We’re just a couple of weeks away from the Australian Championship now and the question most people are asking (me) is a simple one. Is that enough time?

The broadcast deal is still warm from the oven but thankfully the competition now has a network providing some legitimacy, and one would think, will provide some marketing.

The competition is also scheduling a launch event at APIA for all clubs and one would think Media, to provide some pictures for the papers and generate some buzz for online commentators.

At club land, Facebook events are now set up and tickets seem to be finally available for purchase. Impressively, the ticket links are centrally available from the competition website.

One thing everyone should be able to agree on is that the product on offer is professional. The financial might and competition experience of the FA seems to be leveraging the functionality of their previous A-League experience as well as the practicality of the Australia Cup promotions.

But let’s be a little bit more critical for a second, starting with the fixtures themselves.

Fixture timing

The afternoon timeslots are supportive of broadcast, as they allow a low opportunity cost time slot which will garner support from the broadcaster and likely remain protected from being replaced on TV. However the afternoon games (particularly the 1pm games) aren’t conducive to large crowds nor the ‘event atmosphere’ that some people may want from the competition. There also exists the increased risk of excessive heat which could slow games down.

From a presentation perspective though the daytime fixtures take the pressure off massively. Afternoon local games are frequently broadcast (VFL comes to mind) so viewers would be practiced at watching these broadcasts in the sun at suburban venues. It also improves the optics of smaller crowds for two reasons. Firstly, open spaces look more inviting during the day – it’s a day out, rather than an empty ‘night event’. Secondly, day games improve safety and discourage antisocial behaviour as attendees are less likely to have drunk excessive amounts and improved lighting assists security efforts.

Branding and competition social media

On the central marketing the messaging has been consistent. The competition is selling aspirational football. Green and gold, sharp graphics, bold font, images of players celebrating – not large crowds. The graphics themselves have been professional and consistent, with the competition social pages providing well considered and sleek content. Highlighting players and comments from coaches has emphasises and legitimised the role of this competition to the broader football public (not just the fans of the foundation clubs) and this will be needed to secure the competition’s long term future.

Especially off the back of Western United’s demise* many football fans are reluctantly accepting that we need both more opportunities for players and coaches, but we don’t have the capacity to provide more at A-League level. Where the competition social media platforms should strike next is emphasising the transfer activity that has happened in the past few weeks. Many top state league players have been attracted to Championship clubs (concentrating talent) and many A-League or even international players have also come into the competition (dropping to a safety net and avoiding NPL). This was to be expected, and is an objectively good development for football in the country. If we are to see many of these players get A-League contracts in January than the story gets even better, but the narrative groundwork needs to be put in place now, which is complementary to the aspirational competition messaging so far.

Crowds

Here’s the original question I wanted to answer – is the ticketing strategy conducive to large crowds? Well I have to detour first… Crowds won’t mean much to this competition – despite what people will have you believe. Many people are focused on crowds in that weird Australian Football metrics way – there is a side competition with A-League figures, NSL figures, AFL figures etc. But as I’ve written before this is mostly stupid and should take a back seat to financial sustainability. Many people though, somewhat more legitimately, are focusing on crowds as a barometer for potential expansion of the competition into a Home and Away style.

Even this is fraught. Again, financial sustainability should be the focus, but also the basis of a H&A competition will be the specific club circumstances rather than crowds. Half of the Australian Championship clubs qualified through football merit, so their crowds shouldn’t be expected to be large. Of the foundation clubs too, their selection was mostly based on infrastructure and financing, if crowds were that important than Avondale would never have been selected!

What the FA will likely look for is how the competition looks and if there is sufficient broadcast and corporate support to manage league management overheads. Club operations will be largely self sustaining so it is actually the CLUBs which care about crowds more as that will inform their potential budgets, or for those non-foundation clubs, it will inform their ability to meet financial hurdles required of the expansion process.

Here’s also why crowd data will be unreliable even if it is good. Crowds in the early seasons of new competitions tend to be higher. This was true for the A-League and the Australia Cup, and it will be true for the Championship. Should the competition change format to a proper H&A that means we also can’t extrapolate this year’s data owing to the shorter timeline required for fan engagement (some may only be required to attend three home games for their team) and the differences in fixture timing (a longer comp would likely see more night games.

Tickets

Now back to the original question, finally. Is enough actually being done to see big crowds at the competition this year? Well… maybe? Marketing may seem to have started late, but we’ve all known about this competition for about a year. There has been a long run to build competition awareness and social media platforms. There has been promotion and preparations by the clubs, a national tour of the trophy, leveraging of large NPL games and the generation of huge media interest (relative to the level) all year through football podcasts, blogs etc. The marketing has been low cost, but slow burning and seared into the minds of football people.

Even most of the fixture dates and times have been known for ages, but I understand that doesn’t necessarily translate to tickets. As we saw for the recent NPL Victoria Grand Final, I think there will be a huge amount of people who purchase tickets on the day. In that game only a few thousand tickets were supposedly pre-purchased and the organisers were shocked by the on-the-day turnout, with even the FV CEO having to go to the single open gate to scan tickets. I suspect that a similar thing will happen here, and that a lot of the attendance for the Australian Championship will be subject to the morning’s weather forecast.

This dynamic will be the driving factor for smaller clubs, especially outside of NSW and Victoria, where more neutrals would be expected to attend their state’s representative games. However, for the larger clubs, they have far more ability, and should be expected to invest more time in securing pre-game sales. As we saw for the Preston vs South games this year, there is an appetite for pre-purchase tickets but this is dependent on the demand for the game, and importantly the sense of urgency or scarcity. This comes down to marketing, and in this respect I think clubs have left it late.

Going to the South ticketing website I can see all tickets are General Admission. This alone reduces the sense of urgency, unlike even the Australia Cup final, where staged releases created a sense of limited supply before the member’s stand was opened up.

What does the club need to do?

Well this is tough. Free tickets? Well, that’s a tough one. Except for specific community partners, free tickets do damage by word of mouth, giving the sense that fans can wait for a sale or free ticket to be made available to them, or in the worst case, they can rock up on the day and have no issues. The trade off for South though is the pressure to fill Lakeside on the first day, as that single event could create momentum for the rest of the competition.

The other thing is the organic fan base. Members and regular attendees need to be reached out to (not taken for granted) and either pushed to pre-purchase tickets, told that their memberships will grant entry, and generally incentivised to bring their friends to the game.

Next is the wider fan base and neutrals. These people can only be reached by actually advertising.

• Greek media: Spend some smart money on a targeted marking plan. A full page ad in the Neos Kosmos and Ta Nea. Radio Spots on 3XY.
• Media engagement: Offer players and club people to the media, podcasts and influencers for interviews and articles.
• Community engagement: Offer limited tickets to local community groups and local businesses. Activate the South Melbourne Market and Clarendon Street through traders and signage.
• Local Council and Government: Engage local council and government by attracting key people to the game and getting the match featured on their socials
• Wider football engagement: Targeted advertising on social media, and through football platforms.

Is two weeks enough for this? If none of this is planned already than definitely not. If this is already planned than we should be good. I expect that after the Australia Cup Final the club and competition hit the advertising hard. You have two real windows for events, sell when it’s announced, or sell just before it happens. With tickets just made available now, it seems we’re putting our stock in the latter.