Fixture List

Phoenix have said in the past, that marketing doesn't actually do much to crowds in Wellington.

Rob said 13 games in Wellington last night.

I like to hear 13 games in Wellington.

I guess the thing for me is that maybe it doesn't affect the week to week crowd, but surely the main aim has to be masses of advertising pre-season to try and get season ticket holders in? *Shrugs* I just don't see enough advertising out there I guess.

I'm pissed about the Auckland game being moved to this year, I had booked annual leave to cover the first 7 games at a day at a time and now this is going to fuck everything up. 7th game equals 100th Phoenix A League game played in NZ.

They said December IIRC

No point advertising season passes 2-3 months before the season. Better to smoked it all just before the season starts.

Shit.... couldn't they make it 12 or 14??

Membership push early-mid September

Better make a massive push, like a being-constipated-for-3-months push.

I have just relistened to the pod cast. At roughly 40.43 to 41.01 it says "5% was from season ticket holders, 5% was from gate sales on the day, 11% was from um revenue from out of town games so if you add up all of the gate sales and all of the season tickets you get less revenue for ALL of the home games in Wellington than you get from what did they take away last year, what, 3 games?(hmmm) so that's a pretty compelling financial case for going away isn't it?" 

"Oh I mean it's pretty much the end of the discussion, isn't it?"

So, I understand why, on the surface of it that makes sense. However, if we are talking about GROSS revenue figures, then my answer is "No, not neccessarily."

If it is the case that the COSTS of the games in Wellington and the out of Wellington games are somewhere near equivalent, then yes, I agree, it is pretty much the end of the discussion. But since the figures are GROSS revenue and not NET revenue we don't now that that is the case.

__IF__ the out of Wellington games have significantly higher costs, which is possible, then it is possible that despite the extra revenue the club is in a better NET position (ie after costs are taken into account) after the Wellington games than after the out of Wellington games, despite the higher GROSS revenue figures.

Higher gross revenue IS a good thing, if the costs are comparable. But if the costs are sufficiently higher as well so that the NET position is worse, then the higher GROSS revenue doesn't matter.

That's why I asked about the NET figures...

Does anyone know about how PROFITABLE the out of town games are/were? Surely that is what is important? 

Note, that if the costs structures are similar then I am ALL FOR the away games. (I actually like the trips away to Auckland, Napier, Dunedin). I just don't think analysis of GROSS revenue is a robust way of analysing this.

you also have to weigh it up against other options. That proposed WSW preseason game could have been played elsewhere, would that have made comparable revenues? Meaning you don't have to take a regular season game away? 

Plus weigh the short term costs/benefits up with any long term costs/benefits. Both tangible and intangible. 

I'm still not convinced taking 3 games away is a good idea. 

But I'm not allowed to complain this year as there is only 1 game away. So there goes my fun. 

I think there's a deeper issue here, which is the long term viability of the club. I honestly don't think that playing games out of Wellington is good for building a fan base, nor is it good for the team's performance as several parts of the advantage of playing at home are lost (familiarity with the stadium and conditions, sleeping in your own bed the night before, not having to travel). I worry that continued home away from home games will undermine the connection of the club to the Wellington public and the novelty of them in other towns will wear off too and the club will be worse off than before. I know there's a lot of excuses chucked around about why crowds have slipped - poor performance, bad scheduling, lack of marketing, poor stadium experience etc, but I also wonder if it's partly because people get out of the habit of going to games when there's months between them in Wellington.

I'd be happy with one away/home game a year, plus the regional round if that's still a thing. And I know they say that marketing doesn't make much difference in Wellington but maybe it's the wrong sort of marketing. I've said it before but as far as I am aware the club has never done any market research on who goes to games and why and who doesn't go to games and why. Maybe they just need to do that to put some certainty behind their reasoning.

Looking at the clubs in the A League and MLS (which is kind of similar) the ones which seem the most financially secure and to have the strongest "brand" are those which have connected with local communities. Playing games in Auckland and Christchurch and Dunedin and Stewart Island doesn't connect the club to the Wellington community.

The Stadium Experience is improving. Undeniably. I expect people will keep bleating about it for some time, but I think the changes they have made to the catering are really really significant.

Hopefully the next step is turning the f*cking music off. Or at least down.

If only Conan, if only.

It depends what fans we have lost. Our do season ticket numbers for last season compare with out first season? If season ticket numbers have dropped significantly then you could say that taking games out of Wellington has eroded our core support. However, if season ticket numbers are still about the same then the implication would be that we have lost the casual fan. The casual fan may only turn up to two or three games a season so I don't see why not playing in Wellington should affect their numbers.

Not at all convinced that more people will turn up if we played 13 games at home than 11. 

Fans in NZ are fickle. Season passes aren't particularly popular across all sports so they pick and choose when to turn up.

My understanding is that games out of town are generally subsidised by local councils in that city; e.g. Napier was paid for by their council. They needed to sell 10,000 tickets to break even.

Same deal with Christchurch, their cpuncil underwrote the cost of the stadium hire for the game, so the increased income actually ended up with increased net as opposed to a Wellington game.

If that doesn't scream CASE CLOSED to you, then nothing will.

Sorry Guys, gate sales were not listed as Wellington gate sales, from memory. So away games are revenue streams. 

Double post sorry

http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/categories/wellington...

Yep, precisely.

That's my point, exactly. It weakens the argument by making it with GROSS figures, because it begs the question "Okay, but what were the costs?". 

So if the NET figures make the argument convincingly, use the NET figures..., and THEN it is case closed.

Pretty sure the club doesn't want to share information as detailed as that because it is commercially sensitive. Plus, a pie chart (which is how they showed those figures to us) wouldn't work in this case because there are both positive and negative figures.

For me it's not so much the number of games in wellington but the regularity of those games (two months between home games at the start of the season is stupid) and the feeling that the club is for the football fans of Wellington, rather than a financially neutral travelling roadshow. I personally think that a couple of home games in other cities in January is a good idea because Wellington empties out around then anyway, but I do think that there's a feeling that the club pours a lot more effort into making a big deal out of the travelling games relative to how many of them there are, compared to games in Wellington. Like I said, they say marketing games in Wellington doesn't work but maybe it's more about marketing the club as a whole as a distinctly Wellingtonian entity.

I dunno, I get the argumetns each way but I just feel that taking games on the road is a short-term, near-sighted fix to a problem that probably needs to be addressed looking long-term.

The Phoenix will play three home A-League games at the Hutt Rec in February / March while Westpac Stadium is used for cricket World Cup

— Jason Pine (@pineyzb) September 9, 2014

Couldn't we get Petone Rec then?

Hutt Rec >>>>>> Petone Rec

Watch the Nimby's come to protest? Hutt Rec is better and the Bell Vue is across the road. BUT who gets the limited seats in the stands? The regular ST holders or people buying tickets? Still prefer Hutt Rec than anywhere else.

think there will be temporary stands around the pitch. Should be fun. 

I'm surprised to see the Hutt Rec used. I thought they would have found some other grounds around the country to play the games at. I guess the stadium rents will be cheap at least and playing more games there helps to cover the cost of getting the stadium up to standard. If the crowds are poor then we will know that the Petone Rec stadium was never going to happen.

I hope we create 3 game memberships for just these Hutt games. You might attract a different crowd and some people from the Hutt may be more inclined to go to Westpac.

Football at the Hutt Rec. It can't get any better.

Pub just across the road. Walking anywhere won't be safe.

Aftermatch in the HOBM clubrooms?

Good luck to those who get a train to Woburn or bus to Queensgate and walk to the ground.

Heard something along the lines of a stadium being available one of the weekends, but if you're going to set it up in Hutt rec you may as well keep it set up and use it for both weeks. 

Palmy also probably would've been available, but Fark that. 

Wow that's pretty cool I think. I went to Club rugby final last year with temp stands up and it had quite a cool atmosphere. Temp stands are a better option than the old one which is actually pretty crap. Parking will be a nightmare though.

hopefully the club and council can arrange some buses between them? 

Woburn is only about 5-10 min walk, not even a mile. Buses from Waterloo are pretty common. I'd go so much to say that it is an ideal site except for cars unless you know the area....nudge nudge, wink wink.

Should be good fun....Pub across the road and Parrot and jigger in walking distance

Yup. They need at least two games at Hutt Rec to make it work financial as they could leave the temp stands up. The third game there probably means one of the games before Christmas will be moved to Eden Park.

Won't someone think of the children?