A-League Expansion

[Jesus]

Will be a GF rematch in R1 IMHO

I think the FFA already realised Bling vs tards will get higher attendances if further into the season, hence last round in sydney this year

Flipside argument - you need something to get the season off with a bang otherwise people might not notice.

Didnt they get an equivelant crowd to the corresponding opening game the season before against us?

I think this season the FFA was pretty much waiting for the other codes to finish before trying to build up fixtures, i remember reading buckley suggesting something along that line. Trying to make the weeekends after nrl/afl final have big matches to draw in the crowds and try to keep them through to the end.

Im not sure how it worked exactly, the average crowds figures always struggled whenever GC and newy, and to a lesser extent us/fury were at home.

That said they coped alot of flack on fixtures and crowds by the time the nrl season was over, so they may want to avoid that media sucker punch again this year

 

[midfielder]

Fold Coast is hurting other clubs with it's indecisions.

Good article from smh & Mike..

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/gold-coast-uncertainty-hurting-other-clubs-20100416-skfg.html

 

[bjw]

With the FFA bailing out North Queensland, and until recently assisting three other clubs - Brisbane Roar, Adelaide United and Central Coast Mariners

??

we were assited by the FFA?

 

[midfielder]

With the FFA bailing out North Queensland, and until recently assisting three other clubs - Brisbane Roar, Adelaide United and Central Coast Mariners

??

we were assited by the FFA?

In year one greatly assisted .. and last year as well top up funds... this is a wild wild  rumour but I have heard that GA appointment as coach was in some way pay back to FFA for support for the club... but I was told this by a bloke down at the pub after a few drinks but it does highlight how things can get confused...

 

[midfielder]

FFA look like doing some promotion next season... they have just appointed BMF (who ever they are) as there advertising agency next year...

http://www.adnews.com.au/news/bmf-scores-a-league

BMF scores A-League
14 Apr 2010
Helen Schuller
SYDNEY: Football Federation Australia has appointed BMF as the creative agency for the A-League following a competitive pitch.

The pitch for A-League season six and project work included M&C Saatchi, Human and The Brandshop.

AdNews understands Droga5 was involved in the pitch but pulled out during the process.
Incumbent agency Lowe Sydney did not participate in the pitch and will continue as the agency for the Socceroos.

Universal McCann is the media buying agency for the Football Federation Australia.
The A-League had a main media spend of $2.2 million  :-\ in the 12 months to May 2009. ???

 

[midfielder]

Three good threads on the Roar today all discussing the same thing .. so I tho I would post each they raise intetresting questions about the coast to clubs of the A-League .. the writer brings in other codes as well and their expansion success or failure...

The first on ...Expansion? Football gets an F for the E word

http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/04/22/football-gets-an-f-for-the-e-word/


Expansion? Football gets an F for the E word

Expansion. It seems to have become the buzzword of the football codes. The AFL, NRL, A-League and Super 14 competitions have recently added, or have announced the addition of, new teams for their competitions.

For the purposes of this article, Im going to leave Super Rugby out, because it is more than a national competition, given it is played across three countries and two continents.

For the other codes however, expansion has been something of a poisoned chalice.

Only the AFL can reasonably claim to have had major success with their expansion efforts over the years, and can rightly point to the success of Sydney and Brisbane as examples of expanding into markets where an Aussie Rules culture did not predominate.

Rugby League has been hit-and-miss.

The sports big move came when 4 new teams were introduced for the start of the 1995 season. It was a catalyst for the disastrous Super League war and only one of those clubs, the North Queensland Cowboys, survives in its original form. The Warriors have gone through ownership changes and a re-branding to the New Zealand Warriors.

The South Queensland Crushers and The Western (Perth) Reds died ignominious deaths before they had a chance to establish themselves.

The fallout from Super League also saw the jettisoning of the Adelaide Rams and the Hunter Mariners, two of the most ill-conceived franchises in league history.

It also saw the disappearance of Western Suburbs, Balmain, Manly, North Sydney, St George and Illawarra as separate entities, with the six clubs forced into mergers.

Manly re-appeared in 2002 while South Sydney waged a famous legal battle with the NRL to win re-admittance.

Prior to that, Canberra and Illawarra (1982) and Brisbane and Newcastle (1988) have enjoyed success and profile, although Illawarra are now a merged entity with St George.

1988 also saw the first of many attempts to establish a team on the Gold Coast, the current Titans being far and away the most successful.

The Melbourne Storm emerged as a compromise side at the end of the Super League era and while they have been racking up finals appearances on the field, they are reportedly racking up debts far quicker off it.

The NRL covets a team in the nations second-biggest city far more than the city itself seems to covet the Storm.

But when it comes to expansion hits and misses, no code does it better (or worse) than football.

In 1977, football became an Australian visionary.

It was the first sport to introduce a National League (albeit without a team from Western Australia) and for a while, it appeared to be ahead of its time. It was 5 years before the VFL had a club outside Victoria, and 11 years before the NSWRL went beyond NSW borders (Canberra came into the comp in 1982 but played their home games in Queanbeyan).

As is so often the case, football failed to act on its early success. Mooroolbark United, from Melbournes west, folded after just one season. Newcastle KB United were brought in to take their place and were a huge early success, with average home crowds of 16,000, often boosted by guest appearances by Craig Johnston, the local lad made good in the English First Division.

In 1981 the league expanded to 16 teams with the inclusion of Wollongong Wolves and Preston Rams. By 1984, it had become a bloated monstrosity of 24 teams split into 2 Conferences, with 17 of those teams coming from Sydney or Melbourne.

In 1987, 10 teams were cut and one league of 14 clubs started the season. Sydney City, to that point the most successful club in the country, folded after 2 rounds. What was left was a national league in name only, with Adelaide City the loan club from outside Sydney or Melbourne.

The league bumbled along with the baggage of some ludicrous decisions. In 1991, there were two teams from Wollongong and none from Newcastle or Brisbane. Clubs gave up on expanding their identities (a practice which was never seriously attempted) and returned to their original roots.

The Collingwood Warriors entered the competition in 1996 a new venture designed to capitalise on a partnership with AFLs Collingwood Magpies. It was an unqualified disaster, with the club receiving zero support from the AFL side.

Another attempt was made with Carlton the following season and while the side made the Grand Final in its first year, they were gone 2 seasons later.

The entry of Perth Glory in 1997 can be held up as the only time the game got it right in the NSLs latter years. Instant success, great crowds, broad-based spectator appeal and a professional set-up made the Glory the centre of Australias footballing universe.

In 2000, the Glory made the NSL Grand Final for the first time, and it became the greatest final in NSL history, as their opponents from Wollongong came from 3-0 down to level the game at 3-3, then go on to win an amazing penalty shootout 7-6.

BY the time the NSL torch flickered and burned out in 2004, a total of 30 clubs had come and gone, some resurrecting themselves under new names but ultimately withering on the NSL vine.

And that brings us to the current A-League, and the horrible feeling among football fans that the lessons of history havent been heeded. Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury have very uncertain futures, having graced the competition for only one season.

While the current administration seems far better equipped to cope with these problems than the shambolic governing bodies of the games past, they need to ask themselves a very important question: is expansion really necessary for the good of the game?

 

[midfielder]

The second article was from the famous ''' Near Post''''Eamonn"""

A-League in trouble as expenses will increase ... a good look at the cost of an A-League team...

http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/04/22/more-expenses-than-revenue-clubs-could-go-bust/

A-League in trouble as expenses will increase

Football Federation Australia has announced more money for another Marquee player, an Australian one, to add to the other one. Fantastic, but hasnt someone told them the Fury, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Phoenix, Adelaide, Sydney and more, are all in some sort of financial woe.

Make that basket cases, but only fledgling basket cases.

While Jesse Fink argues we should be enticing Shunsuke Nakamura, or some other Asian superstar, at an estimated price of $3 million per year, in the real world our A-League clubs, struggling for revenue, have now been given the opportunity to spend more money on Australian players.

And what football club can resist that overspend. History shows, in Australia, and indeed in the EPL, not one.

So what can our resource-stretched clubs can now spend: $2.5 million (approx) on the salary cap etc. plus $150,000 on an Under 23 Marquee, add $1 million or more on a Marquee player who is Fowler-esque.

And now theres more: another $1 million on an Australian Marquee. Kewell-esque would be nice. But wait, will they spend it on Chippers or Carney or Sterjovski? Oh, they already did.

It sounds great, almost a plan. But which club can take the plunge, actually use it and make it sustainable?

Id suggest none: not now, maybe not ever.

The FFA announced the W-League with a salary cap of $150,000 when it was launched. Total bollocks, of course. That is never used, either. Surely this will be the same in the A-League.

At least, I hope so, or else the FFA will have to put even more money into save the clubs.

Do they have any more?

If Melbourne Victory cant put a team together worthy of Asia, with their crowd base over the last five years, what chance any other club (bar one with a one-off spend big investor) utilising the full options of our salary machinations.

Arent the FFA supposed to be trying to assist the clubs, ensuring they survive?

Or maybe this is the FFAs way of embracing the past. So often accused of ignoring our history, the NSL, maybe this time they are embracing our past.

Lets hope not.

 

[midfielder]

The last from Con Stamocostas  editor of ''Half Time Heroes""" and the '''round ball analysis""" and often writer on 442...

What can football do to save itself ?.... I think an excellent thread ...

As I said thee post back all good stuff shame they all had to submit the same day...

http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/04/22/doh-it%e2%80%99s-the-tv-deal-stupid/

What can football do to save itself?

Dont you like it when pretentious writers use some obscure foreign reference to start a This is what I think about stuff story that then doesnt really make sense to the point and theme of the story?

I dont like it, I love it!

So without any more waffling I present esprit descalier, which translates to the wit of the staircase, and usually refers to the perfect witty response you think up after the conversation or argument is ended.

Its the answer you cannot make, the pattern you cannot complete till afterwards it suddenly comes to you when it is too late.

So there you go you can impress your hipster friends with some French speak, while you eat that slow cooked meal at the trendy Lesbian cafe which you arrived with on your single speed bicycle.

What has suddenly come to late is that after five years football is not earning nowhere near enough what it is spending.

What must have been Frank Lowy, John ONeil and Matt Caroll been thinking when they first negotiated the TV deal five years ago?

Especially when the deal was negotiated before the Socceroos scored their first ever World Cup goal, before they won their first ever World Cup game game and before they qualified for their first ever World Cup Round of 16 match.

Frank Lowy is Australias richest man and you dont get that rich without being able to negotiate. However, the truth regarding footballs TV deal is that it pulled its pants down too early and left them down for too long.

When Harry Kewell scored that goal against Croatia to take the Socceroos into the knockout stages of the World Cup, Foxtel must have looked at the TV deal with big smiles on their dials while the FFA suits must have been looking down at their ankles feeling the breeze.

I have said this before and Ill say it again, that John ONeills best work for Rugby came while he was working for the Football Federation of Australia, having negotiated a deal that took the FFAs biggest asset away from Free to Air and onto Pay TV, which has only a 25% take up of the Australian population.

Lets look at the TV revenue numbers:
* AFL $780m for 5 years, or $156m per year
* Rugby League $500m for 6 years, or $85m per year
* Football $120m for 7 years, or just over $17m per year

Football can only spread $17m to its now 11 clubs. Dusting off the calculator, that works out to $1.5 million a club.

Some reports have come out recently that it costs $8m a year to run an A League club. Did anyone look at the expenses and revenues columns and see a big red number at the bottom of the page?

Some pundits have said that football needs to get a stronger foothold in the mainstream media. Dont hold your breath.

The mainstream media will not give any favours to football.

They have other sports they need to peddle.

A recent Tim Cahill documentary features Timmy on the way to a Socceroos World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan last April. He is flicking through the sports section of the Sydney paper the Daily Terror and laments the lack of coverage of football.

After flicking through pages of Rugby League, Netball and Sailing he finally finds a Socceroos article, Tim holds up his hands in defeat and says: what do we have to do?

So the mainstream media doesnt care, crowds are dropping off, and the clubs are losing money. What can football do to save itself and shut up the prophets of doom?

All we can do is hope and wait.

First, we hope that the Socceroos do well at the World Cup beginning in June and that this reminds the Australian sporting public of the chaos, beauty and awesomeness that is football. And that this emotion and goodwill then flows through to the A-League.

We hope that Australia wins the bid the bid for the 2018/ 2022 World Cup and wait for the decision by the 24 man FIFA executive in December, then finally we wait until the new TV deal comes up in a couple of years that will hopefully secure the A-Leagues stability.

Otherwise, Ill be looking for the French phrase that translates to we are f****d (nous sommes baiss).

 

[midfielder]

Fat Tony or Jubba ... what ever you wanta call him says he will back the Fold... still rate the Cove's away chat at the GC arguably the best to date in the History of the A-League ... went something like this ... ""Clive ate all your fans"""

GOLD COAST UNITED insist they have staved off any attempt by Football Federation Australia to remove them from the A-League after providing written assurances that billionaire owner Clive Palmer will continue to bankroll the team.

Tired of the mixed messages coming out of the Gold Coast camp over the past month, the FFA upped the ante this week by demanding concrete guarantees from Palmer that he will continue to back the club on his own. Unless those guarantees are deemed satisfactory, the FFA has left the door open for the club to be dumped from the A-League.

Palmer was again unavailable for comment yesterday, but chief executive Clive Mensink said: ''The FFA have asked us for clarity, that we've given it to them. Any shortfalls will be taken care of, and we've assured the FFA that we will continue next season. There will be a team from the Gold Coast in the A-League.''

Whether that's the case will be decided by the FFA in the next few days. Mindful of the club's recent threat to hand back the license on insolvency issues, the FFA has so far remained lukewarm about Palmer's ''business as usual'' pledge.

Indeed the patience of the FFA effectively ran out at the end of last week when the board met in Sydney. Chief executive Ben Buckley sent a letter to Gold Coast on Tuesday demanding guarantees from Palmer that he would continue to fund the club. The FFA wants to release the draw for the 2010-11 season next week, and it's understood two drafts have been prepared - one with Gold Coast involved, the other with them withdrawn from what would instead become a 10-team competition.

Palmer's fractious relationship with head office has been evident from virtually the moment Gold Coast were admitted to the competition last year. Palmer is believed to have lost $4million on the club's debut season - twice what he had expected - and has recently argued for assistance from the FFA (largely to cover the costs of hiring Skilled Park) in order to keep the club going.

But the board has point-blank rejected the idea of bailing out the mining magnate, who claims to be worth more than $6billion. Instead Palmer has been told he must continue paying the bills if he wants his club to remain in the league.

The FFA wants the issue resolved partly because of the growing impatience among other clubs for confirmation of the draw, and partly because the longer the matter drags on, the less options there would be for Gold Coast's star-studded squad to find alternative employment. With North Queensland Fury, Brisbane Roar and newcomers Melbourne Heart all in the market to fill their rosters, most Gold Coast players would be in big demand if they were to become available in the next few weeks.

According to Gold Coast, that scenario is now irrelevant, and the players are due to report for the start of pre-season training on Monday. It's believed Palmer will address the squad on Tuesday, and is likely to hold his first media conference since the drama erupted shortly afterwards.

 

[Harsulas_SFC]

Fat Tony or Jubba ... what ever you wanta call him says he will back the Fold... still rate the Cove's away chat at the GC arguably the best to date in the History of the A-League ... went something like this ... ""Clive ate all your fans"""

Clive Palmer ate your crowd
Clive Palmer ate your crowd
We know he did
we're sure he did
Clive Palmer ate your crowd

To mass laughter from the GC fans on the sidelines, the security guards around us and the stadium staff.  Even the cops were having a giggle.

 

[midfielder]

Just had a quick look at the SFC fans forum ... and I am sure it has been mentioned somewhere on our forum before .... But the SFS CEO has his own separate category....

The address is  http://sfcu.com.au/smf111/index.php?board=3.0  ... Ha Mariners management its a excellent idea and is a excellent way to help expand the A-League .. if you have not seen it ... have a look .... its not half bad ...

 

[Paolo]

Just had a quick look at the SFC fans forum ... and I am sure it has been mentioned somewhere on our forum before .... But the SFS CEO has his own separate category....

The address is   http://sfcu.com.au/smf111/index.php?board=3.0  ... Ha Mariners management its a excellent idea and is a excellent way to help expand the A-League .. if you have not seen it ... have a look .... its not half bad ...

It's been done except the media manager answered the questions posing as the ceo

 

[marinermick]

Just had a quick look at the SFC fans forum ... and I am sure it has been mentioned somewhere on our forum before .... But the SFS CEO has his own separate category....

The address is   http://sfcu.com.au/smf111/index.php?board=3.0  ... Ha Mariners management its a excellent idea and is a excellent way to help expand the A-League .. if you have not seen it ... have a look .... its not half bad ...

It's been done except the media manager answered the questions posing as the ceo

I don't think there was any guise that it wasn't Ben answering the questions on behalf of the Chairman.

 

[midfielder]

At least this year the A-league is being promoted ...

2010/11 A-League and club advertising... I have come across


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHWrOnWqYqE <- Melbourne Victory "Fan Made" FFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYrFeXEtac0 <- NQ Fury "Fan Made" FFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBuXOhOdl7A <- Perth Glory (This is a PG produced one, not under the "Fan Made" FFA branding)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NjAOmlSEdM <- Brisbane Roar <-- BR produced

 

[fedelta]

^ already been posted in 'New A-League Ads' thread
http://marinators.net/forum/index.php?topic=5074.0

 

[bjw]

+ what do ads about existing teams have to do with Expansion?

 

[kevrenor]

My link
http://www.theaustra...6-1225901324493

A-League is not on death row yet

• Patrick Smith
• From: The Australian
• August 05, 2010 12:00AM

Melbourne Heart captain Simon Colosimo trains at AAMI Stadium ahead of the club's A-league debut Picture: George Salpigtidis Source: Herald Sun

MELBOURNE Heart joins the A-League in body tonight when it opens the new season against the Central Coast Mariners.

We could easily have written in spirit as well because Heart's presence in Melbourne has been mostly ghost-like since it was announced as the city's second soccer team.

The club has only come together in the last few weeks with the playing list finally landed. It will surely hinder the team since the chances of getting to know each other's game must inhibit the players in the early matches.

Just how vibrant the expanding A-League becomes will depend very much on how Australia's bid for the World Cup fares come December.

FFA chief executive Ben Buckley told The Australian yesterday that a favourable decision would be a significant accelerant on any level you care to look at. Community interest, sponsorship, media coverage, standard of play.

But it would hardly be pouring petrol on a furious fire. The A-League has not quite been the success story everyone hoped it would be when it came together in 2005. But nor would a failed bid be the retardant to the competition that this column suggested yesterday.According to Buckley, that is.

The highly regarded sport administrator says that nothing much would shift if the FFA and the Australian government do not deliver the World Cup in 2022. Buckley does not see the fundamentals change at all. The league was in place before the bid was thought of, so too, were the league's expansion plans. So the strategic plan for the league has been locked down and will remain so whether the cup comes to Australia or not.

That is reassuring only if the strategic plan is delivering a profitable, popular and sustainable league. And it is also dependent on a federal government remaining as enthusiastic about soccer without the cup as it has been and will be if it gets to stage what is rightly described as one of the greatest shows on earth.

Buckley says the league's health is not as poor as has been diagnosed. Overall losses last season were somewhere between $15-20 million. Fine, but it is a worrying figure when you consider the greatest contributor to that debt belongs to Sydney, last season's premier. Victory comes at a price in the A-League.

Buckley says the average loss per club last season was between $1-2m. The FFA is constantly looking for new owners for Adelaide United and North Queensland Fury, two clubs that the governing body has had to move in on and bail out. Average crowds were down last season but Buckley argues that the aggregate figure was up some 30 per cent. With two extra teams and extra games you would want to hope so. Nonetheless, crowd figures continue to fall with Melbourne Victory the only club to consistently pull more than 20,000 through the gate.

Given that the smallest capacity of any ground used in the A-League is 17,000 and the largest 56,000, last year's average crowd across the competition of around 10,000 makes it difficult to break even on stadium deals. In Melbourne, Heart and Victory will share the new rectangular stadium which will hold about 30,000. Heart expects a crowd of 15,000 to witness its birth tonight.

Buckley sees the speed of the A-League becoming a self-funding competition hinging on the new broadcast deal in three years. Presently a seven-year deal, struck in the second year of the A-League, is worth about $17m.

While a win in the World Cup bidding war in December will secure the A-League, Buckley says it does not follow that a lost bid condemns the league. However, it certainly will make it more difficult as bigger and stronger sports like the AFL and NRL continue to expand and become more proactive generally in an already aggressive marketplace. Sydney Rovers will become the 12th A-League team when it is established in western Sydney. The AFL has established a base and stadium for its 18th team in that part of town and has -- according to one senior AFL official -- a seeding bankroll of $200m.

If Australia wins the bid for 2022 everything will become easier for the A-League. And almost immediately. The value of broadcast rights of all sorts will balloon, the sport's profile leaps, sponsorship deals jump from handy to lucrative. Staging the cup guarantees the Socceroos a place in the competition so Australians will take the long journey with the national team.

The federal government will back the sport with dribbling enthusiasm. Presumably, the extra money available will allow the A-League to lift its miniscule salary cap and other player allowances so better players are swayed to play at home and others attracted from overseas.

Yet Buckley is adamant that the sport will not go backwards if the bid falls over.

That might be right. The question to answer, though, is can it keep up?

 

[midfielder]

Tim Cahill to invest in Rovers


http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/cashedup-cahill-helps-turn-rovers-fortunes-20100810-11y52.html

 

[HookeyRox]

GO CANBERRA!!!!

 

[midfielder]

SBS are reporting the Fold are going to introduce their 5K crowd cap http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1018600/Gold-Coast-crowd-cap-back ... maybe it's time to say goodbye for now and go to Canberra ....