Football(Soccer) in Australia - the future?

[Adelaide_United_Red]

It would help the appeal of the A League if people like Kewell return in the twighlight, like Aloisi did and Farina if you want to stretch it back. Names coming back attracts people.

At the same time, the A League needs to be a legitimate option for players at the beginning of their careers as an alternative to lower leagues in Europe. Players go to these leagues to get spotted by the top division clubs in Europe. The salaries I understand are similar to Australia but it is about exposure. I think that is slowly happening.

Totally agree about the HAL being a viable part of the career path by placing playrs in the shop-window, one only has to see:
Mitch Langarak and Mustafa Amini, Matt Leckie

All played HAL and left straight to Bundesliga(not Belgian 2nd div) teams...well Amini will be on loan at CCM for s7, but will then head to Dortmund(CCM still get a transfer fee - good business by the Mariners) This shows youngsters that playing HAL not only is good for development as a player, but looks great in the eyes of European scouts. Europe being where the best players always want to test themselves.

[Nines]

That's garbage. Everyone is going the quick fix.

Look at GWS and GC Suns. Or Melbourne Storm. Or the Melbourne Rebels. In today's world, administrators realise it takes too long to invest in grassroots without a senior team and play the waiting game.

I would agree that those expansion teams are agressive attempts at getting a truly national footprint .You might even include NRL's expansion into it's heartlands .
The fundamental difference is that AFL , NRL and SRU are going along nicely and would be fundamently sound without those adventures .These are adjuncts to the normal structure they're not fundamental re-writes .

With Perf, Adelaide and the NZ, the A-League started with a mix of existing clubs and new ones.

Yes , but we all know Sydney and Melbourne are the critical areas .

Soccer can establish itself as a summer staple in Australia if it sticks it out because cricket's not really cutting it.

I agree that soccer is in a priviledged to be only competing against Gridiron and GAA footballs in the summer slot and should see it in a comfortable position well into the future .But comparing to, and by the sounds hoping of crickets demise is absolutely ludicrous .People are suddenly jump to jump ship from cricket to soccer ? Why not baseball ,basketball ,field hocky or ice hockey for staters .Does all the AFL have to do is stick it out and wait for NRL's demise ?

FFS soccer has been "sticking it out" for a long time and waiting for a another sport to go belly up is about the worst strategy I've ever read about .

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[Jeffles]

^^ Well you didn't read about it in my post. What I was saying is that cricket used to monopolise sporting interest in Australia, save January when it would share with tennis. But now, cricket's share of the proverbial water cooler talk in the summer is declining as people are turned away by the direction the game is taking in Australia. This creates an opening for soccer to capture the imagination of a critical mass. Other sports are not well placed to do that because they lack the profile or the grassroots.

[the crow]

It can capitalise on the epic fail of the big bash series..that is bound to happen.

[Nines]

^^ Well you didn't read about it in my post.

I read your post and you are still linking cricket fortunes to soccer .
There has always been an openning in the summer because there's only minor football sports being played in opposition.The demise in cricket might open up opportunities in say baseball and a few other other now minor summer sports , but to say there is going to be a significant take up by soccer or any other sport is a very long bow to draw .

I follow cricket , but don't really support it by attending matches or watching it all day on TV ,but when the National Baseball League was re-invented I saw a few Heat games .The SA Gaelic Footy had a large jump in participation when they moved to the summer shedule probably through interest from footballers not cricket dropouts .

Soccer like any other sport has to look at legitimate ways to express itself and create it's own luck .Thankfully I don't believe other soccer fans are holding their breath over cricket's misfortunes .

.

[Rob]

That's garbage. Everyone is going the quick fix.

Look at GWS and GC Suns. Or Melbourne Storm. Or the Melbourne Rebels. In today's world, administrators realise it takes too long to invest in grassroots without a senior team and play the waiting game.

With Perf, Adelaide and the NZ, the A-League started with a mix of existing clubs and new ones. Soccer can establish itself as a summer staple in Australia if it sticks it out because cricket's not really cutting it. Cricket's summer is shrinking as it increasingly tours in October/November and the domestic game is treated like crap except for December/January's T20.

this..in all my years of following football in Australia, too often the game tries something and if it doesn't immediately work, it gets scrapped for the next "cunning plan"[/baldrick] IMO the A-League just needs time, time to build traditions and a culture of support from parent to child that sustains success-pooer teams like St. Kilda in the AFL. AUFC are set to post a modest profit on last season. If the model that enables HAL teams to survive into the next decades has been found, the league will survive and allow itself the chance to thrive. Every year since s1 the standard has improved. As the clubs learn more, I predict that this improvement will continue. There is no tangible reason why the HAL can't carve out a spot for itself in the sporting calendar of Australia. These things take time and an administration willing to refine what we have to be better at each step and thus provide the time(by surviving/improving) the league needs.

You're probably right, but what it also needs that you've neglected to mention is a shitload of money. And I think the FFA's concept of that money being 'someone else's' has got a due date in the near future. So they need to find a way to cut costs for owners.

It's fine to say it needs more time, but in the meantime someone's got to pay for it.

[Nines]

this..in all my years of following football in Australia, too often the game tries something and if it doesn't immediately work, it gets scrapped for the next "cunning plan"[/baldrick] .

The quick fix .

IMO the A-League just needs time, time to build traditions and a culture of support from parent to child that sustains success-pooer teams like St. Kilda in the AFL.

The more tradional approach youasked about .

There is no tangible reason why the HAL can't carve out a spot for itself in the sporting calendar of Australia.

Well it has already .

[Jeffles]

I read your post and you are still linking cricket fortunes to soccer .
There has always been an openning in the summer because there's only minor football sports being played in opposition.The demise in cricket might open up opportunities in say baseball and a few other other now minor summer sports , but to say there is going to be a significant take up by soccer or any other sport is a very long bow to draw .

I follow cricket , but don't really support it by attending matches or watching it all day on TV ,but when the National Baseball League was re-invented I saw a few Heat games .The SA Gaelic Footy had a large jump in participation when they moved to the summer shedule probably through interest from footballers not cricket dropouts .

Soccer like any other sport has to look at legitimate ways to express itself and create it's own luck .Thankfully I don't believe other soccer fans are holding their breath over cricket's misfortunes .

AFL in the northern states got a massive boost from a massive crisis in RL during the 1990s. Why can't soccer benefit from a downturn in cricket's popularity? I'm not offering the shitcanning of cricket as a solution. I am offering it as an opportunity.

There's nothing wrong with linking cricket's fortunes to soccer. A decline in popularity presents a chance for people to pursue other forms of leisure. When CA gave a damn about domestic cricket, crowds for domestic 50 over matches in Sydney hovered around 10,000 and aggregattes for Shield games were similar. This is in October/November. You get nowhere near that now. but people are still looking for something to do.

[Nines]

Why can't soccer benefit from a downturn in cricket's popularity? .

I'm not saying it can't .I agree other sports could benefit but I'd say it'd more likely be other minor sports and especially baseball which is a similar summer sport of sorts .IMO people would've made a decision cricket Vs football long ago .If a Gaelic Footy league was promoted in the summer of WA I'd probably attend irrespective of cricket's fortune or the presence of soccer .

It's much better to focus on what will attract people to soccer .

When CA gave a damn about domestic cricket, crowds for domestic 50 over matches in Sydney hovered around 10,000 and aggregattes for Shield games were similar. This is in October/November. You get nowhere near that now. but people are still looking for something to do.

Well 10k cricket crowds doesn't leave huge pickings .

AFL in the northern states got a massive boost from a massive crisis in RL during the 1990s.

Has nothing to do with the fact that AR attendances dramatically follow team performances and finals appearances ?
But accepting your premise ,how did rl's troubles translate into AFL gains ?
Why didn't it translate into RU gains or did it ?
Wasn't soccer played in the winter then , why didn't soccer gain or did it ?
NSW is the soccer state .You'd think they'd benefit most by any rl troubles .

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[Simmo79]

Your advice to the world game is welcome Nines but you must be kidding if you think the Super League war wasn't an absolute gift to the AFL.

Why didn't soccer benefit from the SL debacle? Becuase it was the least professionally run sport in the country until ca. 2005

Why didn't it benefit RU? It kind of did. Because at the time it was a small, amateur sport (the 1987 RWC semi-final was played at a not quite packed Concorde oval) that didn't properlise organise and capitalise until RL began to present an even greater threat to its existence during the SL war. RU responded well to SL.

The 5 football teams that benefited most from Super League were the Swans, Bears/Lions, Waratahs, Brumbies and Reds. They're supported by a bloc of fans who were alienated by RL during the SL era and have stuck by those teams ever since.

[Adelaide_United_Red]

Nines, football moved from a winter schedule to a Summer schedule with NSL season 1995-96. Same reason then as now (shifting HAL season7 start back to October2011) to get some clear air in the media.
Had the additional benefit of reducing booking of stadia clashes Brisbane Roar would not be able to play out of Suncorp in Winter(SFC out of SFS, NUJ out of Ausgrid), the Broncos/Roosters/Knights would tear the crap out of the pitch. football more so than the other codes absolutely requires a billiard table-like flat smooth surface, quality of play suffers severely if the turf is torn up and like a cow paddock. I love summer football, watching my team in shorts, home strip and a hat is brilliant and sure beats freezing your arse off like the Poms do at their football games, in fact on the odd occasion when I have taken Europeans to HAL games, they are usually surprised firstly that the football isn't as bad as they imagined it would be, and how much fun it is to watch in summer weather:) simmo, exactly although some would argue that football is STILL the least professionally run sport in the country..I personally think that's a tad harsh, great strides have been made by FFA since the disbanding of SocAus, lessons have been learned and continue to be learned.
One would hope that within 50 years football will not be as marginalized in the mainstream media as it is now-a-days as folks get more and more used to football existing at a high level domestically in the form of the HAL "growing up with a successful league" as it were and the old dinosaurs of journalism who still view the game through the prism of Shiela's, wogs and Pooftas that they knew from the 50s and 60s move along to retirement.

[Rob]

Your advice to the world game is welcome Nines but you must be kidding if you think the Super League war wasn't an absolute gift to the AFL.

Why didn't soccer benefit from the SL debacle? Becuase it was the least professionally run sport in the country until ca. 2005

Why didn't it benefit RU? It kind of did. Because at the time it was a small, amateur sport (the 1987 RWC semi-final was played at a not quite packed Concorde oval) that didn't properlise organise and capitalise until RL began to present an even greater threat to its existence during the SL war. RU responded well to SL.

The 5 football teams that benefited most from Super League were the Swans, Bears/Lions, Waratahs, Brumbies and Reds. They're supported by a bloc of fans who were alienated by RL during the SL era and have stuck by those teams ever since.

Yeah, I reckon it's impact is overstated. The Swans could arguably be the biggest beneficiary, but their success in the late 90's had more to do with actually winning games and the marketability of a bloke called Lockett than anything else. If they continued winning wooden spoons then I doubt their crowds would have improved one iota. IMO the effect on the Bears/Lions was negligible. There was no noticeable surge in their popularity around that time.

[Jeffles]

The Superleague war started in 1995 on April 1. The truce came in 1998 with the first year of the NRL but it was uneasy as clubs knew one of them or more would be cut. During that period, RL crowds declined and the crowds of the Swans/Bears/Lions increaed markedly, a bigger boost than what either club got during their premiership eras of the last decade. Soccer, at the NSL level was a summer sport in 1995-1998 and the Super 12 started in 1995.

NSWRL/ARL average regular season crowds. 11 clubs were from Sydney. 2 clubs were in SEQ (3 between 1995 and 1997).

1994: 14125
1995: 13918
1996: 11458
1997: 9915 (ARL) and 12347 (SL)
1998: 10935

Swans average regular season crowds

1994: 9814
1995: 15976
1996: 24574
1997: 35818
1998: 31549

The Swans went 8 wins and 14 losses in 1995 and crowds rose around 65%. That wasn't all Plugger "success"

Brisbane Bears/Lions average regular season home crowds:

1994: 12434
1995: 10305
1996: 18088
1997: 19550
1998: 16675

For both clubs crowds decline in 1998 as there is some uneasy peace in RL. Anecdotally, many fans stayed on because their clubs were under threat and/or a distrust for Murdoch. The on field results kept people there, but many wouldn't have looked if the opportunity hadn't presented itself in the form of a divided rugby league.

[beastjim]

98 at the Gabba and they started to hit constuction crowd restraints as well IIRC.

[Nines]

Yeah, I reckon it's impact is overstated. The Swans could arguably be the biggest beneficiary, but their success in the late 90's had more to do with actually winning games and the marketability of a bloke called Lockett than anything else. If they continued winning wooden spoons then I doubt their crowds would have improved one iota. IMO the effect on the Bears/Lions was negligible. There was no noticeable surge in their popularity around that time.

This topic has been tackled many times before and crowds closely follow predictable indicators like ladder position ,opposition or matchups .I think the closest link would be that the Swans actually got a bit more media and that pulled in more theatre goers .

The implications that suddenly a group of fans suddenly jumped camp is without substance .
I saw no evidence of it at the games ,at work or socially . Why would people suddenly go to games wouldn't they check it out on TV first ? Yet this supposed interest wasn't reflected in ratings and hasn't certainly has shown any tangible permanent effect .There were no media articles at all about this phenomenon .