Wow! Martinb, you seem to haven take offense at my comment on the business viability of the A League. My post was in no way intended as an attack on woman’s football. I would just like to go on record to say that the growth in professional woman’s football has been one of the best things that has happened to the game in recent years. I am currently enjoying the women’s Euro comp. It has offered as good a spectacle you could ever want to see in a football stadium.
My point was with the current state of the A League finances that woman’s football could go, not SHOULD go. There’s a big difference.
As someone who has been involved in international business for 30 years it has always stunned me that football seems to think it can operate outside normal business practices. The bottom line is if you can’t pay for it then you can’t have it.
The A League is close to a tipping point and we can only speculate on its future. It’s absolutely essential it gets its house in order. With the renegotiation of the TV deal maybe we may look forward to better times. Or we could end up with a low budget, low wage version played in suburban grounds.
The woman’s game could be a victim of chronic mismanagement. That would be a tragedy and a great loss for all of us who love the game.
My point was with the current state of the A League finances that woman’s football could go, not SHOULD go. There’s a big difference.
As someone who has been involved in international business for 30 years it has always stunned me that football seems to think it can operate outside normal business practices. The bottom line is if you can’t pay for it then you can’t have it.
The A League is close to a tipping point and we can only speculate on its future. It’s absolutely essential it gets its house in order. With the renegotiation of the TV deal maybe we may look forward to better times. Or we could end up with a low budget, low wage version played in suburban grounds.
The woman’s game could be a victim of chronic mismanagement. That would be a tragedy and a great loss for all of us who love the game.
So your thought process- the men’s game is a mess, better bench the women’s game? No, you’re saying it could go. Not your thoughts, some hypothetical nameless management figure.
I mean I don’t know what kind of folk run the APL.
But I certainly don’t consider the Men’s the ‘core’ business. Hopefully the APL don’t see it that way either. Hopefully they’re football people, not INEOS.
I mean what can be done? Either to stabilise things or to ring fence the women’s competition and protect it?
Better ask MacArthur and Western United how they’re doing with the Men’s game.
If we’re supposed to break even at a 10k average at the RoF, we’ve never done that. All the men’s clubs are money sinks to a greater or lesser degree. But suddenly the women’s game has to be self sustaining on game day revenue?
That would be a question of how to build in tough times sure. There’s certainly been no lack of interest in women’s international football and it’s a strong participation sport. Separate entities is just happening in some clubs in the UK where they’re doing a bit better.
Nick Becker was talking about the difference of football v rugby in terms of news stories. He talked about how much they had to push to get an organisation to run a news story. As well as the importance of people getting to know the players. It’s that para-social relationship that people get with TV characters, streamers or footballers.
And doing what the Nix have done and find a venue which suits the current crowd size.
It’s a currently a crappy situation to grow something new. The sports market is mature and saturated, and declining. Guys like Ratcliffe don’t want to be bothered and it’s easy to sit on 100 plus years of history rather than build something.
And part of that is that there was momentum in the women’s game and it got banned. We look at the likes of Wootton and Stephen Taylor coming in off stints at Uniteds M and N, which are famous clubs here. There’s no history in the women’s game for them to boost off comparatively speaking because of that injustice.
Look, not my fight exactly. My girl wants to be a swimmer. But if you got a daughter and a boy, you’re saying to the girl: you don’t get a ball until the Men’s A league is stable. That seems mental.
If you’re the main football league, you are more than solely a business too. Even in the EFL lots of owners lose money.
If you’re the flagship league, you want to represent for your country and you want to grow the game. You’re looking for a way to make it happen, rather than go, oh we tried for a half a minute it can’t be done!