Never let a chance go bye

[midfielder]

Yellow Fever has held the view from day one that as a supporters group they needed to help the local media, and any locals that wandered onto their site, improve their knowledge, about football and the A-League.

When I look at our local media I am ever amazed about the Express and the support it gives, (apart from this weeks 6 page spread) on a par with local park sports or just above.

The radio stations at a broadcaster level are fine, but their news bulletins are hopeless this year on Sundays the A-League would not get a mention.

FFA have played numerous national games at Bluetounge to spread the word and assist I think the Mariners.

So my call is the Mariners have won the respect of the local media but the A-League and football generally has not.

With our berth in Asia and the more than likely expansion of the league to ten maybe nine teams in Hal 4. I feel as a supporter group we need to educate as best we can and ideas are what we need, our local media about football.

Given most of the major media players on the coast are parts of larger groups to get the A-League on news bulletins would put the A-League on national news bulletins nationally. Given our local papers are part of News and Faifax groups again a bottom up approach would impact on national coverage.

We are in a unique position in that we have no other national side on the coast and we have excellent management. However we should not get to far ahead of ourselves as the major Leagues clubs like Wyong, The Entrance, Woy Woy, CCLC (dont get me started again on this league of clubs) etc still run outside the NRL and equal to the Sydney Premier league a rugby league comp in winter and they still have considerable pull not the least because of advertising they do.

WE have another advantage in that this forum has a lot of very talented writers and the forum for the most part is interesting and would educate anyone looking at it, but thats not to say it cant be improved.

As I see it,- if we can educate our media about Asia and football in general then we do the Mariners, the A-League and football generally a good turn. AS my uncle Leo says never let a chance go bye, so maybe we can be part of the plan to move football forward.

So does anyone agree with me, secondly how would we do it? ? ?

 

[adz]

and as my Great Aunt Gertrude used to say... This smells funny, and I'm not going to eat it.

all that writing and this is the conclusion?

....how would we do it? ? ?

c'monnnnnnnn!!!!!111!!!!

 

[midfielder]

and as my Great Aunt Gertrude used to say... This smells funny, and I'm not going to eat it.

all that writing and this is the conclusion?

....how would we do it? ? ?

c'monnnnnnnn!!!!!111!!!!

Whats so funny what don't you understand.

I don't prendend to know the answer to the issue I raised  ???

 

[adz]

it's just the age old problem of football not being in the media enough but rebadged as a local problem, and zero new ideas? not really sure how we could help anyway as the express would rather print shit about problems in football, and since it is quiet on that front nothing gets printed.

 

[marc]

in all honesty you really can not complain about the media handle football in this country.

if my memory serves me correctly, as of 3 or 4 years ago the most in the paper would be a 2 paragraph collumn about harry kewell scoring a goal.

or flares being lit and people being injured at a game.

now days the telegraph and newcastle herald both have football dedicated pull outs on tuesdays (Football Fever and 90 something.. i cant remember) and every day there is AT LEAST 1, perhaps 2 full pages of football news.

locally the express will generally have a full mariners article daily, with the captains corner, and more news and stories approaching the weekend.

of course, there's always negativity but thats because there are still a lot of old school journalists around that can't fathom the world game. especially in areas such as sydney, newcastle and the central coast, which a generally rugby league havens.

i think its amazing how much the a-league has impacted on the media in australia, foxtel have signed massive long term broadcast deals, sponsers are jumping on board more and more. and as i said, the papers print 20 times more then they used to.

even channel 10 paied BIG dollars to broadcast the LA Galaxy game on free to air television - thats a statement in itself.

things will continue to slowly progress, negative media will always be there. its just a matter of converting the people who dont know, dont understand or are too ignorant to appreciate what is there.

 

[adz]

Yellow Fever has held the view from day one that as a supporters group they needed to help the local media

actually I'm curious what you mean here... do you have any examples of what they are doing to help the local media?

 

[marc]

i just re-read the initial post and i misinterperated what you intended.. but i still have some points in there that i wanted to raise so i'll leave it hahaha.

 

[midfielder]

Yellow Fever has held the view from day one that as a supporters group they needed to help the local media

actually I'm curious what you mean here... do you have any examples of what they are doing to help the local media?

What I mean is create / encourage positive coverage of the Mariners and football in general. My belief is if this is quietly done along with many others like FFA, the clubs etc, provides a positive feel about the A-League and is important for its long term success.

You asked for examples of Yellow fever, first they created a web page http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/default.asp that when opened has lots of articles gathered from different places in a very friendly format, along with podcasts and their owm media interviews with players. So when a reporter goes to their site they can do a lot on their front page without ever going near their forum. Another thing they do is if a journo writes a good story some of their members sent the reporter am email of thanks.

None of this BTW does much unless many others are also doing their own jobs well, but it does add to what other are doing and helps in the understanding of football.

Marc its about how to improve the image of the A-League as I said I think the Mariners are now a very much accepted part of coastial life, its about getting the league itself greater coverage and acceptance and with Asia and the expansion of teams we should be able to achieve that.

 

[dibo]

short of taking a journo out to lunch and schmoozing them, hosting them in a corporate box etc., i'm really not sure what other influence you could have.

they all read the forums anyway, michael cockerill in particular seems to do half his research on SFCU, so aside from the more traditional methods of schmoozing i'm not sure what you expect.

what are *you* going to do to help?

 

[midfielder]

short of taking a journo out to lunch and schmoozing them, hosting them in a corporate box etc., i'm really not sure what other influence you could have.

they all read the forums anyway, michael cockerill in particular seems to do half his research on SFCU, so aside from the more traditional methods of schmoozing i'm not sure what you expect.

what are *you* going to do to help?

WTF  you  are you trying to say, is what are you lazy arse bum going to do? If so that pisses me off big time.

I must have written over a hundred letters to the media, politicians etc, coached for over 25 years including getting a team  two stages into the champions of champions. Put A-League stuff all over work.

So can we get over who has the biggest nose.as I have after getting into fights with crap comments like .YOU.

Rant over,  ??? but have some respect next time.

Now to the point of the thread.

Remember I asked for ideas as I feel we (Mariners) are in a unique position to influence future media reporting of football in Australia.  My reasoning is given all our media is part of national groups it could have a national impact.

My starting base is while the Mariners have earnt respect from the local media that the local do not respect the A-League. So how can we help.

Some ideas I have are apart taking junos to games could be:

If possible run a front page like YF thereby giving local media most important football news.
Maybe hold a match between media outlets and Mariner fans.
Call talk back
Write letters but develop a style that may help how do we develop that style.
Given the Socceroos are not free to air lobby council to set up a live sites to watch Socceroo matches.

Maybe I am wrong but a group of this size in the Central Coast can have an impact.

 

[FFC Mariner]

CC is squeezed between 2 larger population centres and the media will always cater to their largest audience.

SMH/Tele will always contain far more Lowy FC coverage and then their is the NH/Tele in scumville.

Ditto for TV. Media is about audience and attracting advertising revenues. Then if you apply the NRL bias, we are pretty screwed.

The Express is an absolute freakin disgrace. If they werent part of Uncle Ruperts evil NRL loving empire, they could really go overboard with their coverage on us (Footballl lift out sourced from the Tele??) but noooooooooooo.

Rant over

 

[Mini In Bay 6]

I think the summer nature of football will help / has helped in this regard.  Summer papers are usually thin and boring.  A lot of Journo's turn out crap opinion pieces because it's easy and we're so bored we'll read it.

What the A-League has done is provide fresh content for this summer audience, and the papers to their credit seem to be picking this up.  The tele has regular articles, so does the SMH. As crowds pick up further the papers will notice this and start giving more and more inches to the sport.

Success breeds coverage breeds more success breeds more coverage.

The coverage is lightyears ahead of the old NSL.  There still some idiots who will slag us till the cows come home.  But I think there are some other journos who are probably thinking "Hey, this aint too bad y'know".

 

[McGrime]

I agree with you in regards to the written media.
Having no real local presence in the daily's (being squashed between Newcastle Herald and that Telegraph Rag)
and we further suffer at the hands of the Murdoch owned Express.

Our best chance here is the Sun Weekly although owned now by the Fairfax (Newcastle Herald)
I am sure that the local Editor still makes decisions regarding the editorial.

Only problem is the 70% advertising standard that's set for these papers.
They have to try to appeal to all while suffering from clostrophobia between all the ad's.

I guess the best idea may be a Mariners Column submitted weekly (So their jurno's can concentrate on other stuff)
And you would achieve this by organising a local business to sponsor that column.

So you would have mabye a half page Advertorial type look, plugging the sponsor while we get our Mariners news/pics/etc., into the newspaper on a consistant weekly basis.

This will be vital when we are directly competing against NRL in winter during our sojurn into Asia in 2009

As far as the radio goes 2CCC have to be congratulated, we need to continue to support this station.

The 2KY Big Sport's Breakfast and the Afternoon 2SM sports show should be easy targets as they survive on
talkback. All we need here is consistancy and personality pushing the Mariners through these stations will open ourselves up to the banter from Bling & Scum supporters and thats what these stations want.

Anyway good thread, I know things will get easier as more are converted to Football.

PS The women and children factor cannot be overlooked in this whole senario, appeal to Mothers and the family follows (sometimes kicking and screaming) but following none the less.       

 

[FFC Mariner]

Actually, I was wondering about who owns the radio rights to HAL???

Be a fantastic pick up for ABC Radio TBH

 

[brett]

McGrime:

The Marinators DO have a column in the Sun Weekly. Have all season.

And the Express has a weekly Captain's Corner by Alex Wilkinson.

 

[midfielder]

Brett I think McGrime point was there is limited space available in the local papers given so much of theses papers is devoted to advertisements. But you are correct in that we do already have weekly columns in both papers.

However McGrimes points on creating if possible some talk back on the Big Breakfast & 2SM, would help. The big breakfast is more a Sydney thing, however the 2SM idea is not bad as that show goes national admitted both are to an older audience but.

But the sponsor column idea is good.

 

[Pete]

Actually, I was wondering about who owns the radio rights to HAL???

Be a fantastic pick up for ABC Radio TBH

The radio rights are localised for the regions that the HAL clubs represent.

In our area (Central Coast) 2CCC, now Coast FM, has the radio rights for the season proper.

On 96.3 FM. Mick, Trent and Shano do the call, and a pretty good job at that, and not as baised as you would expect. And despite what young McAndrew thinks, they don't bag the Mariners out all the time either (Yes, young Ian McAndrew said as such to me at one match while I was listening to Coast FM call the game).

In Newcastle the local ABC station has the rights. No idea of station band, or who does the job.

In Sydney, there is no radio coverage, would you believe it!

For the finals series, the rights are up for grabs again, ring the FFA if you want to bid for it.

 

[thomas477]

ABC Newcastle has i believe Matt Bingley among others.....
ABC Newcastle is 1233AM