There is no issue with the quality of football played in the A-League. It is exactly where you'd expect it to be given the dollar value of squads. I'd actually say the A-L punches above it's weight overall. The problem is that there has been no progression. You could take a top side from this season, put them in a time machine and go back 10 years and they'd be just as competitive then as they are now. The A-League has just treaded water. This is extremely evident when we look at ACL performances. Nations that were once on par (or below) A-L quality have progressed and are now much better. They have had significant growth. What is happening now is the rusted-on fans are finally starting to walk away, or at least dial back their level of regular engagement. Which is fine if there is new fans coming through, but there's not.
I'd say it's also a little unfair to look at A-L averages as a whole. It's not the job of the league to get people to games. When you isolate individual clubs, it's very easy to see what's working and what's not. For example, AU are doing well, because they are getting results, playing exciting high scoring football and are genuine contenders for the title. For the AU fans, history tells them that AU is not going to be great that often so it makes sense that they will jump on board while it lasts. Although Perth's numbers are low, they actually did well given the restrictions of their temp venue. Then if we look at MV. Poor results. Recruiting hasn't worked out. Players lost to transfers and season long injuries. Then you add in the pitch invasion issues and the GF decision. It's obviously going to have a negative effect on attendance. That being said, if there was relegation, I have no doubt way more people would be showing up to support the club. With the new clubs it's very easy to see why crowds are low. WU don't have a stadium and have made zero visible progress in actually building one. Macarthur treated their fans poorly from the beginning and then played really boring football. Brisbane moved out of reach for a big chunk of their fans and then performed poorly. Then we have an interesting one with SFC, who have been the poor side of average this season, yet the fans have been showing up. The derbies obviously help those numbers, but it's uncharacteristic for SFC. In the past the numbers have dropped when the team has done poorly. Interesting to know why they are getting better crowds than what would be normally expected. MC is the other interesting case. Excellent consistent results. Entertaining football. Exciting players. No one cares. They seem to be losing fans. CFG would be partly responsible as they really don't care about the fans. The free tickets have also dried up, so less casuals are going. They seemed to do better when they had a bit of that underdog identity going on. Now they are the benchmark and people aren't interested. The other clubs are pretty much the same as they always are. Not great, but not really much worse than normal. Bit of a shame CCM don't get better numbers. They've been worth watching this season and could finish 2nd or 3rd if they do well over the next few rounds.
I think the final series will give us the biggest indication of where crowds are at. We know AU will pull full houses for any finals actually played at home. If SFC makes finals, they will do well also especially with WSW in the mix. Surprisingly there has only been one season in which both SFC and WSW appeared in the finals series, however they have never played each other in a finals game. If WSW finish 3rd and SFC finish 6th that finals game would be close to a full house for sure. However a MC/AU GF in Sydney is going to have low numbers. MC couldn't even pull a full house at home last season against another Melbourne side.

Pretty much bang on the money in every aspect... I rarely watch any Aleague personally but the level of play on the pitch (on the few matches/highlights I have seen) is not THAT terrible.... 

Total season attendances peaked  with Del Piero's ( and Ono and Heskey) two seasons and remained level for another 3 seasons. That's 5 seasons of peak attendances. 

Sydney FC's average attendance increase by around 5,500 in Del Piero first season alone

The there's the TV ratings, the merch, the media interest boost

Genuine star players improve the league substantially and contrary to common opinion  that this uplift continues for a period after they leave ( but not forever, obviously).

Football is a global market, which means there is a pretty borad correlation between dollars spent and quality on the pitch. The A-League spends a similar amount of money on squads to EFL League One and if you watch either the quality is very similar. The summer fixture does us no favors though. The slower pace presents like lower quality but it's not. It's just a symptom of the climate. If League One played in the Aussie summer, they'd slow right down too.

Sure they probably would but that still wouldn't affect their attendances though ....... (maybe the whole summer thing might puit a few off but not enough to stop them getting their football fix)

It, of itself, isnt enough though mate.... An interesting comparison would be the Saudi league attendances (in games Ronaldo isn't playing) if anyone has the stats?

Which is probably more to do with history and multi generational support over a long period of time. Unfortunately for the A-League, that's not something you can simply manufacture. It's just a matter of surviving and getting better with time. Which is why they really need to listen and target the rusted-ons and other (non A-League) football fans at the moment. These are the people that have the greatest potential to create that multi-generational support.

Oh, but in some ways it is mate.

Look at Wrexham FC at the moment ... Sure they had their loyal rusted ons in their hundreds before Deedpool and Philladelphia bought the club  but not the thousands they are getting to every game now.... 

Of course everyone likes to see players who can dribble past defenders at pace as this is the ultimate skill of a footballer. ( scoring a goal is the bonus).However the passing game is best suited for most players even professionals.The best teams have outstanding dribblers as well as a smart passing game-to whit Barcelona with Messi.

There are some very good dribblers in the A-league-Arzani,Piscopo,Ninkovic and O'Shea to name a few but most players are passers as they have been taught since junior days.The problem with the A-league is that many players have a very average first touch and while they can control the ball if not pressured and then pass this slows down attacking momentum and lacks the cut and thrust of the top European and South American teams.However the new generation of players-Kuol( Garang),Segecic,Irankunda,Archie Goodwin,Robertson,Wilson( from Victory) and quite a few others have a very good first touch and thus they are in a better position to take on a defender or more time to put in a telling pass.Therefore the standard of the league should continue to rise as these players with attacking potential get their chances.As long as the media shines some light on these players interest will grow and hopefully increase crowd attendances and viewing numbers.

Correct, but they need to find ways to make build up play more interesting. Attacking players who run at defenders can be enthralling to watch rather than just the typical generic passing bs. 

The standard of play is not perfect but it's entertaining with plenty of goals and providing some good football to watch, the young talent on display is exciting as well so I dont think the fans should not complain about what's on the pitch, if anything its comparable to the NRL and AFL where its providing good entertainment as a sporting code.

For me its down to the experience at game day as well as poor marketing and promotion of this league, some daft kick off times dont help either especially those 3pm during the summer months.
Although the stigma that the a-league is not the standard as the top European and South American football unfortunately will not change anything soon even if the NSD comes in with pro-rel I don't think the stigma will go away because people will make an judgement based on their own perception.
And perception is very hard to change especially now with a social media era where everything is compared on to the best.

Just make the game experience worthy and let the football take care of itself, not pointless gimmicks which dont work in pro sport and most importantly market and promote the damn thing until its irritating to the mainstream.

Any successful product will always focus and look after on its core which for football it will always will be the players and the fans experience, otherwise there is no game.

Not going near a game again until/unless they scrap the Sydney Grand Final shit.

Nothing else.

All of those young players from this generation that have great first touches and dribbling have benefited from the national curriculum which was brought in 12 years ago, so in a way its not a surprise to see this large improvement.

I also its down to how teams are set up, most teams want to attack even if it means playing in transition whilst others like a slow and patent build up, also we see mistakes as well but this is beauty of football in a way so its at least entertaining to watch.

Not going near a game again until/unless they scrap the Sydney Grand Final shit.

Nothing else.

It might be an idea for all those naysayers of the National Curriculum, to put their hand up and admit they were wrong.

Just imagine if we had a PR how incredible the end  to the season would be. Cannot believe some people are against it (unless you hold a board seat at MV etc)

Not going near a game again until/unless they scrap the Sydney Grand Final shit.

Nothing else.