A-LEAGUE launch: "New Football"

[gyfox]

27,000 tickets sold for the Sydney derby in the first 3 days a pre-sales to members.

[yob]

There's a good chunk at Edensor Park. Pumped up as being possible 10k but it looks 5-6k for mine.

The gulf in quality between Syd Utd and the other federation reps like Tuggies and Perth Glory is noticeable.

Also the commentators have mentioned the ground has run out of bread for the cevaps which is baffling to me as I would've thought every second Cro at the ground would've had a pig on the spit going

[yob]

Simon Hill: Is there the smell of an upset in the air?

Robbie Slater: Well there's the smell of cevapis!

[yob]

8,125 @ Edensor.

[yob]

The a-league season currently averages attendances of 30,803 and is nipping at the heels of the AFL.

[Simmo79]

a mate of mine who was at the derby said there was heaps of fights

[yob]

a mate of mine who was at the derby said there was heaps of fights

Yeah but you'd only need 1/4 as many fights in Adelaide per capita


Anyone got feelers for the crowd size in Melbourne today? Hopefully 20k+. This round is off the fukn chain. Record home attendance for Adelaide - 33126. Record home attendance for SFC - 41213. Not inc finals.

[gyfox]

^^^ 15,717.

8k+ in Perth gives a record for a round of the A-League.

Derby last night had 188k viewers on Fox which is a record for an A-League home and away game. The 3 Sydney derbies last season each rated around 100k.

[yob]

When do we flick Wellington? 10 years + Football Kingz in NSL hasn't produced.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/1 ... -Kiwi-team

Fundamentally, it's the economics that aren't stacking up. In broadcast dividends and travel subsidies, Football Federation Australia has given the Phoenix upwards of A$15 million (NZ$16.7m) since they joined the league in 2007. In terms of gate takings away from home, subsidies from New Zealand Football and - critically - television rights fees, Wellington have brought very little to the table in return.

It's the Sky TV deal that particularly frustrates the FFA, and may ultimately influence Wellington's fate. While it is Sky executives and not the Phoenix owners who make the important decisions, somehow the club has to convince their broadcast "partners" to genuinely invest in the potential of the A-League, both in terms of programming and fees.

If you get out what you put in, then it's little wonder the average rating for a Wellington home game is a lamentable 15,000. Support programming for the A-League is non-existent. In a narrow sense, that might explain Sky's paltry offering for rights. Until a few weeks ago that was, incredibly, A$100,000 (NZ$111,000) per season. Under pressure from the FFA, they've recently bumped that up to around A$180,000 (NZ$200,000).

By contrast, Sky pay around A$16m (NZ$17.8m) per season for the NRL. Football may not have conquered New Zealand, but there's no way it's that far behind.

[dibo]

I'd always assumed (first mistake!) that they were contributing serious broadcasting dosh and exposure, but a pittance and a few eyeballs isn't enough to make it worthwhile.

When you've got potential bids in Canberra and Wollongong just waiting to go, and it seems to me that we'd be better off helping a limping man on the Gold Coast or North Queensland than Wellington - at least they're in our Federation. If they were bringing dosh, fine. But they aren't. Bye bye!

[yob]

I came across the article because I was interested to learn what the media deal with Sky was worth. I also assumed it was worth something.

$180,000, under duress. f**k off. 15,000 viewers. f**k off. 3,000 members. f**k off.

I really went in to this trying to find reasons to keep them. Not only have I found the opposite, but if replaced with a better contributer on our soil, that frees up dosh for clubs like the Mariners. At least their something is something.

[yob]

Bring back NQ farken. And the Gong.

No to Canberra. They'll be a rent seeker, no up side.

[dibo]

I came across the article because I was interested to learn what the media deal with Sky was worth. I also assumed it was worth something.

$180,000, under duress. f**k off. 15,000 viewers. f**k off. 3,000 members. f**k off.

I really went in to this trying to find reasons to keep them. Not only have I found the opposite, but if replaced with a better contributer on our soil, that frees up dosh for clubs like the Mariners. At least their something is something.

Add to this (for context) that FFA wants to reduce visa players to increase spots for Aussies. Move Wellington to Canberra (sorry Yob, but I reckon they are just about turn-key ready to go) and you create a whole bunch of extra spots for Aussie players, and we get a big step closer to having every A-League club having a W-League and NYL team as well (and vice versa!).

[gyfox]

The numbers given for the NZ contribution are not complete. The NZ broadcaster also picks up the outside broadcasting costs for 10% of the A-League's games i.e. the 13/14 Phoenix home games. I was told by a Phoenix fan that they don't have the rights to broadcast all games just the home game plus agreed extras and they are not paying for rights to Socceroos games like both Fox and SBS.

For a replacement club in Australia the FFA would still have the same costs minus the lesser transport costs but this would be offset by the loss of the $150k. Additionally I couldn't see Fox wanting to pick up the extra broadcast costs without some compensation. Another negative of a replacement is that the $5m pa that a club has to raise from the market to compete in the A-League would go to retaining what we have rather than expansion.

As for expansion locations there are no regional locations available that deliver more than a 2% increase in the number of STV subscribers so the major impact of any regional location is the value generated by broadcasting games into the 3 major markets of Sydney, Melbourne and South Queensland who between them account for 65% of STV subscribers and who each grow subscriptions by more than any regional location every 3 to 4.5 years. Another club in any of the 3 major markets will add considerably more to the value of broadcast rights than any regional location. A modifying factor in all of this is that the Sydney market provides 40% of all A-League viewers on Fox.

[gyfox]

Val mentions a rumour about Ch 7 winning the next A-League broadcast rights in an interview with Gallop. How would this affect future expansion locations?

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/foo ... 7096260450