Inside Sport

Local Football vs Local League


https://forum.insidesport.com.au/Topic1666253.aspx

By pv4 - 25 Feb 2013 1:23 PM

My local Rugby League club is offering free rego to everyone. Kids, all-age, everything. From what I've been told by a few sources, the NRL have realised that their sport is dying a slow & painful death, so they're re-investing into juniors to get more people playing.

My little 8-year-old nephew got offered free rego & gear to go play Under 8's league for this upcoming season, and while ~$150 to play football isn't a great deal in the grand scheme of things, my sister had a serious think about whether she wanted to put him into league instead. The voices of reason (aka my old man & me) were on-hand to pull her out of the idea of letting him play anything but roundball, but I can't help but think how many of his little mates have parents who would let their kids change sports because of this free rego thing.

I understand that football rego costs are broken down into insurance, federation fees, club fees, etc - but this understanding doesn't help the fact that kids are getting lured away from the sport because of rego costs. I know my local football club had ~370 rego'd last year, and this year they're under 300.

I really like the idea that A-League teams are getting salary caps subsidized due to the Fox TV deal, but would all/some of this money be better off being re-invested into local football? I'm imagining all the money local rugby league clubs have to give free rego from is coming from the NRL's TV deal.

I know the sponsorship that NNSW have with Newcastle Permanent is meant to be the best they've ever had and all - but is enough being done, from grassroots through to the A-League?

How many kids will we lose to league, and when we realise that rego numbers have dropped considerably & something needs to be done about it - will it be too late?

Edited by pv4: 25/2/2013 01:23:40 PM
By chillbilly - 10 Mar 2013 10:54 PM

M.L. wrote:
TBH the only point I will bring up by pv4 is our football season cost.
Now don't get me wrong I'm happy to pay my way for my beloved game - heck been playing for 45+yrs but between myself and my 2 boys (mind you the eldest only just helping started to pay his way 3rd yr Uni via his part time job) football was costing me near on $1k per season, add boots shin pads. (my other cost at times is academys for the youngest but thats my extra choice not incl here)
I'm thankful I can afford it but buggered if I know how people do it with low incomes and like me 2 boys on average.
aru/arl local teams for as long as I can remember would be issued their full kits, oh I forgot add on $10 for socks we pay as well.
aru/nrl local teams some have the benefit/support from the local licensed clubs and thats their cash cow I suppose whereas the many Football teams in areas don't have this resource.
In this modern nanny age I really don't see many Mums throwing johnny into league etc but I may suspect a very small minority may do so due to cost.
My only disappiontment is say for eg my sydney team SFC.
I don't know what other HAL teams do but they are not active enough to visit schools etc.
I know they have done the end of season gigs visiting Finals etc but my local school has visits from the Tigers handing out PR garb and afl does its little bits.
Unless I'm mistaken SFC do this elsewhere but not in my local area and I'm 10-15mins from the SFS and the same to Mac Uni where they train so our area isn't miles away.

I think the main problem for Sydney with this point is that they cover such a vast area compared to the NRL teams. According to this link there are 154 primary and 47 high schools just in the eastern suburbs, st George and Sutherland shire area. Who do they target? They represent the whole area. They can't just contact all the schools about visits because they could potentially have to turn many of them down since they can't be everywhere at once. So they probably only go to schools that enquire about players visiting.

For the sake of getting kids involved in the game by this method you would probably be better off creating a system where people from the second tier clubs like Rockdale, APIA Liechardt and Sutherland to go around to schools to promote the game.