Well then they need a more solid fixture list,so its more reliable to people.[/quote]
This is a very good point. Very hard to promote your upcoming season of games if the fixture list is always changing.
[quote=Tegal]The games arent marketed,and the fixture list on the season pass is the most effective way to get it to people. If it werent for this forum i wouldnt know when TW games are for example. There is just zero marketing of the competition,or if there is it isnt very effective.
Two issues there - one is at NZF level in the sense that each Franchise pays their fee and NZF say "we'll take care of marketing as part of that fee" (which I believe they do although I could be wrong).
But the other is at the next level down. For example TW have half a dozen employees including a full time coach, a general manager, an assistant general manager and a media officer.
Yet to the best of my knowledge they have not done a single piece of marketing all season.
I bet other franchises are the same. Spending a lot of time complaining about the prominence (or lack of it) of the competition and the sizes of their crowds but doing sweet f*ck all to connect to the public and encourage them to come along and watch.
You're so right, there's far too much of a 'just put it out there and people will come' attitude in the NZFC. The Phoenix show that up by the fantastic way they've been able to market a product and get crowds along. I guess football is just another form of entertainment and has to be properly marketed in a crowded field of options. We can no longer rely on enough die-hard football supporters turning up to make the NZFC viable.
I note a newpaper columnist refers to the Phoenix as being the current 'top of the pops'. That about sums it up. Who are all these thousands of new fans who are turning up? They're not turning up for the Nix regular season games and certainly not for NZFC games. Why now? They're not real football supporters to me and most of them will disappear as quickly as they have arrived. They follow the hype, they follow what's shiny and deemed the latest excitement. I'd love to be proved wrong and have this as a new dawn for NZ football generating lots of interest in the local game but the veteran in me doesn't see it. There has been wonderful growth in the playing side of the game here, but other than the All Whites and Nix, spectator interest in the lcoal game is at a real low.
Free entrance has been tried, with little success at Manawatu and Waikato. I'm all for students being free but isn't not charging even a mere $10 an admission of failure. They currently only charge $5 at Waikato and are lucky to get 150 at home games.
We're wracking our brains at ACFC trying to come up with ways to get new spectators through the gate but it's hard. We're the most successful NZ club and yet we struggle to get interest. As for television, forget it, unless it's the final. Triangle have been wonderful with their O League game coverage, and all due respect, but few people watch them.
I guess you wouldn't know Syd, you haven't been to Kiwitea Street for a few years.
Ooops, sorry Arsenal, I was blindsided by the badge and thought you were Buffon II.
"Phoenix till they lose"