Crowds - The thread of Australian whining

I hope not too many turned up tonight.

10,000. More than I expected to be fair.

I'm sure those who didn't go will be gutted...

Is it just me or did it not look like 10k at all tonight?! Was surprised to hear that number, expected 7/8k tbh.

I thought that initially. But the sections that were full were very packed, so decided it was about right in the end. 

Yep, The zone was not as packed as last week but ailse 24/25 did look fairly full but then ailses 10 to 20 looked mostly empty. Serve the greedy FFA right. The game should have been on at 5pm or earlier. And I suppose Domey will subtley threaten us yet again about not attending games.

10k on a Sunday at 7pm is bloody impressive. Imagine if it were at a decent day/time. 

Can you just change the record for once.

Beat them by a large margin.  Fully expect that to be ignored in the FFA scripted angst from strayan 'journalists'

Still 20k less than what David Dome was expecting. 

Dome never seems to be grounded in any sort of reality, so not a surprise.

I think you will find Domey was firmly tongue-in-cheek with that 30k statement.

#scapegoat

Given the circumstances it was a good turn-out. Sadly, it's being generally perceived as the exact opposite.

Ok.

I'm glad I went and the $41.25 ticket fee was well worth it.

Didnt beat them, they had 20000. The actual croud matters. The percentage doesnt.

I wonder what the attendances at both games would have been if we had the Friday night and Adelaide had Sunday night? Obviously wouldn't happen because of broadcast times in Aus but just as a hypothetical...

Only because that suits the agenda of the FFA and their media lackeys.  You can not reasonably expect the smae crouds in a market under 1/3r the size of another.  Even the FFA marketing arm are not that stupid..

Do you actually enjoy coming out with this stuff?

I'm all for people posting gloomy, sh*tty, angsty stuff now and again, but you do it week in week out, year after year after year.

You actually don't need to post mate, we all know what you are thinking. Every time we put in a less than perfect performance we know what you are thinking and what you are going to post.

Save yourself the effort and us the grief and don't bother.

That was going to happen no matter what Domey said.  What was he ment to say?  Anything that was more than we got he gets called naive, anything less and he's talking it down.  He was asked what he wanted and he said 30k. 

It's not his fault the media are too lazy to actually look at the facts and the reasons for a small turnout.  Again, doing research wouldn't allow them to stay on message.

Have you heard them mention the time, mention the pricing, mention the public transport mess, mention the pitiful promotion from the FFA?

The story should be about why the FFA made every effort to leave the Phoenix and the croud looking poor but it won't be because facts don't suit the agenda.

Numbers not helped by tranzmetro pulling the trains as per usual.

Good point.  Added to my rant.

More tin three-piece suit than tin hat.

Didnt we have a near sell out at a play off game, once upon a time ?

I wouldnt expect the same croud necessarily as Adelaide, but to drag the percentage argument out to try and feel better about only 10000 attending the biggest game of the season?

The biggest factor I believe was the poor form of the team in the month beforehand.

Yes. And that game was 3pm on a Sunday afternoon. It also happened to be just before the 2010 World Cup so there was tonnes of buzz around. First time in finals too.

That was our first ever finals appearance, around the same time as we qualified for the world cup. Football mania. 

Agree that is a significant factor - it's hard to sell the unsellable but there were other factors.

While I didn't raise the Adelaide number, my point is more that the Aus media use the numbers here to beat the Phoenix with, I have not seen one comment on what was an even more disappointing croud there with a larger population and a far more favourable schedule.

The narrative is (lack of) Nix crouds... no suitey narrative = no raisey point.

I was driving through town during the Mayweather fight, anywhere that was showing the boxing had queues out the door, and arround the windows. At Four Kings the crouds had spilled on the road. Even Kebabs on Queen had a huge croud around their windows, etc.

Pay perview was $49, people at work actually purchased it.

Why the heck does a couple of blokes trying to smash the brain cells out of each other on the other side of the planet, get so much more attention than a local team in a home semi final?

It's hype as simple as that. Most people don't watch boxing except for the big events, the big purses, etc.

Can you hand on heart say that was a good croud for the biggest game of the season?

The game the week before was just as big, and at a better time - it got 3000 more. 

* Canes played the night before, were $10 cheaper, and much better advertised (FFA fail)

* People would've chosen to attend the canes the night before (for $10 cheaper) and watch the ANZAC test for free on sunday night

* Sunday 7pm timeslot problematic with transport. Especially with trains being out on the kapiti line. If the game went to ET and penalties it would have been bloody difficult for a lot of people to get home. 

* Our previous form leading up to the game hardly helped. 

I think if a lot of things didn't conspire against us we would have been looking at 15k, possibly more. All things considered I honestly think that was an 'about right' croud. 

CCM got 9k last year for their home finals game at the same stage. Nobody was talking about them being doomed. Our Preliminary final (semifinal....game to qualify for the grand final) in Sydney a few years back only drew 13,000 - nobody ever questioned that. 

I understand why that was the croud, but I don't think you can say it was a good croud.

And I completely agree with you if they scheduled games in our fudgeing time zone we would have much bigger crouds

but you can't completely ignore context when deciding whether a croud was good or not. Unless you're an Australian journalist with an agenda of course. 

Your first 2 points are that people wanted to watch a different sporting code.  That's not a tick in the box for the popularity of the Phoenix is it?

4th point is that people didn't think we were going to win so they didn't go.  That's not really something you can hold on to when claiming popularity either?

Trains may be a factor, I'm not really au fait for how big a deal that is for people to be honest.

Sunday 7 pm is $hit in general I agree, but if people wanted to go wouldn't they still go to the biggest game of the year?

no I think they chose the one that was $10 cheaper and on a better night of the week, coupled with being able to watch the league for free on TV on Sunday.

I actually think sport teams and the stadium would be better off if they worked together more. It's about getting people used to going to the stadium week in week out again - no matter what the code. I don't think a lot of these fans necessarily choose one code over another. I think the canes, nix etc are one form of entertainment - live sport. The above points are just a small example of what puts people off in favour of spending their entertainment $ on other things. 

All parties that are involved in the match day experience of all codes at the stadium need to work together better. That includes the council and public transport companies. It's in all of their interests to get more people to the stadium for events, but a lot of them don't seem to care whether people attend or not. And the likes of the FFA even seem to be doing all they can to actively discourage fans from attending. 

Good post.

Although I think that you can add Hurricanes top of the NZ whateveritis as a croud puller, so this plus your above as an entertainment package is better than a night out at the Nix.

No.  Was it what I expected, based on the circumstances?  Yes.  In fact I tipped 8.5

good point. In a crucial game against their local (NZ) rivals - the Crusaders. 

Rugby also has that factor where people go out of habit because it was the only thing on back in the day. Although that isn't so large anymore, and is diminishing every year. 

It is that which the nix/canes/external parties etc need to work together on getting back. 

I blame the WCC for only having a population of 400k and not making Wellington more attractive for another million people to live here.

If we had another 1 mill pop we could afford a light rail system.

Think about this Celia...

Actually we'd also likely have a solid membership base to build a rectangular stadium as well.  Where's the down side?