Is Crowd Fixation Justified

One of the burning questions in A-League circles at the moment is whether the obsession with attendance figures justified.  Pretty much like no other sport the crowds at A-League matches are monitored by all and sundry.  Some, like Fox Sports Andy Harper, question whether it is a true barometer of the health of the game.  In my opinion, while it isn't the be all and end all, it certaiinly is a major one.  Soccer we need to remember is the number four football code in this country and without widespread supporter interest the very viability of a national professional competition and the associated sponsorship and media interest will never come.  Crowds are a must and as such will always be monitored heavily.  But what must be remembered is that we need to remain realistic.  Let's take a look at the opening round situation where we had the following attendances.

• Newcastle Jets V Melbourne Heart - 12,467
• Melbourne Victory V Sydney FC - 40,351
• Brisbane Roar V Central Coast Mariners - 13,467
• Gold Coast United V Wellington Phoenix - 4113
• Perth Glory V Adelaide United - 9452

For me there's three major talking points here.  The first is the Victory - Sydney game and it's bumper crowd.  Generally this fixture is a big drawcard and with both Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton on show here it definitely rose to expectation, but over coming weeks we will see what impact the two big marquees really have.  Next weekend we see Emerton's home debut against reigning champions Brisbane Roar.  What crowd turns up for this will be a good barometer for Emerton's pulling power in his home city.  Victory's next home game is the round three Melbourne Derby and you would expect that will be another big crowd.  Round five against the Roar could well be the best chance to gauge what his drawing power is for a normal game.

The second interesting crowd is the Gold Coast one.  In their two seasons they have been a major problem child in terms of attendances with their numbers back in the NSL range.  They have changed their ticket pricing structures and removed the crowd cap and their first up attendance of a little over four thousand suggests that they will still have a long road to travel to win over the public.

This brings us to Brisbane Roar.  Last time we saw them in action was in front of a sell out crowd at the grand final.  With a rematch on the cards many predicted a bumper crowd but it ended up in the low teens.  So just what do we make of that?  First of all I think the expectations were silly, this was never going to be a huge crowd but we should have been hitting the 20,000 mark I think.  We didn't, so what happened.  No doubt the Saturday morning storms had an impact, as did the Valley fiesta and Oktoberfest.  But let's get real, 20,000 should have been achievable so why didn't we get it?  I think history has the answer.  

Let's go back about fifteen years to when the Brisbane Strikers won the NSL.  Like the Roar they played the grand final in a pack Lang Park.  But next season crowds were back to normal, and that's what is happening here with the Roar.  The grand final is a once off that people simply went to.  Now it's back to the real fans and most of the 'bandwagoners' stayed at home.  There were definitely new faces around, but largely it was the same core fans.  A comment I read on the FourFourTwo forum summed it up for me.  Rather than go to the Roar one Brisbane lad and his mates stayed at home to watch Kewell V Emerton on TV.  You really can't compete with retarded logic like that can you.

But we shouldn't despair.  At the end of the day the Roar had a solid crowd on a less than perfect weather day and with a bunch of other things on in Brisbane.  Plus they paid for their first game in full and with a little to spare so that is good.  Winning will continue to slowly pull the crowds in, but it will be a slow process.  The new owners need to invest in promotion and marketting and really get the image of a quality football side out there.  But we need to remember that one bumper crowd at a grand final is not a panacea.  It's a once off and will pull crowds on the novelty factor.  There is still a very tough exercise of winning over the public and getting them to games.  We have made a solid start with this crowd but we need to working hard to pull the crowds in.  But it won't happen overnight.