Gold Coast crowd cap means bad business for everyone

Jessup says:

09:57am | 29/10/09

Gold Coast are just a buch of arrogant tossers. It’s no surprise no one’s going to the game when you’ve got the likes of Palmer goign on about hwo they’re going to go the whole season undefeated.

James S says:

10:09am | 29/10/09

Some how i get a feeling that palmer only put his money into this franchise as a means to futher benefit his business and wealth in the way of tax breaks through sponsorship.

Michael Geddes says:

10:21am | 29/10/09

It’s hard to see more than 5000 people going through the turnstiles before Christmas at this stage of the year so why not save $100,000 a game in the mean time.

Crowds have been dwindling away slowly to around 4000 since they hosted Fowlers men in round two, and even then only 7000 or so supporters showed up. So its hard to expect that many will show it this time around when they are coming of the equal worst defeat in A-League history a 6-0 drubbing at the hands of the then bottom of the ladder Wellington.

It’s extremely disappointing for football fans but the reality it was inevitable, and the people of the Gold Coast just aren’t getting behind this side for some reason. Ticket prices have been slashed but it is still $30 bucks for an adult, which is around a 15 dollar drop I’ve been told.

One would assume the cap will be lifted with the Boxing Day clash with the Roar and crowds may pick up from then on. Perhaps this is why Clive was so livid when that opening fixture was moved to Brisbane in the first place.

Grant says:

10:32am | 29/10/09

You think the Gold Coast have it bad think of the position the Brisbane Roar are in they have to pay $3.15 per person over 5000 and another $34000 penalty for a crowd under 10,000 at the stadium. They only break even at 15,000. Some of the top payed players Miller ( on ongoing knee), Reinaldo ( groin), Malcom ( f**king usless), Tiatto (f**king lout)  are all costing them closer to $500,000 a year and they so far have only been on the pitch a average total of 34% of the games so far.  They are bleeding dry and will stuggle to ever have a team next year after a 1.5million operating loss last year. It unsustainable and unviable. The public know the blood is in the water and the sharks are circling.

Once Palmer take a few losses in mining the GCU are going to go the same way.

Joe says:

10:53am | 29/10/09

I don’t understand how this works? Does it means they only have to open half the stadium or such?

Michael says:

11:08am | 29/10/09

Joe, The GCU website says only the western side of the ground will be opened from now on… makes the television coverage look a bit boring, i think the camera’s are on that side. hahah.

All free transport to the ground with tickets has also been canned.

Steve says:

11:16am | 29/10/09

This is the Gold Coast way, the will only support winning teams, soon as Gold Coast United started to lose crowds are drying up, how many teams on the coast have suffered a similiar fate, everyone.

Currently the Titans in NRL have been fine, basically because they have had wining season since they re entrered the comp, when they say finish 12th, after starting season poor i am guessing the crowds will dry up, The new AFL team will learn quickly how hard the GC is to crack.

What Clive is doing is hsoring up his team, to stand alone, I am sure he does not want to poor money into losing franshise, if he new crowds would be 10,000, he might cap there, but this is GC and its a tough nut to crack

Matt says:

11:39am | 29/10/09

steve- i don’t think it has anything to do with winning. they are currently 3rd and have been at or around top spot the whole season bue still haven’t got crowds over 8000. and the titans didn’t make finals in their first two seasons but still got great crowds.

i think its clearly poor management and marketing on behalf of the GC board. when you are a new team you need to attract and encourage fans to give you a chance. bugger all promotion, little to no community/school work by the players and expensive ticket prices are all great ways to kill a new club before it gets started.

surely if Clive Palmer is serious in making this a succesful club for the Gold Coast and not just lining his pockets he would at least try to find ways to improve the crowds rather then cap them?

if he really wants to cut costs why not start with the private jet. given the pummeling wellington gave them last weekend it clearly doesn’t help them travel!

northern monkey says:

11:53am | 29/10/09

If what you say about Roar is true, then it’s a sorry state of affairs. If it costs so much to play at major stadiums, why don’t they just switch to local ones where they can get a full house and perhaps even make some money?

AFR says:

12:29pm | 29/10/09

I must be an idiot. Can someone please expalin how smaller crowds = more money??

mephisto says:

12:37pm | 29/10/09

Take a look at all the work Centraql Coast Mariners have done to connect with their community. They’re one of the smallest clubs in the league and in one of the best states financially speaking.

It’s arrogance on the part of gold coast to think they wouldn’t have to do all that work. North Queensland started slowly but they seems to be building their linsk with the townsville community slowly but surely.

bob says:

01:23pm | 29/10/09

A league = zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Leave the round ball to the Europeans and South Americans

Matt says:

01:34pm | 29/10/09

AFR- their last few matches have attracted crowds of about 4500 so cutting the ‘capacity’ to 5000, in theory, shouldn’t mean smaller crowds as they can still fit the usual crowd in i.e. revenue should still stay the same. But by only using 1 grandstand they’re cutting expenses so they should be making more profit, or more likely less of a loss. either way they will save some money.
so from a purely economic point of view it makes sense, although any half-decent football club should be finding a way to increase crowds, not cap them.

as cruel as this sounds i hope more then 5000 fans turn up and they have to lock some of them out. just so they realise how stupid this move is.

Darren says:

01:41pm | 29/10/09

maybe Palmer is confusing football with Liberal National Party branch meetings where the aim is to minimise attendance so that you can control the meeting

mephisto says:

01:59pm | 29/10/09

LNP branch meeting and the A-League? Now that’s satire. Zing!

Darren says:

02:05pm | 29/10/09

no the LNP - that is satire!

Grant says:

02:20pm | 29/10/09

Northern monkey… it spretty tangled web of companies and deals. But whent he Qld government go to tender to a management company they sign a deal. Basically the deal is the the management company Ogden AFC gives the Stadium Qld (owned by the State Goverment ) money for rights to lease the stadiium. The Qld Gov. also guarentees that the company will get certain figures which include crowd numbers. The reason is that Ogden AFC have ongoing cost to run an event it generally is a flat rate which equate to about 10,000 people. If the event doesnt have more than 10,000 it is lost revenue to the Ogden. They cannot take a finanical loss so they hand it on to the Brisbane Roar. 

I asked the sports minster at the time why the Queensland Roar (at the time) signed up to the stadium for such a long contract with such steep penalties. I was informed that it was through an externaI management company and that it was out of his control. Even though he was the minister in charge of the portfolio and the Qld government owns the stadium. Now he the CEO of the Roar. Its rather concerning situation.

The Roar are in a desperate situation due to poor player deal mainly the older players, poor CEO, poor crowds, poor stadium deal.

It

ELBOWGREASE says:

02:54pm | 29/10/09

Soccer is a BORING game that is doomed to follow basketball. We have a national game, one that doesn’t have imported ballerinas doing swan dives. The only reason soccer is referred to as “the world game” is because most of the world are yet to experience the privilege of an Australian Rules Football game!

CHEER CHEER THE RED AND THE WHITE
HONOUR THE NAME BY DAY AND BY NIGHT
LIFT THAT NOBLE BANNER HIGH
SHAKE DOWN THE THUNDER FROM THE SKY
WHETHER THE ODDS BE GREAT OR BE SMALL
SWANS WILL GO IN, AND WIN OVER ALL
WHILE HER LOYAL SONS ARE MARCHING
ONWARDS TO VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!

northern monkey says:

02:59pm | 29/10/09

Jesus. What would you do if an external management company said you need 10,000 every week or you going to get slugged big time? If that’s the way Roar run their business, it’s no wonder they’re fighting to stay out of the gugler.

northern monkey says:

03:02pm | 29/10/09

Elbowgrease - I used to watch Aussie Rules when I was in the UK. The only thing it was known for was fighting. I think the last time you tried to stage a game over there and show the world your great game, there was also a massive fight.

Face it - AFL is the esperanto of world sport: nobody outside a insular mentally unstable minority understands it or gives a toss.

Allan says:

03:02pm | 29/10/09

I feel that the A-League, at least in Queensland, will suffer and wither away.
There is zero marketing or presence of the Roar in Brisbane. The only way I know there is a game is when it’s shown on the road closure signs around Suncorp Stadium on the drive home.

I’ve been to a few games a year in the past, but have been unable to get to any yet this season. I feel if they rolled back the prices a bit and unleashed more marketing they may be able to pick up the attendance.

Why not showing it on free-to-air tv to gather more “grass roots” support? You’ve got to get the potential fans interested and hooked on it to keep it going for a long time

northern monkey says:

03:03pm | 29/10/09

Elbowgrease - I used to watch Aussie Rules when I was in the UK. The only thing it was known for was fighting. I think the last time you tried to stage a game over there and show the world your great game, there was also a massive fight.

Face it - AFL is the esperanto of world sport: nobody outside a insular mentally unstable minority understands it or gives a toss.

ELBOWGREASE says:

03:11pm | 29/10/09

Those bananas seem to be repeating on you Num Monkey!
Just tellin’ it as i see it.

wolf says:

04:32pm | 29/10/09

On topic:
Makes good economic sense to cap attendance, considering they would need to put an extra 4,000 people through the gates over and above an attendance of 5,000 to uncap it.  I hope they can sort it out.

As others have said, coverage on free to air would help, and I hope for the sake of the round ball game that socceroo games (and maybe some A League) makes it onto free to air once the governments review of the anti siphoning list is complete.

On another note:
Elbowgrease WHY must you and your imbecilic brethren tell us “how you see it” every time a story involving a footy code that isnt AFL comes up?

It’s always the same comments - NRL is dying, soccer is dead, our game is the best, our players arent involved in scandals etc.  If you have to keep ramming it down the throat of people who follow another code then its possible that you are in fact wrong, and your opinion should be discarded.

However, I have noticed the AFL fanboys go strangely quiet on the topic of player behaviour after recent events on Phillip Island…

Richard says:

04:55pm | 29/10/09

Elbowgrease, please imagine me enthusiatically joining you in song.  Up the mighty Swannies!
Down with soccer, the most boring, frustrating and petulant game in the world.  Unfortunately, northern monkey, the “mentally unstable minority” constitute the largest single group of sporting followers in the country by a long way.  And the gap between our mighty, indigenous game and the rest is growing, not shrinking.  The Australian sporting public are voting with their feet and their remotes. Frankly, we are proud of our game and couldn’t give a toss about the stupid, arrogant and tedious “world game”.

GAB says:

05:55pm | 29/10/09

Soccer is dull, repetitive, predictable and boring. That is the reason that you can’t get crowds.  It is the game of the foreigners and their brainwashed kids.  You can scream all you want but when the kids hit their teens they become aware that there are much better sports than the mummy’s game and they move on.  The interest is in the main Australian codes of AFL NRL and Union.  We have soccer over here in Perth and you continually hear the soccer tragics screaming for more facilities, more money etc but the crowds and the interest just isn’t there.  Soccer will fester then whither away on the vine as it always has.  It is not worth saving.

Carl Palmer says:

06:29pm | 29/10/09

@northern monkey good to see you’re done your homework. I’ll leave you with your insular mentally unstable minority - happy days.

ELBOWGREASE sussed you out real quick.

Go the Swannies.

James says:

06:53pm | 29/10/09

Unfortunatley for Clive Palmer, there is a vast difference between running a mining company and a football club. He has made the club too far out of touch with the community and the main problem is ticket prices. For a new club, a supporter base needs to be made and unfortunatley the ticket prices have prevented people from attending the games and the lack of atmosphere does nothing to keep the fans who do fork out the big bucks, return.

Gold Coast are a good team. They play good football and just some basic marketing techniques such as cheap tickets for the rest of the season and free entry for kids as well as free clinics with junior members (A Melbourne Victory initiative) will get the club’s awareness up and running and hopefully develop a solid supporter base.

Terry says:

09:18pm | 29/10/09

This is a terribly written article. I would have thought even the most junior journalist, let alone someone who is the editor of a magazine, would have realised they should actually explain how it is the Gold Coast United and it’s owner will save al that money by capping their crowds.

On a separate point. Whilst it is good for sporting clubs to have wealthy benefactors and owners for their survival, there is also a significant downside when they are highly partisan political figures. The US NFL decided recently not to allow the highly partisan right wing radio host Rush Limbaugh to become an owner of a team for exactly this reason. A large amount of your potential and existing fan base want nothing to do with the team.
Personally I would never go to a Gold Coast United home game, buy a single item of their merchandise or watch one of their games on Foxtel, because the last thing I want is a single dollar to go into the pockets of the man who bankrolls the LNP and I bet I’m not the only Gold Coast resident that feels that way.

Steve says:

01:33am | 30/10/09

Palmer pays the bills, so he can do what he want with his franchise. I seriously doubt if there are more than a few thousand diehards on the Gold Coast who are prepared to stump up to watch his outfit, so his damage-limitation policy makes sense. What would the FFA do if he pulled the pin up there anyway ? They’d have buckley’s chance of finding a new “investor” to pay the bills. ’ Meanwhile in Sydney, only six thousand bothered to turn out to watch the city’s only A-League side the other night and the fact they were caught out fudging these paltry figures is no surprise.

The competition is on the nose and additional expansion will only dilute the already poor playing standards even further. At least with the part-time NSL, you knew most of the senior players had day jobs and that plenty of youngsters were getting a go, but the same cannot be said for this so-called “full-time professional league”.  Forget about the knockers from other codes, the A-League is fast becoming a joke amongst those it is directly aimed at.

Gweeds says:

09:26am | 30/10/09

First thing.  Why every story on football (OK…‘soccer’ if you must) attracts moronic comments from ‘fans’ of others codes?  It’s predictable, boring and we all heard it before (many times).  You don’t like soccer?  Good. Don’t watch it.  We don’t need to know and we don’t need you.  So piss off.

OK

Now in regards to the article I think that the issue here is Gold Coast has become a textbook case of how not to start a football team.  Especially in an area where the sport in question is not the major one.

I think that in new ventures there are risks in having owners that treat the club as their own plaything.  And it has happened in other codes as well.  Who could forget the Sydney Swans Dr. Geoffrey Edelsten wreck which ended up in 1988 with the licence sold back to the VFL (as it was then) for ten dollars. Losses were in the millions.  My hunch about what is happening is somewhat confirmed by reports inside the club that the club’s lacks football culture.

Contrast this to the North Queensland Fury, which despite a horrible start has been able to build a reasonable attendance (if you take account of the total population of Townsville) and apparently from what I hear is attempting to connect to the local community.

OliverK says:

10:20am | 30/10/09

Who is running marketing for the GCU and Roar?? I haven’t seen an ad on tv or a sign… EVER. not one scrap of marketing apart from little stories on the news about some outlandish comment made by GCU admin…

seriously..

You know there’s not enough marketing when I have to go to Fox Sports to find out when the game is on and how much tickets are…

GG says:

10:33am | 30/10/09

Existing codes AFL & NRL have based their success on connecting with their communities. They have been suburb or district based for a long time and people, no matter who they are have a tribal association and hence are interested in their local identity.
Soccer has plenty of local teams, in most cities there are more local teams playing soccer at junior and senior level than AFL or NRL and Union doesn’t even rate. Setting up the A-League and imposing teams on cities is hard enough but as seems evident with the Gold Coast, not connecting with all these people who play the game, subscribe to pay TV for the EPL, overseas games, watch the Socceroo’s, pack the clubs and pubs for World Cup games is the problem.
Clive isn’t doing the game or the Gold Coast community any good, sport is business but it only works if you engage the people’s heart and minds. Telling them only 5000 are wanted doesn’t make it exclusive and desirable. He’s doomed for failure unless he opens the doors, invites everyone in, gives them an extra $100,000 a month in coaching clinics, school visits, shopping centre events, autograph signings, team posters, plastering the Gold Coast with GCU everywhere before he even starts to get them thinking of going. He has to lose money to start with before it rights itself because he doesn’t have the decades of history that the other codes can leverage off now.

Richard says:

04:23pm | 30/10/09

Gweeds, this is a free country and this is a free website, so if we want to express our views on your stupid game, we bloody-well will.

Gweeds says:

04:17pm | 02/11/09

Richard.  Your contributions to the debate is zero.  You are adding nothing new.  Express your views by all means but at least try to be somewhat original.  I’ve heard your views many many times from AFL supporters (unlike yourself my brain is capable to follow two codes. Go Blues). You are just wasting electrons.

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