Crowds - The thread of Australian whining

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/cricket/63489390/Wellington-satisfied-with-T20-crowd-numbers

Apparently they're satisfied with 2.5k over 5 games

I heard on the radio that at the north vs south cricket game in Hamilton a few weeks back (with free entry) there was a crowd of under 100.

First Class cricket in NZ has been funded by TV revenue (mostly from Blackcaps games) for years. The T20 crowds matter very little. Nothing to see here, move along.

Yup. There is no doubt of that.

How is the Phoenix funded just as a random question? If you say 'TV revenue' then you would be right. So with that in mind, how does cricket get a pass with 23 people at the ground yet the Phoenix get slammed for 'only 7k'? Did I read somewhere that it was 'only 1500 people across 5 games' last weekend?

You tell me how that works, and I'll give up my extremely cushy (read: fuck all) day job and follow your teachings for life mate :o)

Well, the salary cap portion of the Nix expenses is funded by TV revenue, but the club has a lot of other expenses to meet and publicly announces losses year on year. Every year we hear that the failure to break even on match days is a major contributor to those loses. We also lag in absolute numbers (though not relative numbers) compared to most of the Australian teams. Because our presence in the league is seen as tenuous, any excuse to suggest we're on the way out will be taken by the media (and some fans).

The six major cricket associations get their money from NZC, pokies, and other sponsorship. Gates don't matter. In fact the Firebirds would do well to see 1500 people across 10 Plunket Shield games this season. People haven't gone to domestic cricket in significant numbers for a long time and that is why the T20s are organsied directly in the interests of TV viewers this season (though a bit of money is probably saved on travel, which would be welcomed given that while they survive, they are still tight budgets).

Basically, our club's owners go around saying that the crowds aren't good enough and we can't survive like this long term, while if domestic cricket is about to go under, they're being very quiet about it. So low Nix crowds are a story, low cricket crowds are not.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11365579

I completely agree with you.

What shits me is MSM don't see this as an issue. Its all doom and gloom when its the Phoenix only getting 7K yet cricket gets even less and no one says boo.

So how is it that a club that plays a sport that is the greatest, populated sport in the world is in trouble for only getting 7k but a tinpot sport that only 6 countries play doesn't get a mention with only 2 seeing eye dogs and a couple of young kids dropped off by their parents for 3 hours peace and quiet in attendance.

The answer I believe is simply one of not being one of the big 4 sports in NZ (Rugby, League, Netball and Cricket) Those 4 can do no wrong yet because s****r is a poofs game.............

Weird article, don't see the point of it. They make a point of singling out the Wellington market and then go on to talk about cricket in general, and the Phoenix and Breakers in particular.

In a Wellington context the Phoenix are doing okay, in a nation wide context Wellington is under performing. 

The summary is:

Cricket says they don't care about crowds

The Phoenix says that we are over performing on average turn out

The Breakers are doing everything right but crowds  are down

The only solution that the author proposes is to change the seat colour and shape of the ring of fire so that it doesn't look so empty on TV.

Perhaps cricket has it right, and attending live events are a thing of the past and the nix should work to make money from TV alone with tickets sold being a bonus. Maybe its cheaper for the nix to just install better lights and media infrastructure at Newtown park and get rid of the fans altogether. No need for security, parking, catering, and all the costs involved with that.

disagree. Empty stadiums do nothing for the long term growth and interest in the sport. Cricket is probably a good example of that. I actually think it's better for TV ratings if the stadium is full, it gives the perception that the sport is worth watching. 

I think moves to cater to a TV audience and forget about fans are short sighted and stupid. Cricket will regret it. 

Plus football is unique in the fact that the support is often a huge reason why people actually go to a game in the first place; unlike the rugby, for example, where people purely go for the game or to get hammered.

Yeah it's not like we have a pub crawl planned this week or anything.

I thought the sarcasm was clear - sorry. 

 I also disagree with my own point.

Whenever i read about the Nix looking at ways to increase crowds, why am I always seeing 'ways of improving half time entertainment' ??

Nobody gives two tugs of a dogs dick about half time entertainment. Im sick of hearing about all this 'awesome' shit thats going to happen at halftime. Halftime is for emptying your bladder, and endeavoring on a way to fill it back up again. Thats it.

Or how about this - girls with big knockers walking around the ground throwing t-shirts or mini footballs into the crowd. Perfect use of half time.

I quite like the bubble football, but I can see where replacing the bubbles with big knockers would appeal.

One day those kids are going to lose control of that Huyndai logo in a decent Wellington breeze and that will also be entertaining.

just because you don't care about halftime entertainment doesn't mean that others don't. They have done surveys etc before the season, and I'm guessing HT entertainment must have come up as an answer a fair bit if Domey etc are talking about it. More than likely people with kids. 

... and? 8yr olds break dancing and other stuff. Its just rubbish. The best things are those shoot out type comps where theres some kind of prize involved (ie. the cross bar competition). Everything else is lame and they just shouldnt bother. I really dont know why they insist on these 'performance' type things that arent related to football in any way.

It'll happen one day. Either that, or a kid will get caught up in it at the end of halftime, and stored away with it for a fortnight until the next game.

Does "...and?" Roughly translate to 'who cares about them' ? because that's a crap attitude. 

I know some of it has been rubbish, hence why it obviously gets mentioned as a point that needs improving by people and subsequently nix staff. Personally, I quite like the bubble football this season (on the odd occasion that I've seen it) and think it is an improvement on the types of Halftimes that you mention. 

At the end of the day, half time entertainment clearly isn't aimed at you. It's for the benefit of kids and those who don't drink or need to go toilet etc to pass the time. It doesn't take away from your experience at all (as you're off doing something else anyway) but it adds to the overall experience of others. That is a net gain and makes it worth bothering with in my opinion. 

If theyre not aiming it at me then theyre doing a shit job. Ive taken my old flatmates then-8-year old son to a couple of games and even he thought the dancing was "gay", id say theres probably a lot more kids who dont find it entertaining either.

Like i said, everyone used to enjoy the half time competitions, the crowd always got behind it. Cant say i ever heard any cheering for the Nixie Chix !! People just cringe through it, or get up and find something else to do.

so by saying that crowd used to get behind it, you're admitting that it adds to their experience if done well. And that at the moment it needs improvement. Was that not the original point which you then rubbished by saying nobody cares about it? Make your mind up. 

by saying that the crowd used to get behind it, im admitting nothing in my view ever required it to change because it added to their experience as it was done well. Nothing needed improvement. In thinking it needed improvement, they have in fact made it worse. That was the original point which i rubbished by saying nobody cares anymore. Mind made up.

Bring back the comps which required someone do to something spectacular with a football to earn some prizes, then people will want to hang around and watch it. But then you'd probably be upset at the lack of dancing children..

Do a local kids shootout comp. That can be entertaining. Always hte little plucky one that rebounds of the keeper and does a sliding connection to get the goal.

Personally I think it is all a relative issue. The Nix play in a huge stadium built in a wrong shape with a capacity for the rare full-house crowd.  Once that is absorbed by the d**keads in the MSM, they would stop gassing on about "only 8,000 spectators, poor turnout" garbage.

I grew up in football obsessed continental Europe in a city of the size of Wellington or Christchurch. Our stadium held 25,000 max and was probably full to the brim only once in my days, and that's when our home team was in the national Cup finals.  That is in a country with no other sport anywhere near football in popularity, where the national league games were not televised (not the regular league games, only the important ones like finals etc).

So I really don't buy into that argument of "poor crowds" because they should not be seen in absolute terms, but only in relative terms. For the size of the city, we're doing really well with the Nix local supporters.  And we should always buy a beer or two for the visiting opposition fans, for their trouble and for swelling the gate takings. We need these guys too, and if the club was savvy they could offer the visiting fans cheap accommodation package near the grounds, or something similar. This could be subsidised by the accommodation providers.

Pehaps Westpac Stadium trust should remove all the yellow seating and do like they did at McLean Park in Napier. Different mixed coloured seats everywhere gives the impression there's a lot more people there than actually are.

If only cities didn't build stadiums for one All Black test a year.

Reckon Hamilton probably has the best set up of any city in New Zealand.

Yeah probably a good way to do it. Either stagger them in a check effect or something similar to Suncorp with a design waving through them

Napier did it random and it works, it looked a full house. no two seats beside each other were the same. No pattern is best.

Probably just broken seats after egg ball games replaced in different colours

Yeah someone said a while ago that a few thousand seats are broken after every sevens tournament. Obviously next year its going to be less but still replace all the seats after the sevens.

Sell the remaining yellow ones to welnix for our boutique stadium and keep some in storage to replace the ones that break.

lol

Very surprised there was only 7,500 for the Melbourne game. It seemed and looked busier than usual all round.

I wonder if they actually look at the "seats taken" or at "tickets sold".

Pretty sure its people through the turnstyles.

i believe so. That is why PAX (tickets sold/comps) is always different from attendance (people actually at the game). 

There's actually quite a lot of scope there.

The mind boggles at the possibilities.

I thought this table which someone posted on Twitter was very interesting:

It shows that our average attendance, although not great by A-League standards, actually wouldn't look out of place in a lot of leagues. Also, it's only really in the top 10 leagues in the world that average attendance is 15k plus.

But the really interesting thing is the relatively low number of games the A-League plays compared to other leagues. If the main concern of the FFA is TV rights money then that's where the single biggest multiplier is for them. They need a lot more games being played. Which means expansion. Which means they are not seriously going to consider giving the Phoenix the boot over perceived poor crowds, or even poor TV ratings. As long as the Nix are financially stable then they are worth much more to the FFA in terms of the extra games they generate (an extra 3 rounds under the current format) than any other factor.

Sure, the FFA will always want teams to do better in terms of crowds and ratings than they are, but when your league plays less than half the number of games than most of the major leagues in the world their main focus will surely be expand, expand, expand.

We are right behind Brazil, they have with 200 Mio people who loves football soooo much. Imagine sitting in on of those ginormous stadiums with just 15K and no alcohol?

Greece 33rd? Considering they have 2 of tbe bigger clubs in Europe.

I doubt many people have the spare money to attend football in Greece right now, LG.

I find it interesting that the list really wouldn't track with most people's opinions of league quality, or even with each country's wealth. It would be interesting to see a bit more data. Things like GDP, and average TV ratings of not only that nation's league but also of Bundesliga/EPL/La Liga games. Run all that through a regression and we could start putting data behind our opinions of why people don't watch live sport.