The A-League: Average Attendance is Down, Canberran Complaints Are Up

By: Daryl | September 29th, 2009

Not everyone is happy with the A-League right now. Attendances are down on last season, with average crowds of 6,200 for last week’s matches*. Football Federation boss Ben Buckley has tried to put a positive spin on those numbers, by (somewhat bizarrely) claiming it was all part of the plan:

“If you look at the crowd numbers overall they are up 12 per cent, we’ve got 12 per cent more people going to A-League matches than we did last year,” Buckley said.

“Yes, our average is down, but that was always to be expected based on the fact that we had two teams from relatively smaller cities coming into the competition.

“That’s not outside of our expectation. But part of our strategy in expansion is to broaden the reach of the game and we are certainly achieving that.”

Speaking of expansion, the recent announcement that Western Sydney will be granted the league’s 12th expansion license has not gone down at all well with a certain Canberra based A-League fan.

Canberra is the Australian capital, and was widely expected to be given the 12th license. Instead they get nothing, except maybe a role as front-runners for any future expansion license.

The other thing that’s ruffled a few feathers is that the West Sydney team doesn’t really have its act together, it won’t join the league until 2011. Which means the A-League’s 11th team Melbourne Heart will be the only addition in 2010, making the A-League an unbalanced league. Apparently the original plan had been to only expand in even numbers so as to avoid the need for bye weeks.

When asked if this unplanned uneven-ness was a step backwards for the A-League, Ben Buckley gave it the old positive spin trick:

“Quite the opposite, I think this is a gigantic leap forward,” he said.

“We are now committed to having a team, as we’ve said before, in the most populous football region in the country.

“Of course we will prefer to have gone next season, but I stress this team now has the opportunity to be successful in the long term.”

To use a very Australian reference, Buckley appears to be the Shane Warne of football administrators.

But in Double B’s defence, being CEO of the FFA is not an easy job. There’s crushing competition from rugby union, rugby league, cricket and – especially – Aussie Rules. He can’t please everyone, even though he’s clearly trying to with his optimistic PR.

If attendances are down, then maybe a team in an area like Western Sydney is a good idea. With the addition of Melbourne Heart in 2010 and the new Western Sydney team in 2011, the A-League will then have two teams in both Melbourne and Sydney. Rivalries are always good for football attendances, and usually for football leagues in general.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that the A-League should focus on quality instead of expansion, because it already loses too much talent to Europe. Expansion arguably waters down the league’s talent level, and unarguably lengthens the A-League season, therefore creating more unwinnable schedule clashes with more popular sports.

So it’s not an easy situation. But here’s the good news: The A-League is still in it’s infancy. Launched in 2005, it’s nearly a decade younger than Major League Soccer in the United States. I’d argue that it’s too early to be too harsh on the administration, and that the Socceroos participation in World Cup 2010 will provide soccer (and therefore the A-League) with a much needed publicity boost in Australia.

If there are any A-League fans reading The Offside, we’d love to hear what you think about all this. Is there anything the A-League can do right now that they’re not doing? Or is it just a case of slowly but surely waiting for the sport to grow?

For more on the A-League, visit A-League Offside where Kieran does a great job of keeping us up to date. If you’re interested in writing for one of our A-League team blogs, read The Offside blogger guidelines and then send us an email.

*hat tip to Davo for the correction there.

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Michael

Sydney FC and Melbourne turn out decent attendances, but the game needs more grass roots to do it. Prices need to be lowered and more advertisements, for example for each club and not for the league as a whole. There also needs to more publicity for the clubs each, as well as more access to their websites, and they all need a more unique style to their sides. Sydney and Melbourne do well with the goal crowds, for example the Cove. More derbys need to be made, which will increase the profile. Look at the NRL, The eels and bulldogs got 74,549 caus it was a derby. I even went there. If the A-League had good derbys there, it'll be great. Mind you we are into our first few years, so the crowds are alrite.
Davo

In regards to crowd numbers, why does Buckley keep talking about overall crowd numbers rather than average per round/game? The reason is because he is explaining marketing exposure to the sponsors and broadcasters. Yes clubs are suffering with the low crowds affecting their bottom line at the moment, but with a larger overall crowd across the comp and bigger tv audiences each year the more money he will be able to negotiate in our next bradcasting deal. If Ben can secure a massive increase here then the cash will flow freely into all A-league clubs from 2013.
Rory

Marcus, well that's the crux of it. I got the cheapest season ticket available $250 (concession).

Also the Roar never went into administration. Very close, but never quite went there. Neither did the FFA ever take a share in the club. Just to clear that point up.
Luka

There is not one simple reason to explain all of this, which makes it so hard to solve.

Ok, Roar have put their prices up - but if an average of say $25 per person draws 15,000 people, that's $375k. If you pump this up to say $40 per person and only get 7,000, that's $280k - so less revenue. You then must ask why did the Roar put their prices up in the first place, and will they remain like this?

Now look at Perth to identify another problem - they have gone and signed 3 established Socceroos, are actually winning games, yet their crowds are exactly the same as last season where they were utter garbage. Solution?

If the grand solution is to wait for the other codes to finish, then I think the A-League has massive problems.

/gloom.
Marcus

Mitch hit the nail on the head, our attendances are low due to all the other codes being around the tail end of the season. I mean im from Melbourne and people cant afford to spend the amount of money they are on the AFL (which is in finals mode atm) then 2 hours after it finishes go and watch Victory play. Melbourne's crowds this season have been just under 20,000, this month we face 2 of our biggest rivals at home and i think we should hit 30,000 easy with the other codes being finished.

Laurie, Australia only has a population of 20 million people, for a young league in Australia 10,000 attendees per week isn't bad in my opinion. 30,000 is nothing! I mean USA's population is ten times bigger than Australia's.

I support Melbourne and our ticket prices havent changed, my season ticket was $120 (for a conccesion)
I think with Brisbane the two new teams (which are Queensland based) and the rebranding from Queensland to Brisbane may have lost it a few supporters along with the prices and maybe Suncorp stadium (think there was problems there to). Brisbane is in trouble because of Suncorp lets face it, the rent is so high, I mean if you can cast your mind back a year or so went the Roar in administration because of the stadium deal and FFA had to help them out? I think the FFA will step in before it gets to late, Rory my advice as a Melbourne fan is make heaps of noise and get the players on your side, that how we got all our bullshit hooligan like restrictions lifted.

The reason Canberra lost out to West Sydney is because the AFL are planing on expanding there, the A-League wanted to get its nose in there first, they know the AFL won't go to Canberra for a long while yet.
Mitch

I think the main cause of the low attendances this year has been that the season has started about a month earlier this year due to an expanded fixture, meaning that our games are being played at the business end of the more popular winter sporting codes (Aussie Rules and Rugby League).

Many Australians see soccer as a summer alternative to the winter football codes and I think that now that the AFL has finished and the NRL will finish next weekend we should see a steady increase in the crowds. However overall I think attendances will still be slightly down on last year due to the two new teams finding their feet and also the fact that most newly established national soccer leagues enjoy a steady rise in crowds for the first three years then fade after that before steadying. I believe this happened in the J-League and the Korea League and the MLS too, I'm sure fans of these leagues could clarify this as I'm not a 100%.
Rory

Daryl,

It is mostly the Roar's problem. Other prices have gone up a touch or stayed the same. But the Roar's prices have gone up roughly 30% per game.The biggest problem are family tickets. But still it the professional staff that are the problem. Maybe they don't have enough, or maybe they don't have the skills, whatever the case may be, the club is on track to die.
Laurie

Seattle it is. Average attendance over 30,000 per home game.
Davo

Where you from Seattle?
Laurie

Not in my city, Davo. :-D
Davo

Don't worry Laurie the MLS attendances still suck.
Davo

The average crowds this year are not 6,200, they are 10,200. 6,200 was the average for the last round of matches. Drama queen!

Canberra has every right to be pissed about this. They have the finance, they have the stadium, they have a decent enough population(bigger than central coast, townsville), and they have strong footballing history. Plus they have the ACT Govt backing them! What more do you need??
Daryl

Rory,

Have ticket prices gone up this season? If so, is that a league wide problem or just a Brisbane problem?
Rory

As a massive Roar fan, the crowd numbers are really hurting us. Going from an average 12-14,000 to around 8,000 in one season shows something. Specifically I'll blame ticket prices and no community involvement (no advertising or presence in Brisbane), but generally I put it down to poor management. It seems the people in charge of football in this country have no idea of how a club should be run and no idea of how to appease supporters (apart from Melbourne Victory).

In regards to WS and Canberra. WS obviously has a massive market, and it is extremely important that this market is used properly (i.e. community engagement and choosing a properly situated stadium) and if this is done properly, it will be a massive success. Canberra are unlucky. There bid and organisation was great and was defiantely better than WS, it just comes down to population for the FFA I guess. Which may not be a bad thing. Time will tell.
Laurie

Wow. I thought MLS attendance sucked. Thank you, A-League, for boosting our self-esteem and making our management's plans seem functional. ;-)