Crowds - The thread of Australian whining

$20 for return train travel would buy me a weeks espresso's...season pass not withstanding 

Seagulls, not pigeons? 

The most obvious one would be that if you turned up on the 15th, there would be no game to watch. :)

Here's a graph showing the relationship between the results during a season and the attendances of that season. The blue line is the average attendance for that season. The green bar is the number of position from the bottom of the table that the Phoenix placed (e.g. last season is 1 as we came bottom, whereas 09/10 is 7). The yellow bar is the same as the green bar, but it uses the average attendance table for that season, rather than the results table, in order to provide some context to our average attendance for that season.

I just calculated the correlation coefficient for the relationship between position in the league (using my reversed data as above) against the average attendance in the league, and it came out as -0.105238934. This indicated that there is a weak, negative relationship between the two data sets.

First of all, as the coefficient is very close to 0, there is a weak relationship between the two datasets (a value of 1 or -1 would be a very very strong relationship, whereas 0 would be no relationship at all).

Secondly, there is a negative relationship between the two. This is bizarre, as we would expect there to be a positive relationship (which would mean as we get further away from the bottom of the table, we would see the attendances get higher too). However, the correlation is actually negative, which means that as we get further away from the bottom of the table, attendances go down. However, we shouldn't read too much into this negative relationship, since the relationship is very weak. (In fact, the cause of this is season one, where we came last but had our best ever attendances).

Note: I removed all playoff attendances for both the graph and the correlation.

Instead of league position, which presents difficulties as a data series because it works in reverse and is also restricted to just ten possible outcomes, why not try plotting attendances against a) number of wins b) number of points and c) number of goals scored.

Positive correlation. But not a very strong one, just looking at it. I'm taking season 1 as an outlier. 

I did the regression analysis again for all of the new graphs, as well talking into account outliers. I first calculated it using the data from all seasons, and then removed 2007/08 (due to the new novelty factor of football in Wellington), and 2013/14 (due to the fact that we've only played 8 games, and two of the home games were away from Wellington).

Remember that the closer to 1 or -1 the value is, the stronger the relationship between the two variables (average attendance and the one listen in the column title) is. From here on, I'm only using the data with 07/08 and 13/14 removed, as the values with them included are essentially useless (especially since the 0% win ratio this season throws everything off)

Here, you can see that wins per game is actually the weakest relationship to the attendance, which is surprising given the "We will only support a winning team" mentality that is supposedly apparent in NZ. The performance of the team relative to other sides in the competition (i.e. the position on the table) is the strongest relationship, which implies that the further up the table we get the more likely people are to show up to games, and it doesn't matter if we get our points from winning games or drawing them very much.

Another interesting thing to note is that goals per game has a stronger relationship than wins per game. This suggests that people would prefer to watch games with scores like 3-2 rather than 1-0. It also sheds some light on the "winning ugly vs losing pretty" debate, and the data suggests that the crowds are likely to be larger if we are scoring more goals and losing than scoring few goals and winning, as the relationship between goals and crowd size is larger than between wins and crowd size. 

That was of particular interest to me, because I would much prefer to win ugly than lose but still score a few goals. I guess that because the core support (i.e. most people on this website) will turn up no matter what, the size of it doesn't vary too much, but the general public who may or may not turn up on any given day are more likely to come if we are scoring lots of goals rather than winning games.

It'd be interesting to do something like season members following those seasons. I suspect those who turn up no matter what, will mean a weak relationship there.

This would show that while scoring a lot of goals and finishing higher up the table is a good temporary way to boost crowds, the best way to increase attendances in the long run is to try to build the core fan base who will turn up no matter what. A way to do this would be to do away with another short term solution of home away games, making season tickets cheaper (though elasticity would also have to be taken into account), focusing more marketing efforts into Wellington rather than pushing so hard for games outside of Wellington, and other similar such ideas. 

Of course the figures could show that it is strongly related to winning/league position/goals scored, although based on this season, you'd think playing home away games doesn't help achieve this goal so to boost members and attendance next season, you should play as many games as you can in wellington this season - maybe to give weighting to this theory you could also compare results in Wellington vs results in other parts of nz. 

Good work Patrick!

I'm assuming that goals per game is all goals in a game not just those scored by the Nix?

Nah, it just the goals per game scored by the Phoenix. It's the Goals For column in the table for that season divided by the number of games.

It would be quite interesting to see if adding in Goals Against makes the correlation stronger or weaker... hmm.

EDIT: It makes it weaker, much much weaker (-0.1749). 

However, if I use goal difference, it has a very very strong correlation (0.9541). When compared to the relationship between winning games and the attendance, this strong relationship suggests that if we thump teams in a few games (a la 6-0 vs GCU), the crowds will come, even if we have lost quite a few games by a small margin (i.e. 1-0, 2-1)

There are a number of other factors which probably affect these things as well,with the weather being a big one.Think position on the table might have a bigger affect than goals scored for some of the casuals.Would also think its hard to draw the conclusion that goals scored is a factor as wouldnt  we be more likely to get people to a game after we have won/scored goals than they would turn up hoping that would happen after some rubbish results.

beware..statisticians only in this thread...goes back to reading Dickens "Great Expectations"..

I prefer Grate Expectations by Edmund Wells (also wrote David Coperfield).

But Patrick, it's something you get to do. 

You missed music getting played even when the ball isn't out of play. 

That article from Armstrong on the News page was good. I particularly enjoyed him putting the boot in on the food on offer at the Stadium.

Apart from the new Lounge that's being built, http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9488251/Stadium-lounge-set-to-lure-sport-fans I thought Shane was going to get the food on offer opened to other companies?

Mind you, knowing Spotless, I bet contractually they've got the stadium sown up as being the sole suppliers of food and drink.

The food one gets in one of the lounges that house things like birthday parties or other functions is in no way related to what people under the stands get served up. For example, one's chances of ending up in hospital are almost nil for starters.

This seasons chips are more colder than normal. The burgers look just as dangerous as in previous seasons, the hot dogs are the same crap. The soft drinks come in a smaller bottle and cost a bit more.

There is good news though. For $7.50 one can invest in a South African sausage on a role that is quite yummy to eat even if a little pricey. They come in either mild or spicey versions.

My recommendation? Get the beers in(or soft drinks) elsewhere such as the Back Bencher and buy the South African Sausage. The sooner the stadia open themselves and their minds up to the idea of allowing a food court scenario with Maccas, BK, Subway, Wendys etc, the better off they will be in the long term. Would love to see a Carls jnr here.

Not sure about maccers etc. They'd want a consistent 'quality' that is pretty hard to produce when you're only getting temporary staff in for a Phoenix game in Wellington every 8 months. That is part of the problem that spotless has, and why their staff are generally morons. 

I just don't get the food debate. If you want a decent nosh up whilst watching sport, go to a restaurant or bar. If you want to watch live sport, come to the stadium.

There is a few of us out of towners or up the coast who work funny hours that make getting to the stadium a logistical nightmare. I Get up, catch the train in and if I'm lucky I may manage 20 mins at the BB and grab one of their lovely fart-smelling burgers.

If I'm running late it's off the train and straight to the stadium so that will be like 8 hours since I've last eaten 10 then if I have to watch the match. My missus usually comes straight from work on Friday games so she won't have eaten since lunch if she's managed to take a lunch break.

Yes it's fine for the languid hipster types to shuffle up to Cuba before the match and have some toasted Korean Aardvark served on a bed of Egyptian roasted street conkers - that's greaaat. After all they can save some of the food for later, storing it in their silly wispy beards.

A lot of us have a busy lives and it's really not too much to ask that if we are paying a kings ransom then at least we get something half decent to eat. You've completely forgotten about kids also who usually have to be fed something to stop them getting bored and moany.

Don't get me started on the beer...

Also having decent food is better than crap food. 

It's like whenever someone complains about how poorly the Phoenix are playing on here, then responding with "then don't watch them, just go watch a movie instead"

If something is of poor quality, then there is nothing wrong with saying it is poor quality and wishing it was of an adequate quality. 

Be interesting to see David Dome has nailed to music playing firmly into a coffin.

I'm with some of the others regarding food, the range is pretty irrelevant to me. Hot dog on a stick, chips, pie and drink are all i need. Its not like we eat that stuff everyday. Like at the movies i get an ice cream, box of popcorn, no moaning because i cant get a gourmet burger there. My only bitch is the cost, the stuff is too dear, if a takeaway bar can do it cheaper, so should the caterers. If it means they pay less rent and employ less staff, so be it. I suspect the costs are largely driven by what it costs to pay the stadium to be there. With booze prices, cranking up the price also tends to control the amount consumed without losing too much profitability.

Food is irrelavant but for me, as said above the games are usually around my 3 years olds dinner time - he wants to come to the nix and I want him to be happy and enjoy the game not moaning baout being hungry - now I always take snacks into the game with me - ie a sandwhich or fruit etc, but he knows there is fish and chips etc and naturally is going to ask for it - I'd rather it was of good quality and the cost actually represented the quality not the fact that I can't go anywhere esle to get better at the time. Is it that difficult to make decent food in what I can only assume is a massive kitchen?

First home game for me this season, bringing five others, hope for
1. No music
2. Atmosphere in the FZ
3. Good football
4. A Home win, never bet against a home win eh

what was the crowd pax tonight?

I spoke to Gareth Morgan during the Team Wellington game. When I said that I hope he'd shot the prick playing the music during the game he jokingly replied that he'd probably been signed to a 15 year contract. I could tell he wasn't impressed with the distracting music either. Good to see him watching team Wellington play. Was a good game with about 100 people watching, if that. 3-2 to Team Wellington.