Thanks Gallop.

Well yes and the owners who wanted to maximise their dividends from the highest bidders. 

I  am   not   sure    why    the   current   FA   gave   WU  &  Macarthur   the   licences .  Perhaps    they   were   more    concerned   at   the   time    about    the   next    broadcast    contract ,  rather  than   crowds ?

It’s cash and data driven. They have the revenue to support themselves. Seriously though how many clubs do you need playing out the same stadium? What point of difference are they making. If we think about WSW and Sydney there is a clear point of difference but what is the difference between WU from City? Go find a local ground work hard in the community and build, 3000 in a suburban ground is not a bad thing but AAMI park is just silly. 

Five.

https://afl.fandom.com/wiki/Docklands_Stadium

They thought derbies were the silver bullet for big crowds and success. That you could plonk two teams from the same city in the same stadium and the fans would turn up in droves. They didnt fathom that they were diluting and devaluing the derby concept. Perhaps if they looked abroad they would realise that most of the worlds biggest derbies are played between two club cities;Rangers Celtic, Milan Inter, Everton Liverpool etc.

Fair comment, Roosty.

Wonder how many more expansion clubs we can manage before we are better off just promoting old nsl clubs

its a shame with all the expansion we didnt get at least one more melbourne victory type club. Wsw looked like they would get those crowds but farting around with stadiums means they haven’t been at the level they used to be

Macarthur and Western United are a bit like Hoffenheim and Leverkusen. Generally decent football and fairly well run yet people just find them a bit tacky and their home base isn't so interested either. 

Not so much Macarthur but Western United is just tacky as all fuck. They're a property development play. They market themselves as a property developer. Crowing that the logo resembles the roofs of housing they're building FFS. They have such a non committal name that you wouldn't see yourself following them if the club can't even associate itself with you. Sometimes I wonder if the 3,000 that show up to a game were sent up the wrong road by google maps or something.

I'm not saying the WU owners are stupid - the opposite really. They really know how to play the game with local government getting access to the land and they no doubt know how much value uplift they're sitting on. But maybe they're a bit too clever? Seems they're onto such a winner financially that the football can be an afterthought.

I'm fine with Macarthur.
Western United should never have been allowed in, and South Melbourne was clearly the best bid of the lot at the time.

The Bulls inclusion looks to the future. 
WU... Stinks from top to bottom. 

im sorry but Macathur are a disaster 

WU are a similar car crash but that mostly stems from not deciding on where they will be based. They should of been based in Geelong as most of Western Melbourne already support Melbourne Victory / City - you need demographics that are un-tapped when starting a club 

if WU change to Geelong United FC and based themselves down Geelong way they would probably have a decent following 

Macathur will never have a 'decent' following as no one cares about the club 

although ACT and TAS should of been given the nod a head of both these sides imo 

WU just go in on the $$$ paid. 

I wonder if the worry about South Melbourne getting in, would've been them getting bigger crowds than Melbourne City potentially. 

Would not have been a good look at all. 

opposed to almost having no crowds....

WU looks bad and so does the Bulls i feel for the players as they are both filled with some decent players it must be 'disheartening' to have poor support 

it is why a 'salary cap' league doesnt work, as good players get picked up by big clubs play infront of big crowds and not as good players grind it out to prove they are worth signing at lower clubs.

Are you having a dig at the salary cap for players signing for MB and WU?

You do realise that WU would be among the highest spenders in the league. And MacArthur not far behind. 
They also got an exemption of extra 3-400k in first few years in the salary cap. 

Don't worry. Players are ok playing in front of small crowds. They are getting higher wages than many other clubs are willing to pay them. 
They are not going to WU because of the salary cap. They are going their because they get paid more. Some ridiculously more. 

are you saying the salary cap is a good thing if so i dont know how to help you 

No. 
You missed my point. 

You're saying the salary cap has forced players to play for WU. Against their wishes..that they had no other options by to play for a club with minimal fans. 

But that is false. 

Players happily chose to go there. Most because they got offered more than anywhere else. 

This is the funniest post ever. How many NSL clubs can afford to play in the AL? We have been over this time and again in the expansion thread. NSL bitters love the romance of former NSL clubs being involved, they have no concept of reality.

I saw a few calls over the weekend on Sokkah Twitter for Wollongong to be included. They have no money. Western United bid 4 times more than what Wollongong offered.

It is rumoured that only 6 teams (so far) have put in a bid for the NSD.  Read my lips: S-I-X. Were is the shortfall coming from?


What is the difference between Western United and Macarthur? The only tangible thing is that Macarthur has a home ground. Western United do not. But I would have thought that puts Western United in a better position as the fan base should improve once their nomadic existence ends.

I also wanna add that while crowds are terrible and we are rightly appalled at the numbers Western United and Macarthur are pulling, crowds are not the only KPI. For example, both of these teams are building state of the art training academies. I compare that to my own team who are yet to find a site for their academy after 18 years, and Brisbane Roar, who last week announced major cuts to theirs.  

I can't see why it is perceived as funny?

Some old NSL clubs might have enough backing, like South Melb.

Neither Grazor or I are Bitters either.

"Might" being the operative word. As i said, only 6 NPL clubs have so far applied for the NSD, but people think former NSL clubs would survive and thrive in the AL. To me its hilarious anyone would believe this.

https://twitter.com/GCBulletin/status/1584288557891342336

Your right, even Aleague clubs cant "thrive" in the Aleague how are these scummy, effnik, pumpkin seed eating degenerates ever going to manage eh?

only need 4 to get to 16

That is the future.  Anything else is a pipe dream.

Before promotion is introduced I can see a canberra franchise, a 2nd bris team, maybe a hobart or geelong team (should move wu there) could plausably do significantly better than the nsl average. Probably we should reach 16 teams through some combinations of expansion and promotion before p/r is introduced

Why?

Why not put them in a NSD where the cost is lower and they can build their Club towards AL expansion?

With all due respect I think you really misunderstand how football works.
And I will use SMFC as the example, as people like to lay boots in so much.
Currently SMFC plays in NPL1 in Victoria.
A competition for all intent purposes is a suburban league.
In any suburban competition there are ceilings, in terms of investment and interest. A fact of life, though Preston Lions is bucking the trend with weekly crowds of 2,000-3,000 in NPL3.
NPL also has further restrictions, having read the Licence agreements, the premise is that NPL Clubs should be developing "talent". Now that AL teams have Academies with preferential treatment that objective is not such a priority. And Clubs have quickly gone back to what there purpose is, to serve their members ambitions, and in most cases that means either winning trophies or not getting relegated.
SMFC just announced a yearly $200K sponsorship with CF Capital, a sponsorship even AL Teams would be interested in. And they have a sponsorship portfolio of over $1Mill.

And all this in a Suburban competition.

What is evidenced in Football, here and the world over, is the higher division a club plays in the more revenues come into that club, be it Sponsors, Memberships, Attendances, Media Revenues and exposure, gate sales, corporate hospitality, signage, pourage and catering.

To say any Club currently in NPL will look the same at a financial level, if they went to a NSD or AL next year is at the very least facicious.
Also lacking in the nuances of the Club Licensing system, that requires the prerequisite infrastructure and capital guarantees to participate at a higher division.

In my view the most important and key issue or the game here is the growing of more and better Clubs. What is better for this nations football, 12 pro clubs or 24 or 36?
Expansion of the AL to 16 teams isn't going to do it.
And how do you help more Clubs to get to higher levels?
One way is a National platform, which we have in the AL, a NSD would be another way to increase the quality of Clubs, a domestic transfer system that rewards clubs for developing players, promotion and relegation through the tiers based on Club Licensing encouraging more investment wether AL NSD NPL1 to NPL3 and below.
This how we get there and this will take time.

Your point seems to be if only SMFC and Preston were in the top tier, the money and support would just roll in.  Fact is both SMFC and Preston *were* in the top tier national league.  That league went broke. 

Since 2005 over $1 billion dollars in TV deals and sponsorships has been spent on  10 or so pro clubs.  How much do you think would be required for 24 or 36 of them?  Where will that come from.?

I think Arthur is trying to say that SMFC and Preston have some money and support rolling in DESPITE not being in the top tier. This is obviously at a level matching the reality of where both clubs find themselves in terms of national exposure and value for the sponsorship revenue stream sought after. Any opportunity to better improve the clubs exposure would lead to more opportunity both financial and developmental (forgive my presumption if I'm wrong Arthur)

To put it another way - Even if, say Preston, only had 300 spectators and a revenue income of  100K in 2018 that is 300 more spectators and 100k more than what WU had at the same time.. Give them a license in 2018 and do you not think they would have grown at much greater pace? Top points if you can reply without mentioning a now dead NSL or the word "effnik"

History tells us that these clubs had a ceiling of support limited to their small community.  History tells us that they couldn't expand beyond those communities when they were in the top flight. There is zero evidence that these clubs support base has broadened to any significant degree.  The idea that if these clubs were only given a chance at the big time-again- they would make it big is just wishful thinking.

Worth a go though.

You havent been paying attention to them then mate... Yes obviously the core base of a club like Preston (Im using Preston not to keep rattling on about SMFC all the time, not for any other reason) would be built around their long loyal community but did you know they actually have an indigenous players program? Are VERY heavily invested in advertising themselves to the general public in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and have recently won a community services award in their local council for the charity/community engagement work they do.... I would argue they are a more "known football brand" in Coburg, Preston, Northcote, Fairfield areas than anyone other club in Australia..... 
These are community owned clubs mate, maybe they wont make your so called "big time" but they certainly have an ambition too. Is the fear of the APL that perhaps they are more like to evolve than the franchises? Whats is the stumbling block to letting them form a national comp under the Aleague?

I'm confused now.
So after $1Billion has gone into the AL we still have franchises that can't meet their commitments without benefactors covering the operating losses?
Is that your point?

Or is tit that the bar is set to high in terms of Licence commitments that its too expensive a model?

My point is that costs of professional football today is far beyond what the ex-NSL clubs could and would be able to achieve to create that expanded professional competition you were suggesting.

To think the Fury got booted because their crowds were 5000-6000.

4000 in their last year.

The Fury should never have been booted out imho.

My memory of it was it came down to a measly $ 1 million shortfall.  Spread across the other 10 clubs that would be $100k each over 30 rounds $3,000 per club per round to keep them going

They tried to raise $1.5m from memory through a community based model but came up short.

Like you I think the other clubs and the FA should have kept them going. Brought a lot of colour into the comp. Not too mention teams from down south trying to play in 95% humidity.

They got booted cos FFA couldn't afford to fund them and Roar at the same time.  TV deal demanded they pick Roar.

Good point.

It's disappointing that Canberra, Wollongong or even Tasmania weren't given a chance instead. 

At worst they should play in suitable stadium that would fit their fan base because either way its not sustainable for long term survival let alone growth, 30K stadium for that type of crowd that was on last night is embarrassing for our league.

Who misses north queensland fury?? i know i do

They were everyone's fav second team.

They actually brought something different to the league and had decent crowds compared to every other expansion team that has come in.

South Western Sydney is crowded over saturated football market having a new club there in the land of SU58,BWE, Marconi  and to some extent WSW putting a team there makes no Sense or cents 

Melbourne is one central sinkhole with not real geographical split like sydney or even a perth (yes if you were planning a new NSD competition having NoR/ SoR, Split in Perth makes absolute sense same goes for Tassie) so they already 4 teams that already a major presence in the football community adding a 5th one made no sense or cents 

the following teams should be in the comp now in my alt reality
Canberra United 
Gold Coast United (Palmer-less) 
Adelaide City 
North QLD fury

Marconi, SU58 and BWE are in Fairfield which isn't part of Macarthur's target area.  The only notable club from the Macarthur/Liverpool region that the Bulls are attempting to represent is the 54 year old Macarthur Rams (previously Campbelltown Rams and Campbelltown Vikings) who for the most part have been a second and third tier football club.

An issue that the Bulls have is that Wanderers set themselves up as a team for the whole of Western Sydney and about 20% of Wanderers members (3000+) live in the Bulls target area.  Although some of Wanderers' members did move across to Macarthur most didn't and the result is that Wanderers and Macarthur split the current football attending market of around 6,000 50/50.

With Macarthur's target area population growing at around 20,000 pa and registered player numbers being 3.1% of population there is opportunity for good growth provided the club is managed well off the pitch and performs well on the pitch.


The constant expectation on here of better crowds puzzles me.  People don't come to games because we put a game on. People don't come to games because we think of a number that should attend etc..  They come because they are invited, welcomed and feel they belong.  Clubs need to be marketing their game day experience to get people to come to games and working that market needs to happen year in and year out or attendances will diminish.  Clubs need to cherish every fan that comes through the gate because once a fan is lost it is very difficult to win them back again.

The A-League had a few bad years because of the internal war between FFA and the clubs and that was followed by the 2 years+ of covid restrictions.  We will have lost some of the fans permanently, some may be wooed back into the fold but if we want to see growth we need to expand our vision to include non-football people as well as those for whom football is part of their life experience.

So    how    does    the   APL    get   more  "non - football  people"   to   go   to   games  ?

The responsibility to market the club to the people is the club's not the APL.  Potential fans need to see the human face of the club so whatever gets players and officials in amongst the people needs to be done and done often.

The APL's job is to manage the league, generate income, distribute it, and assist each club to generate income so they can operate professionally.  The APL should commission and fund all the big cost media advertising.

Before you can do any of that you need to define who this potential target market is.

So   clubs   should    be    doing    something    or   other  in   amongst    the   people ,  often . Ok .

And   the    APL   should   be   doing   the  "big   cost   media   advertising"  ,  including    targeting   "non-football   people" ?

literally no point 'targeting non football people' 

i have been pumped with NRL advertising my entire life i got no interest in attending a match - im 32 y.o and i doubt i ever will watch a match in the stadium 

you have 100s or 1000s of football fans who could not give a single fuck about the domestic game you need to win them over 

ill allude to this again we had 76k attend MU vs MVFC i dare say more would of attended if the MCC was allowed to sell its allocation and if the ticket were not a total rip off id say 70 percent of the ppl in that stadium had never been to a domestic game in the past 10 years - the AL has improved a lot but it needs to show people it is worth following 

straight out it needs P/R and community development pathways for players to 'connect' people to the game 

I   would   be   interested   in    hearing    Flytox's     response    to    that   ?

The A-League's decline can be pin-pointed to the time the FFA alienated active support in search of the mythical non-football "family-friendly, broad appeal" market.

 this article points out there are two factors that led to the A-League- under Frank Lowy's leadership- achieve unparalleled success for football in the country:

1. marquee players
2. active support.

I would add the Socceroos as the third pillar.

All this bullshit talk about P and R and South Melbourne et al being let in is just that, bullshit talk.

Disappointing .. .

I think both WU and Macarthur have failed to connect, but I do think the Bulls are actually in a worse position as they have been playing in their preferred stadium in their target market since day 1.

WU have potential to do better when they do start playing matches in Tarneit, even if it’s just at the mini stadium for the short to medium term. They just have to stop scoring so many own goals in the way they go about things, with this constant talk of the stadium is coming and then silence, it just leaves people feeling like something doesn’t add up. Trust is important of you want people to invest their money and time into supporting a club.

So yes, the Bulls in my view may actually be in a worse position given that they should have been in a stronger place to engage and bring the local target market straight away. 

The unfortunate thing for the Bulls is that up until this season they have operated only under covid restrictions and their target market was the area in Sydney that had the most restrictions because of large covid outbreaks early on in the pandemic.  Because of this they lost the opportunity to reap fans from the initial burst of interest in the club.

As I have said previously the club was always going to be a slow build just like Heart because first Sydney then Wanderers had captured all the easy pickings.  Long term I expect them to develop a fan base of similar size to the Mariners and the Jets and they will do that by working the 20,000 new residents that are moving in to the region each year and by working the 6%+ annual growth of registered players that in the main is the result of new junior clubs being started in the new suburbs in Camden and Liverpool LGAs.

Further to that, City have also failed to find their feet in terms of support. Still have far too much of an identity crisis about about what/where they represent.

Starting out as a club for all did them no favours as Heart, especially when Victory already held that position. Now they have pivoted to a base in the South East, but unless they start playing games out there, I don’t really see that bringing many benefits in terms of building attendances through engagement. 

It sux because we really need to get up to 16 teams in the first div before pro-rel is viable

Dave was obsessed with Sydney and Melbourne and derbies being the tonic for everything. All we really need from Macarthur and Urban Sprawl FC is survival. There's a pretty straight forward expansion path open now with Canberra and the Gong probably the best candidates.

Need Pro/Rel in order to find out what size league is viable.

I'm infuriated by Gallop, because the Stamoulis/Belteky bid for a Tassie AL team was the best the league had had. In Gallop's infinite stupidity and his sycophancy to Fox ( who've now deserted football) they refused the Tassie bid.

In A L practice games we've drawn 7 - 8000 spectators.

Now it looks like an AFL team will be placed here and the Jack Jumpers have got a National Basketball League franchise.

For any Sydney or Victorian teams to be drawing crowds of 3 - 4000, whilst we were knocked back, is infuriating. Gallop was so Sydneycentric in his FFA tenure. 

Sth Melbourne in AL would provide more than just 3,000 paying spectators for home games at least

We did it 20 years ago with rabidly hostile media coverage, no buy in from "mainstream" Australia and the stigma of soccer being a game for "sheilas, wogs and pooftas" I dont see why we couldn't now? We "almost' get that in the NPL, surely the national exposure of NSD or Aleague would bring more fans?   Certainly more than the current "Champs" bring to the table....

For what it's worth... I'd love to see SMFC back in the top level of football in Australia.

It always IS :) Wherever we play IS the top level .... at least in my world :)

FTB, it seems your bitter coming from the opposite perspective.....
Rumours about 6 , one poster mentioned this some weeks ago and its probably around other SM.
Nothing is out officially so no one can claim anything hot of the press that is legit but you bring it up, a rumour your doing the same and belittling the level below.
Some of those Clubs may still be holding back to commit being the NSD has dragged the chain to date for nothing concrete has yet to be brought out but proposals/discussions.
Who in their right mind commits without a proposal officially set that it seems still up in the air.
TBH you should be in hope this gets up and running for the bigger picture of our game, that whats its more about.

Don't tell the franchisees mate, they may start pulling their investments if they have to start caring about the sport.

Not bitter, just pragmatic.

Of course, I hope the NSD gets up and we have pro/rel before the decade is out. But I just can’t see the NSD being made up of NPL and former NSL teams. Like it or not, we need a mix of NPL And franchise teams. I can’t see the NSD having 10-12 teams without it.

The ACT needs to be a franchise team. Tassie needs to be a franchise team. North Queensland will likely see the return of a resurrected franchise team. Those advocating for Auckland… we’ll need another franchise team (unless Auckland City put their hand up). You can also look at Perth and the Gold Coast. Are there any NPL teams putting their hand up?

Why?

I think it's clear that future clubs from Canberra and Tasmania have to be "franchises" (for want of a better word): i.e. new clubs that hope to draw support from the entire football community, like the Jets in Newcastle, Adelaide Utd in Adelaide, etc. At the moment those two cities in particular are essentially excluded from the pyramid, as their NPLs are very low-level and there is no team that could really make the step up, since they wouldn't be able to draw support from the whole state. In other countries this process of smaller cities having one team representing the whole town happened gradually but geography prevented that in these cases, and we don't have the luxury of time any more.

Auckland is in the same boat if the A-League wants to add another NZ team.

Wollongong and Gold Coast are lucky that they already have teams like this (the Wolves and GCU), enabled by earlier spells in the national league and geographic proximity to state capitals. Townsville and Cairns had the same but they had to bow out due to the travel costs. They and places like Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Albury-Wodonga, even Coffs Harbour deserve a proper place in a national pyramid.

The era of starting up brand new professional clubs in the state capitals is probably over, with the possible exception of Penrith in Sydney and Ipswich in Brisbane, but even then the fate of WU and Macarthur would be a chastening one, and they would most likely start at a lower level in the pyramid and try to work their way up if a pathway is open to this.

pramatic maybe just doesn't come across that way you should be more specific in that case.......
Forget having Franchise's in the NSD in the short term - that just doesn't mix and brings in more politics/discussion/rulings its bogged down enough as it is at this stage, maybe through relegation way down the track but years off even getting to that kind of scenario.
We still don't know how many Clubs will form the NSD for starters, 10 Club comp who knows to date.
I'd sooner be positive than negative.
ACT/Gong/NQ and or GC need to be local NPL Clubs if at all, any of the support base will come from the locals and surrounds NOT from a Franchise one for in general the proof is in the pudding.
I'm sorry at the NSD infancy stage imo for Tas and to a degree Perth - don't know how the funds support them being involved unless there is some FA $$$'s supporting the logistics.