The Lions had 20762 members this year.

The NRL was claiming increases in memberships in NSW and QLD of between 20 and 50% last season so the concept is catching on there albeit only recently.

I just checked my WSW membership number and its just under 2000.

Thanks ill add that in, presuming your number is in regard to you being the 2000th member, do you remember what day (or around what day) you bought it?

Are those AUFC memberships the "memberships" or season tickets? Last season, we sold over 5,000 season tickets and around 1,500 memberships (or somewhere around those figures).

Those numbers are hell old. like almost 2 months.

Beginning of August.

I'm sure those are season ticket figures - seriously doubt 2000+ paid for a financial membership at all, let alone by mid-August last year.

Other than WSW the Roar has the lowest membership but manages to consistantly have the second highest average crowds.

Proves what i'm saying, but the haters will say that we are just trying to cover it up...

One of the strategies for Melbourne Victory's reasonable member size is the "Auto 12".
It gives folks the chance to pay off over 12 months.The Auto 12 continues year on year unless you actually opt out

This works really well because it gives the club a strong base of 5k from day 1

Do other clubs offer this?

Yes Newcastle has the Easy payment plan, where the membership is spread over the year and is automatically carried over for the next year unless you opt out by a set date.

No surprises that they have they biggest memberships

Hopefully other clubs do this because it's the best way to convert people to membership

WSW do it too.

Ricki Herbert said Wellingtons memberships are up 40% on this time last year.

WS now have 2000 members.

=d>

Awesome, hopefully they can get 3k or 4k signed up by the first couple of rounds.

Will be interesting to see WSW's crowds. If they average 5000 they really were just a vocal minority. If it's 10,000 then it'll be a massive success and justified.

How many members did Heart have in their first season?

just renewed my family Heart membership and asked what the latest figures were like...the guy said he hadn't checked for a couple of days but it was around 4,000 then....who knows, i'm a little worried to be honest. We were hoping for an increase this year and its looking like we'll be lucky to match last year.

Also, why haven't Heart published the financial report for the last year??

This is what I want to know.

Heart, Fury and Gold Coast.

I want to know how many members they had in their first years.

Pretty sure Heart had around 5k members first season.
But the Melbourne sports market has a huge membership culture.
Not so in Sydney, FC has never had over 7k members, so for WS, if they can get 3k or more first year, that's great.
Their rivalry will build on from there and that'll help both clubs grow.

The Heart had something like 4,500 from what I know....but once again, withouth anyone publishing their numbers, you will never know for sure. The one thing which also interests me is the break down of eg Adult Memberships to children...eg I just did a family membership which is 2 Adults and includes 4 kids (even if you don't have 4 kids under 11 or so)....so that counts as 6.

They should just publish revenue earned from Memberships, Corporate boxes, etc...we are entitled to this knowledge as we are paying members!

Last year around mid december (before the christmas derby) Melbourne Heart started selling three game memberships, it wouldn't surprise me if they were added to last year's membership count...so with that in mind, i very much doubt that our total membership count (of last season) was at 6,500 for the start of or a few weeks in to the season

I think it's fair to say that 9,000 is not a realistic goal, if we have a good start to the season (so that more people buy these 3 game memberships), particularly at home...i wouldn't expect more than 7,200 if the figure of 6,500 is correct

I'm not sure how you would get financial reports from clubs. They're all privately owned, so there's no obligation to provide members with financial reports - unlike actual member owned clubs like AFL clubs. I'm sure it's been discussed before, but it's probably more accurate to say that in the A League, we're season ticket holders rather than members.

I agree though. 4,000 sounds a bit disappointing at this stage. We should be looking at 6,000+ by Round 1. During the season, they will release things like 5 game memberships which might then help push the final numbers up if we're doing well on the pitch.

But betting agencies and even things like 442's season predictions have us bottom two or three in the league at the moment. I'm bemused by all that because I think we've got a stronger squad than last year. But maybe we're fighting a general feeling that we might struggle this season.

Year 1 was 5,300 I believe. Then 6,700 last year. But I've wondered as well whether a family membership counts as 1 or 6?

I agree. Anything above 7,000 would be fine in my opinion as it still means growth from year to year. 9,000 was always an ambitious target.

The only club with actual members is AUFC, we have an AGM on the 10th of October.

it would definitely count as 6...otherwise we'd be a well off club. last year a whole heap of kids memberships were given away for free (or for a very low price) to all green gully juniors from memory..so that boosted numbers as well..

i suppose the A League clubs are becoming like AFL clubs with spitting out all of this crap about so called member numbers, i never believe any of them!