Does anybody know if NZ soccer, or any clubs have been actively
marketing to migrants who's first languauge is not English? A while
back it dawned on me that so many of our migrants are from
countries with massive football communities, yet I've never seen a
single piece of Football advertising that wasn't in English. I
think clubs can gain alot from even something small like
advertising in local papers in a few languages. Statustics on where
migrants settle are not hard top find (stats NZ, Refugee and
Migrant services). . . .
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Funnily enough spoke to some ACFC guys today about exactly this issue at the aftermatch.
Got some ideas how it could be done, but advertising isn't the
way, that costs money and none of the clubs have it to spare. What
it needs is liaison between the clubs and whatever the news media
are that service those communities.
Maori do it with league, through their journos and their
DJs on their TV stations, so it is a matter for the clubs to
actually go to those outlets and get some dialogue going.
It doesn't have to be much, perhaps getting a couple of
players or a club representative to preview, review the games at
their local ethnic radio station - each community has one.
Most of the 100s of thousands of immigrants to NZ over the
past 10 years are football nuts, as those 7000 Fijians showed
today. They love football, they just need a bit of persuasion to
come along and watch, perhaps by having some sort of curtainraiser,
cultural show at half time or something.
There must be a way, it just needs some decent work done on it
- and I don't mean in the local papers or radio sport - they don't
read or listen to that stuff, they have to be reached through their
own communication lines.
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Agreed, one place I worked had no advertising but employed someone
to get publicity, ready made articles for local and national
papers, doing interviews for every community group available, even
had a tv magazine piece pre-taped for when the was a slow news
night. The publicity she generated would have cost 60
times her salary.
I means one extra salary at NZ Soccer Assn, but think of the
extra players we would get, extra crowds. Frankly, echoes of
when 100,000 Brits turned up in NZ during 72 -73 and 10 years
later we were at the World Cup. Participation, participation
from all corners of the community.
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i agree, it's a really good idea. we seem to have tried so
hard to rid our sport of the british migrant image, that we have
neglected to encorporate all races to the sport! the user
pays system under paul smalley also seemed to limit national rep
team selection to those whos mum's drive a pajero and have a
blonde bob and who's dad's work at bell gully or pwc...
net result = pace and athleticism lacking in our
game, the best players not getting to the top, lack of multi
cultural representaion amd small crowds (as mentioned above)
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The Knights did some advertisements on Chinese newspapers when
Xiaobin Zhang & Leilei Gao were there, and I saw quite a few
Chinese turn up at North Harbour Stadium....
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I've got a few media details for the Fijian Indian and Chinese
communities. Any thoughts as to what other communities we should be
looking at in the Auckland City catchment area.
I've had a thought that if the club were to have "Community
days" then the people would come along. Perhaps they could put on a
halftime show such as the Japanese community did. Or their kids
could play at halftime.
Another thought I had was that ACFC could have some
curtainraisers featuring teams representing different
communities and couple that with family ticket packages -
etc.
For a lot of immigrant communities, football is a passion. If
our franchise clubs were to reach out to these communities and
welcome them in with a few ideas such as this, it might just create
a link between the clubs and the new Kiwis.
And hey - it can't be bad for the country - if it builds
bridges and gets their kids involved in the game.
If the franchises work to bring theses people in to the game,
then the clubs underneath them can start bringing their young
fellows into their sides.
You never know, there could be a Freddie Adu or Christian
Karembeau waiting to be discovered.
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Koreans, the North Shore is about 7 percent Korean.
What about the South Africans? You'd be surprised how
many prefer the round ball. There's a lot out in Torbay,
Albany, northern suburbs of the North Shore.
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Good thoughts, although the Shore is something of a lost cause for
football. Squabbling clubs, no team and no vision to get one.
Getting Shore people off their a*ses to travel to Kiwitea St is the
Kingz/Knights scenario in reverse. Koreans are tricky customers to
deal with, although they are worth the effort once you do make
contact, as I know from experience.
I'm really warming to the idea of having community-based teams
in curtain-raisers.
It also occured to me that the biggest group of immigrants in
the last few years have been from the Old Country, and that offers
two avenues.]
There is a very successful rugby four nations tournament every
year, so you could do that in a football sense, or you could get
the club supporters, eg Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and Celtic to field
some teams.
They are quite strong here, and I know some of them used to
turn up regularly for the Kingz in the early days.
Any thoughts.
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would be good to see the north shore sort themselves out. i
wonder how they would have fared had they succesfully entered the
NZFC next season? you'd hope they'd have the brains to do
what has been suggested here and attract an asian market.
i remember there was a lot of success marketing to koreans
when there national side came to new zealand. they ended up making
up a 3/4 of the crowd at mount smart from memory.
funny how no one has really followed through on the potential
that this thread identifies?!
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There was a good point made earlier in this thread regarding
Smalleys uer pays philosophy. Probably unfair to sheet the whole
thing home to him (it doesn't seem to have changed much under
Herbert). Good players are being excluded from the higher levels of
the game at all ages. Subs for kids here in Christchurch are in the
$60 - $80 bracket and Academy training costs are now $95 per term.
Not many of the migrants get involved in the sport initially simply
because of the cost (we are a low wage economy). Senior subs have
hit the $200 mark for the first time this year. In my own case I
play and so do my 4 kids. All of them have been involved in rep
footie/academy programmes and I think the money I have spent on
them over the past 6 years is now approaching $14,000. Love the
game, hate the cost! Of the migrants in my club most of them are ex
pats with good jobs. Of the Africans and Asians that I know who
live in my area this is not the case, particularly amongst the
refugees. Having said that we have an excellent ethnic tournament
down here each February, so there are some decent players around,
it's just hard to get them to commit to serious football because of
the cost so they just generally hang out in the social (low cost)
Sunday Leagues.
What's sight without sound? Love without peace? Copulation without conception?
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