Thoughts on this from Mainland CEO?
Over the past few months I have been questioning more and more the benefit of playing the ASB Premiership in summer and not winter/spring. I used to think it made total sense to play the national league in summer but now, after many seasons of watching ASB Premiership football over summer, I am no longer convinced.
I can only assume the main consideration for playing the ASB Premiership over summer was to attract bigger crowds and for the participants to play on much better surfaces, conducive to attractive higher quality football. Added to this I assume, was a desire to allow players to play club winter football as well as national league football.
The quality of playing surfaces and facilities has markedly improved over the past decade. Canterbury United play on a high quality artificial surface. It certainly would not be disadvantaged in winter by having to play on muddy grounds. For that matter very few current ASB Premiership teams would have to, with high quality sand and artificial surfaces being built or already built ahead of next year’s FIFA World Cup in NZ. On the whole the crowds attending national league games are very poor. Canterbury United and Auckland City get OK crowds ranging from 500 to 1000 spectators, many of the other teams barely top 200 and on many occasions, there’s hardly a man and his dog in the ground at kick off.
Mainland Football like many Federations have over 15,000 registered players, yet since the inception of the summer league a very small percentage of these Saturday winter warriors attend games. Most who do attend games appear to be traditional fans 40+. Where are the thousands of youth and senior players? I am not sure NZ has a big enough population to enthuse the 100,000+ registered players to stay keenly involved as players and spectators 12 months of the year. Some will but many don’t. We have been brought up to enjoy more than one sport and to demark these sports between summer and winter. Many players, club volunteers, coaches etc have a break from winter sport to either rest up or get active in cricket, tennis, biking, softball, whatever. They still eagerly watch what they can of the EPL and the A-League on TV but the same appetite to play summer football and watch our national league is not high. Our average crowds have slowly declined or at best stayed relatively static at Canterbury United over the past decade. It seems a similar trend in a number of other sports.
So why not then play the national league in winter or winter/spring. It would likely mean, like it does with other codes, that these few players would have to reduce their club involvement but surely the national league played in winter/spring, on excellent playing surfaces, when all of the 100,000 registered players are living and breathing their beloved sport, would lead to more direct interest and involvement. Even 10% average match attendance by the 10,000 plus Canterbury database would ensure crowds of over 1,000 each home game. The quality of the ASB Premiership is very much improving yet the spectatorship is very poor. ASB Football Park is a great wee football venue and when filled, like it was for the national men’s and women’s national KO finals, created some atmosphere.
In my view the time has come for NZ Football with the support of its stakeholders to review the objectives for hosting the national league in summer. Societal trends are changing and for many reasons less people watch live sport, regardless of the amount of marketing effort. We play the game for our fans and they are choosing to stay away in droves. Our players deserve better. We need to do something different.
Regards, Mike Coggan