Clubs also don't get more money if more people watch the game on the TV, they already had a deal signed.

Thats not exactly the case is it? 
I thought clubs made very little from purchases inside the grounds.  Apart from merchandise of course. 

More people at the stadium means more stuff bought at the stadium increasing revenue.

Huh? The membership number is arguably more important to the club than match day attendance... In fact, you could argue that you'd be doing your club more of a favour by staying at home and watching them on the telly, than by attending the game because you've then paid them for a membership AND helped bump the viewership, increasing the potential for advertising revenue. 
Members are great to have because they provide you with a revenue stream at the start of the season, but from there on out, I'd suggest what the clubs REALLY want, is non-ticket-holders buying new tickets - ideally driven by the members aiding the club in providing excitement and engagement. 

You can only ever take these stats as a general indicator. It's often like comparing apples and oranges. Are these season tickets, general memberships, 1 game memberships? There's a big difference.
Most clubs only include season tickets, but some include everything. As is the Melbourne way, ie memberships have little relation to attendances. Clubs in whatever sports can have 30-50k memberships and still only get 15k crowds. 
And you could add the fact that SFC has over 25k junior blues members with our kids programs, but these aren't ticketed full season memberships so we don't count them. 

According the clubs' websites:-
City 11,176
Sydney  11,211

Very good point. I was running out of fingers and toes to count on and didn't look beyond the Melbourne figs.

Someone correct me if im wrong but I think City have just overtaken Sydney FC on the membership tally. Agree also on the membership culture down here, nevertheless still impressive.

@ azzaMVFC

Mate, I knew I was taking the bait lol 😉

Just taking the piss mate :)

Brisbane do well with an average crowd double the membership base. Just a shame Suncorp is so big.

I reckon if smaller clubs had the troubles Brisbane did they'd almost be extinct.

@ azzaMVFC

"membership buying must have become a problem in Brisbane" WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ????

The current 5,000 total excludes corporate and stadium memberships mind you which have yet to be added and, despite past inflated numbers, membership in Brisbane is always 6-8k I'd say, so there's work to be done in the city to drive a membership culture.

5,300 Suncorp members last year though resulted in an average crowd of 13,500.

Membership buying must have become an issue in Brisbane too. More members at CCM :blink:

It is a great effort from City, their challenge is to convert memberships into game day attendance and more importantly increase average attendance - if that doesn't happen (at any club) the number itself is rather pointless.

'that the two Vic clubs have more than 36k members is fantastic'

Two Sydney clubs has 30K members, not bad for a city that 'Sydney has no psyche of buying memberships'

That's the thing about Melburnians they will buy memberships to sporting clubs and have been doing so for decades. It's something that's deeply ingrained in their psyche. In Sydney by comparison there is no such longstanding habit. In fact the old district RL clubs used to actively discourage anybody joining and personally I never knew anyone who actually had a season ticket. Sure their were people who had "their seat" in what used to pass for a stand at most suburban grounds but they only got that because they or a mate turned up before the third grade kick off and claimed the seats and then went back to the licenced club for a sherb or two.

Anyway the fact that the two Vic clubs have more than 36k members is fantastic. What do they do to market the memberships?

Melb City 11,051. Great effort.

Not going to lie, would be embarrassing if City overtook us and it must be damn close. Weird then that our crowds are quite often ~50% larger haha.

Latest from A-league site:

Adelaide United 9,261
Brisbane Roar 4,968
Central Coast Mariners 5,068
Melbourne City FC 10,731
Melbourne Victory 24,821
Newcastle Jets 7,932
Perth Glory 6,653
Sydney FC 11,008
Wellington Phoenix 3,708
Western Sydney Wanderers 18,715

Some of those figures are out of date already though? The great race between Roar and Mariners is getting tight haha.

Victory would be over 25k for sure by now.

melb city "over 11,000"

As per latest club email adelaide united now on 9331

Within 300 of our record now

AFL play 9 games per week. We play 5.  Which explains why they have so many more members but the matcg average is closer. Comparing average is very misleading. If you compare total attendance per round the picture becomes clearer. 

AFL are a giant

Newcastle have hit 8000, announced on their Twitter earlier today.

City 10,949
Jets 8,012
Adelaide 9,331
Sydney 11,096

Just updated the membership tally above.

Grant Meryer from Adelaide has just updated me. Their membership coming into this game as of last night is 9,293. So a good little jump this week from them too considering the loss to WSW.

I'll update the post above tomorrow, as a number of clubs haven't updated their stats and nor has the FFA. 

If we want to crack 110k we'll need to get to 104k this week, as I think it will be tricky to pick up another 6k in the following month as it will slow down hard as every week goes by.

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

1) Melbourne Victory:   24,821  [91.7%]    (27,054) (24,200) 
2) Western Sydney Wanderers:  18,704  [101.9%] (18,349) (18,706) 
3) Sydney FC:    11,008  [83.7%]    (13,153) (11,510)
4) Melbourne City:   10,818  [116.1%]  (9,298) (11,759)
5) Adelaide United:  9,293  [106.6%]   (8,720) (9,505)
6) Newcastle Jets:    7,942  [85.7%] (9,264) (10,003)
7) Perth Glory :   6,635  [93.3%]   (7,109) (6,298)
8) Central Coast Mariners:   4,854 [80.2%] (6,048) (6,242)
9) Brisbane Roar:  4,653 [87.0%]  (5,347) (12,113)
10) Wellington Phoenix:  3,631  [72.1%]  (5,035) (4,185)

TOTAL:  102,359   (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.

The other side of AFL memberships is that Victorians have a culture of buying memberships as a sign of supporting the club. This is regardless of any consideration for attending games or getting value from it.

I think that culture extends across the league.

Time to bookmark that image.

Proves 100% what I was saying, bar wa & sa clubs, all AFL membership numbers are bullszit, the reality is Collingwood have about 35k real members and the other 35k are bullszit.