@primtech

And allow for the expansion all except the FFA crave!

so the season would begin on chopped up cow paddocks ....brilliant !

The seasons starting soon???

You wouldn't know it in Melbourne

You think it's any better in other states?

We all agree on the earlier kick off to the season, and the ridiculous 'clear air' argument, but I think its Fox who would oppose this.
Remember it was them who helped finance the league so they could fill their 'summer sport' programming in NRL and AFL off seasons.

The clubs asked for the  season to be shifted to the October start to get attendances back on track.  The first season saw a 24% increase in average attendance and this was followed by an 18% increase.  Similarly average STV rating jumped from 45k to 66k a 47% increase and jumped another 23% the following season to the highest average rating we have had i.e. 81k.  Since then both attendance and ratings have eased to a point still well above the average achieved during the 6 years of early start to the season.  Is the rise in both metrics the result of the season change or are there other factors involved?

Good post GyFox, didn't realise the stats had jumped that much.

Expansion means the season will have to extend anyway - I'm wondering whether it would make send to start the first week of September and then have the sugar rush of derbies in October.

Expansion to 14 teams would mean one less round altogether, home and away. Not sure what they would do with twelve. Twelve is the problem I feel. 22 rounds way too short. 33 rounds add a whole heap of costs with potentially small gains in revenue. These are the metrics that scare them most.

Dont worry. Lowy will be in the country to make executive decisions...oh wait. 

I think preaching to the converted who want more involvement from clubs outside the 10 team HAL milieu has been a significant factor in current HAL disinterest.

The FFA Cup, and to a lesser extent the NPL Cup, have been good for fans to enjoy much wider participation. 

This noxious smog also permeates Tasmania - which has no AFL team!

Agree.

The problem is that expansion could adversely effect the financial health of football.

The fact that so many Aussies are infatuated with AFL (that no other country plays) or league (which only a few play), seems to be irrevocable. They soak up too much money and media interest.

Why Fox?

Actually the fields are in FAR better condition at that time of year than any other (Aug-October), no concerts, Super Rugby is long gone, NRL and AFL winding down in amount of games and cricket hasn't yet started.

It seems that FFA admin are so entrenched in internal, or extraneous issues like governance and quashing HAL club owners' disquiet, they don't have any energy or time for bigger picture issues.

In Tasmania an almost flawless model was advanced for a HAL team, but it was rejected on spurious grounds. FFA admin keep postponing important decisions. To tell Belteky/Stamroulis that can have a team anywhere else besides Tasmania is ludicrous.

Also, they've privately stated however good a bid is from South Melb they will never be granted a HAL licence, because of deep entrenched hatred of the club from the  Lowy family. This is similar to the way Tony Labozetta operated!

Even though TV audiences and crowds have gone up(slightly) there is a strong feeling out in the football community that the a-league and the game in general is lagging and everything else is standing still.

Who is to blame? Many factors but it has to start at head office at FFA HQ.

When people who don't have the passion for the game and vision to grow it this is the consequence for it.

It seems there could now be two distinct groups of football supporters in Australia that could ultimately see the demise of football.

The inept governance of FFA admin is a  major contributor. FFA is constantly telling us bad news. When they release supposed good news, most think it is disingenuous.

The groups are:

1. Fans who have been desperate for  a pro league in Australia. For about 8 years since 2005 there was a feel good feeling about the rise and rise of football in Oz. Since then it has become axiomatic in fans' eyes, and all other active stakeholders in football, that the game must expand beyond 10 HAL teams - and soon. This entails those former  starry eyed fans who have recently become disgruntled. The FFA Cup has given us a taste of how inclusive football can be. This could lead to less and less fans attending the HAL in its current format  so that it emulates the NSL, rendering it unsustainable.


2. There is the Eurosnob, or offshore football fan. These characters prefer to watch football on TV. They may have kids who play, they may even coach football, but all of them are, and will always be, beastly careless about football in Australia. The only time they show any interest is when a European or South American team visits Australia.
Many prefer watching league, union, AFL as a domestic football code. Most people I know off forum who claim they like football fall into this category. Many even support, play for and are involved with NPL teams. Australian football beyond their state and club has no context for them unless their NPL club plays an Australian mainland club in the FFA Cup or NPL Cup.





I even foresee a worst case scenario where the current HAL folds, and the highest level of football will be current NPL - an amateur or semi-pro game like the current NZ scenario, minus Wellington.

We will be unlikely to qualify for any World Cups again. We will live in a country where AFL and league rule supreme and most fans' participation in football will be watching European football on TV. We won't even be able to afford  to field teams in Asian senior and underage WC and Asian Cup qualification campaigns. Our best scenario will be to return to Oceania, where they won't want us. 

In the earlier days of Lowy/O'Neill and Lowy/Buckley, there was usually a newer exciting development about to occur  in football in the imminent future. The Lowy senior/ Lowy junior/ Gallop combo have been cynical harbingers of doom. 

 There is also a dichotomy between FFA admin and the FFA Technical Department.

The latter also desperately wants the game to grow.

The former are concerned about finances and are risk averse.

Good post with the stats.

Don't know the answer to the last sentence.

Gyfox,
Thanks for the stats, they make for interesting reading, and probably justify (to Fox and the FFA, but not to the fans) the season starting after the NRL & AFL seasons. But for purely football reasons, and many of them, we all know that we need a longer season. So something needs to be done, we need to bite the bullet and start the season earlier.

They actually hadn't jumped that much. Season 6 was a train wreck of a season so the straight line between two points approach is deceptive

If you compare season 5 to season 7 you'll see that only 3 of the 9 clubs playing in both saw an increase in average and highest attendance in season 7. They were CCM, NCJ and BR who had a terrible season 5. Average ratings would have been down as there were plenty more games and a lot of them mid week

These kind of myths and stats manipulation are damaging to the game. There is a real cost in not playing now. If the offset of this cost is a fine set of the empire's new clothes then it was all for naught

Home and away season average ratings taken from Patrick Delaney's speech to Victory business lunch (except for 2016/17).




Home and away average attendance taken from ultimatealeague.com


PS.
Seems the graphs have disappeared on me.  If anyone wants them to look at PM me with an email address.

^^^^^
Decentric

You have hit on a couple of points that to some extent plague Football in Australia..... even if we take all the ills of FFA and reverse them somehow the effect would not anywhere near what some think...

The NRL & AFL in dollars, exposure, tradition are not going away to shrink into the night because we say have a full FIFA model.

To me it seems a new idea seems to take hold and this new idea will turn everything around... if only the suits would ?????...

The late Johnny Warren at a gala day in Newcastle in 1965, said look at all these players we will soon be number one.... Thats over 50 years ago....

The answers or answers are not simple we have and unbelievably bias and local sport sports editorial management ... no FTA would broadcast the A-League thats how little they value it... we could not even give it away... you could argue if X or Y where in charge it may have been different... maybe but not hugely ...

The Football market is no where near the size some seem to think.... the answer lies in changing human behavioural patterns .... meaning getting the playing base to watch screens and attend games...the answer is to build Football up in the minds of the community as a whole and that means FTA TV, FTA radio, social media, sponsors etc...  

FFA's lack of being able to lead and direct the conversation and seemingly going from one major issue to another has not helped at all and has done damage and slowed things down a lot ... however the solutions are not simple ... expansion is a must IMO followed by a second division and then P & R but it needs detailed planning

The problem with averages is they are deceptive. Just because the league is riding the success of the Sydney derby it doesn't mean all regions are in a better place now that the league is kicking off in October. If you were to compare season 5 (10 teams) against season 7 (10 teams), with an August vs October kick off right beside one another you'll find the following


Green is where season 5 was higher. Yellow is where season 7 was higher
As I said, only BR, CCM and NCJ "benefited" from the October kick off. And that's because their attendance figures in season 5 were so low, an increase was an inevitability. They even faired better in season 6

Most teams managed a higher average, a higher top, and a higher low than in season 7. What you are describing as growth than stabilisation is clearly other factors:
. The introduction of WSW and the Sydney derby
. The loss of GCU and their 3.5k average
. SBS coming on board and FTA ratings

As Waz said, we can easily hold off the derby games until a few weeks later and get the same result over the entirety of the season. A late August kick off in a proper H/A fixture means teams will manage 2-3 games of overlap at most. No different to what they have to manage at the end. The important thing is that the A League generates a sensible amount of hype to launch the season which they stopped doing in season 4

The Matildas have proven that even in the heart of the AFL / NRL finals, as a womens sport that has struggled to gain mainstream traction, it is possible to generate hype and interest. They did a remarkable job and became household names. Everybody wanted a piece of them

A lack of hype and kicking off in a 2 week gap when there are no major mainstream events is not a substitute for proper management of a season launch. Even worse when it comes at the expense of players match fit during core Socceroos games and using 2 cooler months to break in squads

The A League is riding on constant season 6 and NSL comparisons to vindicate its current direction

This lol.

Only reason I know is from Facebook posts.

-PB

Bluebird

Its the seasons length overall.... if we start in October and finish in June or start in August and finish in April... I honestly don't see an issue...

Personally the latter we play into the NRL and AFL regular season I think is a good thing...

I think we can both agree if we started March and finished October it would be a disaster. Not just stadia availability but also trying to hit casual sports fans up for 2-3 games a season when the AFL / NRL are doing the same thing. If football was to become a winter code it would struggle

But as you have described it, the 2 month inevitable overlap (unless we shorten our season) is a moot point. Casual fans still have the opportunity to attend 2-3 games a season. Semi committed fans have the opportunity to attend the core parts of their team's journey. And rusted on fans most likely don't give a shit about the AFL / NRL. If there is enough hype and reason for people to get excited then the order of months doesn't matter if we are clever with our fixturing - as has been proven with my stats above

What is not moot is the impact of the start date on the players and the sport
. Major European leagues start in August which take away fans and players if we are absent
. Australians are more likely to be involved in Socceroos games in Sept / Oct than major tournaments in May / June
. The quality of the league in season 6 shows the advantage of kicking off in cooler months
. Hit outs against big European clubs become preseason games instead of post season games (which people currently want to do away with)
. The sport can capitalise on the momentum of the world cup if membership drives and the lead up to the A League follows immediately over the next 4-6 weeks instead of a 2 month gap
. The ACL has proven to disrupt the A League which wont be as much the case if we finished around March
. Stadia is more available in September when AFL / NRL games are diminishing as opposed to April when they are in full swing

The August kick off did not have an impact on fans. Fox were also happy to offer us $60m a year in season 5. We did not have trouble attracting investors or sponsors. We even had a club playing in the heart of the AFL with over 20k members

So what would the football reasons be for playing April / May instead of August / September?

The only one I can think of is players are match fit for World Cup games which is a disadvantage if the league finishes April. By the time the league is ready to be a serious platform for the critical world cup games there will be more teams, more games, and international breaks to rectify that

^^^^^

Bluebird

I not overly fussed one way or the other however I can see the point you are making.

For me personally I am after a 9 months or there about's season... again my preference is a 16 team 30 round season + finals + international breaks ... so about 39 weeks...

The bigger picture for want of a better word is to create wrong word to plan and develop were a 16 team league is self funding and this means creating / expanding a much bigger football viewing market and as I have indicated that is far more complex than it appears..

We as in Football is getting to the point where we can challenge the monster that is the AFL... in-spite of all its money and influence the AFL penetration  into NSW/ ACT/ QLD has stalled and in QLD is going backwards.... TV rating in NSW / ACT & QLD are poor and aside from the Swans crowds are poor by AFL standards....

The challenge is change cultural perceptions of Football within the Australian context... as I said shouting a slogan were now have a full FIFA model is way too simplistic.

Careful planning for expansion, a second division and P & R is essential ... and to be patient as it is not going to happen overnight... 

If the current model wasn't broken I wouldn't have a problem with it

If a stand alone tier with hand picked teams was splitting hairs as an alternative to multi tiers then it would be little more than personal preference to argue one way or another. There are many ways to achieve the same outcome and it really is the outcome that matters

But the current model does not achieve its outcomes. It is broken and the costs have inflated. If Lowy said give me control of the governing body and 10 years from now I'll give you a game that requires $60m-$70m a year from the governing body to run and it will only have 10 teams - its a safe bet to say he wouldn't have the job

The want for a "FIFA model" isn't about a romantic ideology of falling in line with the EPL or even the best leagues in our own confederation. Its about finding a way forward on the most basic objectives of establishing a professional, viable and competitive football league that serves as a proper pathway to the top for players

Every day we don't have this is another day that is added to the gap between the demise of the NSL golden generation and the introduction of the next gen of players

You are somebody who understands market trends. Surely you of all people will appreciate that the opportunity to take a TV deal in the hundred millions is now. The opportunity to take ridiculous amounts of owner investment is now. It is not an inevitability that if we play towards this magic "10-15 years" that these opportunities will be there for our game

We are already on the back foot by not having a culturally established footing when the game was semi professional like the AFL. We were definitely the Johnny come lates of the FTA opportunities. Time and patience is no something we have to play out

The myths that our game pander to are ridiculous. We must kick off in October. We must be on a major network. We must have a salary cap...

The "not going to happen overnight" is the message that should have been given to those who wanted to see the A League on level pegging with the AFL / NRL after its first few years of existence. Instead of building a proper framework in a sensible direction with the careful planning as you have stated, the sole goal has been metrics, metrics, metrics. We cant have a team on the gold coast because then our crowd averages will go down

The A League might have over inflated costs but it is still relatively new and relatively cheap. It would not be harmful to scrap the cap, introduce low cost clubs, and build a bridge between the top tier and a second tier. It wont take as long as you think either