2016/17 Phoenix Fixtures - Saturday Night Fever

ACK games should be at Mt. Smart and The Sandpit. Leave Eden Shark alone.

Really hope its more 442 BS.Just dont see how casuals are expected to buy into the team at home when they are away for extended periods,understand acople away but really 4.

Frankly surprised how easy some are prepared just to accept this.

As an inner city resident, I BEG TO DIFFER

I don't give a rats ass where we play anymore. I just want to win. So tired of going to almost every home (Cake Tin) game since '07 and not having anything to show for it. I've watched this team through thick and thin and I honestly am not even looking forward to next season. Is it too much to ask to play decent footy and win the fudgeing league?

Look, if everyone is so fudgeen keen on games in Auckland, simple solution, allow Auckland to have a team in the A League again, think of Derby games and crowds and income. But stop dragging the Nix circus around the friggen country. This is just BS and is as good as shooting yourself in the head if you want a short term future. Smell the friggen roses. Ballane is right, aretoo many too easy to just accept this crap and not try and do something about it? Enough of this frustration.

It was well signalled that FFA's strategic thinking was "NZ is the Nix's market"; and clearly a part of the deal; so it's a case of this or nothing as Patrick said. I wonder what impact over 2,3,4 years this will have on potential Auckland entry to A league.

That awkward moment when u endorse instead of quote.

I think at this stage the novelty factor for nix in Auckland is wearing off. The crowds we start to see in Auckland over the next few years are likely to reflect in any potential expansion team there. At the same time, crowds will likely start to drop into 4 figures if we continue to ply there 1/2 times a season. I think, playing at the QBE, we would have dropped to 4 digits last season (2015/16) had it not been for #SaveTheNix.

I still haven't been to an away game its not that i don';t want to but that i usually cant afford it on my highly paid chef wages

Okay. For those who - with the best will in the world - are not prepared to "accept" the travelling circus thing. What are you going to do about it? And what chances of success do you think that plan has?

Look, seriously, transplanted JAFA here so two games up here is great for me, but if you really think you can force a rethink on this then I'd love to hear how.

OT: another lady on my team was wearing a stripey at training. Apparently she was going to a Nix game here with her bf but that relationship sort of collapsed when she found out he'd knocked up a different girl, so she missed the game and her dad bought her the stripey as consolation.

I'm a bit surprised at the number of people who seem to have entirely forgotten just how close we were to not having a club anymore, and who also don't seem to appreciate just how precarious the club's position continues to be.

So for now, Yes the travelling circus is the reality, time will tell how effective or otherwise it will be. Does that mean everyone has to love the idea and spend Christ knows how much trekking from one end of the country to see a home game?

Then again, perhaps I am just not a real fan. 

This is entirely missing the point. The club as of right now, has a future of 4 years. To have anything beyond that, they have to hit off-field  targets, and convince the FFA that the club brings commercial value to the league. In addition to that, the club's main sponsor wants them to have a presence in Auckland for their own commercial reasons.

If the club can't do these things, then success on the field alone will not be enough. \

And finally, no-one here is telling anyone to like this reality - hell, Rob Morrison has told the club members that saving the club may involve things none of us like - but if we want to continue to have a club, then we have to get through this.

As I said it wouldn't be so bad if the timing was right, Wellington is empty from the 23rd of December until the first Monday of Jan, so take a game to a regional city at that time of year. You'll actually get a huge cross section of nz as people travel far and wide to Gisborne, or Nelson, or Napier, or Tauranga, etc.

To increase the Television revenue, people outside of Wellington have to watch Phoenix games on Sky. Not enough of them do at the moment, and the club has to figure out how to make them. Will playing up to 4 games away from Wellington help there? I don't know. But clearly they have to do something to raise their profile outside of Wellington to get those TV numbers up.

Winning alone won't do it if people outside Wellington don't even know/care that the team is playing.

Need a marquee

The metrics are also under wraps aren't they?

One of them might be the Nix have to try x number of home games not in Wellington for all we know, so it could be x games outside of Wellington or not team.  And if its that ill take x games not in Wellington.  Shark if we were guaranteed 20 years but only 1/4 of the games were in Wellington I'd begrudgingly agree to that too.

I love the Nix and want them to continue to exist, if I have to miss games to keep them alive, so be it.  Its better than missing all the games because they dotn exist.

Also is there any more info than that article?  because up to 4 might be 1, and might include preseason of which we already know at least one is in Nelson.  Shark if they did 3 pres season games out of welllington and 1 in AUckland I'd be happy as a clam.

But if winning would do that, and having the games in Wellington means winning how come we haven't won yet?

The actual winning part is out of managements control and management needs to do what they can to keep the club alive with what they control.

A couple of points we have never had a season of all games in Wellington not sure how you can expect to build a decent crowd base when you keep the team away from home for extended periods. Maybe the crowds might turn up if the fames were on a regular basis and they actually won some games. Sick of the way so many are just prepared to accept the BS handed out. Fact is how can they say it won't work when they haven't tried a whole season at home or given us a winning team.

Yea but what about the original years?  Have they always taken us away from home for 2 games?

The first two seasons all home games were played in Wellington. Didn't make the play-offs either of those two seasons.

The most successful season we ever had - season 3, when we were one win away from the Grand Final, we played two games away from Wellington (Palmerston North and Christchurch).

Reversal of that result would have put us on 43, and Sydney on 45 points. We'd have remained 4th, but Sydney would have been second, so the practical outcome would have been that we'd have played that game in Melbourne against Victory rather than in Sydney against the Smurfs.

The problem is that for most of the NZ market the only marquees that will work are the ones with a brand, and who appear in magazines like the Womans Day with regularity. I doubt many had heard of Del Piero even. We'd be relying on the media to build hype and we know the media are fickle. So we're talking about the top 0.5% of players are going to have the right name recognition to make a material difference, like Messi, or Ronaldo, or Rooney, or bringing Becham out of retirement. Even if our owners mortgaged their houses and sold their boats and brought in someone like Zlatan Ibrahimovic (who would probably instantly be the highest paid person in New Zealand) you're not going to suddenly see us selling out stadiums as most of the crugby set would simply say who? We could get Paolo Maldini and people within the YF fan base would even say who?

The players who will make the difference from a marketing point of view are simply way out of our price range. So you look to get someone lower down the ranks, but still in the top 5% of players. You pay them a couple of million, hope that they perform and hope that the media gets on the bandwagon. That's a lot of risk. It simply won't work in the NZ market.

As I said before, the way to grow the club is to get into the consciousness of kids. Do a deal with a breakfast cereal company and get them to include Phoenix trading cards, get them posters to put on their walls, let them grow up with a succesfull team and before you know it you have a fan group that have known nothing else but supporting their team.

Also, the marketing brains of the Nix have yet to come up with an an alternative idea that the FFA would buy; so fixtures tiki tour it is.

Seem to recall Ernie making comments about home/away games but hey why would you listen to your coach. Until the draw is official bit of a non debate at the moment I guess.

I went to a strategic business plan event activation (not a very good one) and a game of football broke out. Who knew football would come to this?

Come back to the Ring of Dirt?  :)

As a traveller to your city to see the Nix, I agree with Doloras.  Should only be at Eden Park.  Its already expensive enough.  At least I can walk to Eden Park

Not necessarily. There are loads of top players even ex-internationals whose time is about up in the top leagues but who can still run and kick a ball and who quite possibly might relish a season down-under (rather than in China) as the new main man. Somebody not only able to play a bit but also a bit of a character say, who could then be marketed accordingly by the Nix.

 Peter Crouch e.g. Or Joey Barton. Or some dude with a Woman's-Day-friendly WAG wife.

Edit: I think Ifill could have been marketed far better than he was. Shoulda had an agent.

You have to admit over the years it couldnt have helped with crowds some of the crazy timing that has taken place.A game to Dunedin when the students are out of town or to Auckland the same weekend as Xmas in the park or my favorite kids day at 7 on a Sunday.All brilliant paces of marketing,yes some of it out of the clubs hands but they cant be completely blameless.

I can take a couple games away but no way will you ever convince me that taking 4 away is a good idea,FFS even the coach dosnt like it.Just dont get how you can ever expect people to become regulars when the team is kept away from their supposed home base for extended periods.

Easiest solution, work on getting an Auckland investor involved and have half the home games there half here. Would be great i would only have to pay for my Wellington membership and shirt.Would be great as we would always have the excuse that its the bloody Jaffas fault we never made the playoffs.