Yeah this just shows up the absolutely unfair farce that is the 'metric' - here's Sydney with a population well over 10x that of Wellington and they can barely scrape above 10k even with what amounts to one of the much vaunted derbies (with CCM area just up the coast.... so they get away fans as well).
No one at the FFA or in Australia cares about per capita stats, and nor should they. Crowds of only 5,000 don't impress them & fair enough.
They have given the Nix a licence allocated to NZ. They would agrue that if your biggest crowds are in Auckland, well just move the team there.
Numbers in Wellington have improved this season, which is great and hopefully they are strong for final few home games. Obviously a home final would be great for the metrics.
Yeah but that just reflects how narrow their thinking appears to be. If simple bums on seat at a game (=ticket $) are their sole benefit aspiration and judgement of value then they're going to be missing out on a lot of insights and opportunities. Whoever has the best per capita crowd performance is going to be producing the best product and getting the most effective 'pull' from their catchment - maybe doing some things that others could learn from so everyone ups their game? Sure a 'winning team helps but thats only part of it (assuming they're not abject losers most times). Those sorts of insights could give club, corporate and/or sponsor interests some more productive leads on targeted investments/growth initiatives etc for 'their' team and the results they want from investing.
Also larger sponsors are going to be more interested in the reach and message from their investment - not necessarily in what the crowd sizes are on game-days. For example - getting access to audience/media in a whole additional country from the presence of one team in the competition has got to be of value surely - even the non-phoenix sponsors in the league will get some benefit/exposure from that.
That said bigger crowds are mostly more fun on game days so the more the better (but thats not the whole picture).
Maybe FFA could switch their thinking and try using metrics as a carrot rather than a stick. How about 'beat this target and you get good stuff' - not extinction if you miss it. That might give some of the easy-riding big-city clubs an incentive to innovate and try stuff. Right now they don't have much reason to anything much more than just open the gates of game day and their large populations do the rest - even if the capture rate is pathetic compared with what other less fortunately located clubs are getting.
Just thoughts - probably should have been in the metric thread - but gee Auckland did alright the other night eh!