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

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

As per latest club email adelaide united now on 9331

Within 300 of our record now

melb city "over 11,000"

Victory would be over 25k for sure by now.

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Some of those figures are out of date already though?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.

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.

Melb City 11,051. Great effort.

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?

'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'

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.

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

@ 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.

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

Mate, I knew I was taking the bait lol 😉

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.

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

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

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. 

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. 

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

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

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

Not to mention the overall return on a season membership sold for $250 is much better than a token membership of $30 and then watching at home which would only be worth no more than $10 - $20 a bucks a season to the broadcaster.

Arguably they do though. Why do you think CCM has struggled to find major sponsors in spite of their relative success? 
It's not just about the size of their local catchment area - that's just I've direction that an advertiser might target. It's about how many people watch the team, a metric in which we have unfortunately fared rather poorly. But I mean, it's not like "La Ionica" is looking to only sell in Melbourne. 

So increased ratings definitely simplifies the sponsorship negotiations. 

I remember the Sydney derby at SFS last season (can't remember which one) broke the SFS record for most money spent at the venue for one matchday. Surely must have gotten a payout for that!

@ bigblueman

Every stadium deal in the country would seem to be unique but the one Roar have with Suncorp gives them a revenue share of the stadium naming rights, a share of the stadium members revenues and a share of f&b spend on match day. I'd assume most deals are similar.

plus soccer is new in this country as afl been plying here for over 100 years soccer just starting to take off last 5 years

Thanks mister football.

Australia's national team played its first international in 1922.

Let me know when aussie fools has a national team. Maybe you could play South Africa, you blokes were taking the country over 5 years ago, everyone in Melbourne was saying it. All those kids you threw egg balls at should be hitting draft age now, let's sit back and admire the hard work.