look how GWS were set up compared to WSW in terms of community engagement its amazing how better the FFA did in that given the history of the FFA and the AFL you would expect the AFL to do a better job

I also wonder about that.

The people I know that are from Western Sydney have only gone to a GWS game as it was a free ticket and they won't be returning.

Apparently they were giving away substantial amounts of tickets to schools and community groups during the season, which is how they were given them.

Lets not kid ourselves though, all sports give away tickets, but its the amount that are that is important.

Back in the early 90s we heard the same thing about the Swans and look at them now. Players like Adam Goodes are well known all over Sydney now.

The reality is most of the GWS players are teens, when they become superstars (they will because of all the draft picks they got) they will come good, the afl will get it right eventually, team is about 2 yrs away from winning ona regular basis....winning competitive footy will bring in crowds.

Interestingly, the only two examples I know of clubs opening their gates to the public for free access to games were the Titans and the now defunct GCU.

I think we would all agree that prior to GWS, there really wasn't a community to engage with (in Western Sydney), or it could only be found in small pockets such as in the hills districts.

There is a small one now, and you can bet your bottom dollar it will grow, might be modest growth, but it will grow.

I note the Swans got a parade through the streets of Sydney to celebrate last year's premiership - and it was an excellent turn out as well.

Were SFC celebrated by the city in a similar way for their two championships? (they might have been, I don't know).

One thing is for sure, regardless of what people like you say, there is clearly some support for the indigenous game in Sydney, afterall, Sydney is part of Australia too.

I'd be interested to know how big an increase in crowds you think improved performance will bring and where these people will come from. The only AFL fans I am aware of in Sydney are committed to the Swans or are expats who attend games in Sydney to support their club from interstate. If the Swans haven't been able to grow their support for over a decade despite winning Flags why would non AFL fans attach themselves to this new club just because they start to win some games? No doubt there will be some but the most likely source of growth will come from the work done with the game at grassroots and that will take time.

The advantage GWS will always have and this will be even bigger when they become good is that they will always get huge travelling fanbases when they host teams like collingwood, essendon, carlton etc.

Winning has made a huge difference to wsw, a good run of form has seen crowds go from 8k up to 14-16k in the last 2 home games, if you consider that gws gets 7,000 ppl to games that they lose by 100 points, you would have to think the upside will be very large firstly when they become competitive and secondly when they start winning, lets not forget they only won 2 games last season, imagine the wanderes only winning 2 games and regularly losing 5-0...i doubt 7,000 would be turning up.

Overall i dont think they are travelling that badly.

The truth is, the AFL are not getting even close to the number of participants from grassroots compared to football, not even in Victoria now. So i can't see how that game has any relevance to the region, especially since the Swans aren't building after all those (manipulated) wins.

Without television viewers, the AFL would be up the creek. When the massive football grassroots of today (and continuing in ever larger numbers) grow-up, they themselves will convert to a mainstream and massive television audience. We will see a huge shift in the sporting dynamics in this country. The psyche of the media and television will eventually change forever. And this isn't based on an AFL-like fairytale.

Its strange they even took that route then to go down the youth model. Bleeding red ink in the hope that in a few years the team will come good is a risky strategy, as first impressions count.

They have tried big contracts to a couple of players, including one that couldn't get away from the game fast enough. Its hardly something that will make many rugby league fans want to play or follow a sport that had that occur to it.

The way they have given away tickets only for people to show up and see them get thrashed is hardly a great move.

Whatever spin the AFL, or a few fan boys say, GWS has a big task ahead.

a few games last season, against collingwood and essendon at their ground in homebush, it looked like the away supporters outnumbers gws supporters

But will anybody remember those early lean years when the GWS are spanking everyone in a few yrs time? the amount of top draft picks they have received is frightening, expect to see a lot of whinging by the rest of the afl when these guys are smacking everyone, the system has been designed to make them a powerhouse, it sucks but its inevitable, in a few yrs time they will have some of the biggest names in Australian sport.

but during those years they will still be named the giants and they will still have a colour combination that makes people want to throw up

No big deal, the reigning nfl and mlb champions are called the Giants, its a generic sports namem hardly offensive or embarassing, colours are a non factor as well.

That's about the only current player who would be well known in Sydney & that is with a premiership winning side.

I honestly don't see why it's a battle the AFL will never win over the west, heck even the Sydney Swans still struggle to get attention even in the CBD and that's after 30 years. NRL will always remain king in Sydney and that will remain the same in the west of Sydney.

The reality is we should worry about ourselves not the others and really i couldn't give a toss to what they do.

If they do thier job properly WSW will fine.

This +1000

90% of Sydney wouldn't know half of the swans players except if its a swans fan. :lol:

The biggest AFL names in Sydney in recent years have been Hunt, Folau, Cousins & Fevola. Does that tell you something.

Well that says it all.

Mind you while we are talking about taking on the AFL, we should mention the NRL have their own axe to grind with the AFL infiltrating the west:
GWS experiment failing

And of course the AFL, the kings of spin and manipulation have plenty of tricks up their sleeve themselves. How about this photo of what was once a council ground for ALL kids to play sport, now being handed over here and other places in the west for AFL-only use:

but most of the top picks are on short term contract and only the housing development has saved gws from losing a lot of its young 'high potential' players from going back to melbourne

I have to wonder why these so called super-stars are going to stick around with GWS?

Surely they'll be off to the Collingwoods of the AFL, teams in Melbourne (where most of them come from surely) where they have a chance of winning a trophy.

I still don't think you understand the Sydney market. There are generally not large numbers of sports fans wanting to attach themselves to a new sporting club. The vast majority are already committed. In western Sydney they are committed to Rugby League. Virtually no one has anything but a passing interest in AFL and that only when the Swans are playing. There are pockets of expats from AFL states that have drawn in some locals to the game, namely in the Hills District and, up until the Army Camp closed, Ingleburn but they are committed to the Swans. Our football code has a great advantage in that with post war migration, mainly from footballing countries, there is a very large pool of uncommitted football fans that are slowly attaching themselves to the Wanderers with growth driven by form. GWS on the other hand does not have an AFL ready market to tap into. It has to create it. Its attendances are bolstered by Canberra members, traveling fans and expats in Sydney who go to watch their home town club play GWS. Anecdotally less than half GWS's average of 8k for games played in western Sydney are locals that have been drawn to the club. With most sports fans already committed and little to no interest in the code in the region I ask again, where is this body of fans going to come from when their standard of play improves? The most likely source is from the grass roots that the AFL has been targeting for the last 6 years but with very few so far having shown enough interest to commit to playing the game competitively that will start off at quite a small number. With both NRL and AFL played in winter I don't see much likelihood of a cross over crowd but there might be some with WSW. With most Sydney sports fans choosing to watch from the comfort of their lounge I don't see much opportunity for growth from there either. I'm afraid I can't see any significant increase in the short term unless the derbies drive up interest quickly so I expect that GWS will take the same route as the Swans with a 15 year plus hard slog to build their attendance. Having read quite a bit of what AD has said about it I think he has the same impression as me because in one quote he said that it could be a 40 year project.

Edited by gyfox: 10/1/2013 12:16:02 AM

This fact will help steer any genuine sports fans away from the farce that is the AFL. I'm sure if he thought he could get away with it, Vlad would introduce a rule that says a goal by GWS is worth 12 points, and a miss worth 2.

Edited by petszk: 10/1/2013 01:45:01 AM

This is why the AFL isn't a true sport, the league winners are planned in advance by their corporate office.

It’s definitely not a term that’s ever been used in Victoria much. Referring to say a Collingwood vs Carlton game as a “derby” just sounds weird to me, I haven’t heard it used by the league or media is this town. I associate the term with football (association football). If you said Melbourne derby to me, I’d say Victory v Heart.

Though the Freo vs WC match has always been known as the Western Derby, since it started in the mid 90s. Maybe a WA thing, I dunno. And they say “derr-by” instead of “darr-by”. Weird.

West Coast and Freo started referring to their matches as "derbies" (pronounced the same way as they pronounce the WA town of Derby) in Freo's first season back in 1995.

The numbers don't back that up.

Sydney sporting crowds are tiny, absolutely tiny. In other words, there are plenty of Sydney people who are not committed to any sport, let alone sporting clubs.

That's precisely what the AFL is aiming at - the millions of Sydney people who follow no sports team, or who only follow them on a casual basis.

Edited by Mister Football: 10/1/2013 09:14:21 AM

What if the FFA-owned WSW wins the championship in its very first season.

Isn't that a bit farcical?

They would beat the Storm's record of having won a title in only their second season.

Someone made the comment that membership numbers on their own are useless, that it's the revenue you make from selling membership that is the important piece of information.

I agree.

Here are some figures from the 2012 annual reports of selected clubs:

Collingwood:
Membership nos - 71k
Membership revenue - $16,229,531

Essendon:
Membership nos - 48k
Membership revenue - $9,367,066

Carlton:
Membership nos - 46k
Memberhsip revenue - $8,953,054

Hawthorn earned $9,028,307 from around 60k memberships, including around 8k Tassie 3-game memberships.