.
So, maybe the answer is not that straightforward.
Another example, we try hard to make A-League games family friendly, maybe too hard, maybe we'd get better results if we went the opposite way?
I'm not saying we should do that, but I am saying it's nearly always wrong to think there is one magic bullet.

BB

We are on two totally different developments ideas.... no offence meant as most as few understand what I am talking about....

I am talking about using group dynamics to change exiting behavioural patterns ...

Let me explain how this works in a little more details.

I think we have around 1, 000 park teams Australia wide.

Each of those clubs has a committee of local volunteers .... mostly but not exclusively the following applies ... meaning it will not apply all the time but most of the time...

Most committee volunteers are well respected locals within especially the local park club.... Most committee volunteers undertake lots hard work relating to their club... Mostly the Football volunteer committee members are Football friendly...   Meaning we have this resource of already Football folk, in positions of influence, and in the main well respected.

If we can connect to these committees and do things for them, appreciate them and get them to encourage that people support Hal then in my humble opinion it could have lets say a 10 to 15% effect...

At 15%, when added to the existing 12 % that would be 29% ... so 29% of 15 players is 4.35 so lets say 4 players .... 

4 players talking would create far more conversations and if case studies in other ares hold true... watching and viewership would increase a lot...

To get to the park committees we need to go via the regional associations...

2,386 clubs nationwide in 2018.  Average size of a club is 200 players.

Not every state uses the regional association system but rather work on a centralised basis which will make your process harder.

Having made these 2 points I agree that the elite clubs need to nurture the grassroots system in order to grow the game from the bottom up and in doing so be seen as part of a whole connected entity where people feel they "belong" and easily attach themselves to "their" club.  That's a big ask because since the 1956/7 split the elite clubs have seen themselves as masters of the game with everything else subordinate to them both in importance and role.