WPM R12 vs Adelaide United | Sun 11th Jan | 3:00pm | RoF / SS2

Procrastinixing

So many chants I don't hear anymore, in no particular order:  
* Yellow Army
* We're the Phoenix the mighty Phoenix, we're not the Kingz or Knights...
* Disco
* Home and away

Maybe there should be a chant shuffle list or chant practice night?  Since our crowds are small, we need to make noise of 10k.

Not a fan of that version of We're the Phoenix was okay when we first started. Disco seemed to die because it kept being used at the wrong moment.
We dont seem to have the chant savants around that were there before as in creating uncomplicated relatively easy to remember chants. 

Can we get the Durante chant back I loved that one. Maybe replace Durante with Luke Brook Smith??? We need an LBS song anyway, he's class. 

The missus loves the 'x, you're our goalkeeper' one. 

immortalbird

Can we get the Durante chant back I loved that one. Maybe replace Durante with Luke Brook Smith??? We need an LBS song anyway, he's class. 

The missus loves the 'x, you're our goalkeeper' one. 

Omg! I think I must have posted this exact comment. 
Those, and Krishna’s on fire, are my wife’s 3 favourite chants! 

Still being overseas now weren’t not getting to many games and updating them…
But yeh something poppy and dancy with a nice build to it. That’s the way to go.

Crowd 3068

Dang, I thought we had a crowd like that size at the women's game. That stand was packed.

The nix have not being playing bad enough to deserve such small crowds. 3k people absurd, they are scoring heaps of goals, it's mostly entertaining. Is the economic state of Welly that bad ATM?

short answer yep!

theprof

short answer yep!

People were concerned about the impact of 20/20 cricket at the Basin on Sunday afternoon.

OK, the weather would have been a huge factor, but on TV it looked like no-one went to watch that, LOL.

yeah crowds at the cricket have been low for years, 

The Beer fest at the Basin was cancelled because not enough tickets sold. The last Toast Marinborough wine festival had thousands of unsold tickets.
These are the times we live in. People are struggling. The Nix crowds a symptom of the times

Ok, so let’s look at this logically.

Feel free to pull me up on anything that is incorrect.

A few years ago, the base core support was considered somewhere between 5 and 6k. It was stated by Dome that they needed 10k to break even with the stadium. Crowds were generally below this target.

Now the base core support has roughly halved now to 3k. 

Definitely, the Wellington economy has been hit by the National government and you guys know it better then me, but has it tanked by 50 per cent? I don’t think any economist would say that. 10 per cent?

The team this year has been playing fairly attractive football. This is largely due to a simple philosophy of a high line, which results in more goals scored and unfortunately as a result quite a few shipped. Results are so so. No streak, no bandwagon possible but not depressing results and not a bad watch even solely based upon the number of times the ball goes into either net.

The owners have made a fairly substantial play by splashing out on a quality defender in the Jan window and likely a decent number 10. That should help the results.

What else can they do?

State of the decline in Wellington in recent years.....

all of this results to residents being more careful with where they spend whatever small amount of money they have - things like evernts, concerts and sports are the first to go.
It's always been known that the season pass holders were in the 2500-3000 mark, then you have the other 3k fans that bought on the day, when things were good you gained the other 3-4k that brought it up to the 10-12k mark.
Essentially the economy and last season have left us with the hardcore season pass fans who will attend regardless of the state of play.

10k is break even mark for gameday, that's never changed. I think the company has put other things in play to generate income to support the inevitable losses from gameday.

In short, it's very hard for a club/event to attract punters when spare cash is just non-existant

https://wellingtonphoenix.com/news/members-appreciation-round/
Great photos of member appreciation round.

theprof

State of the decline in Wellington in recent years.....

• GDP: Wellington City's GDP fell by 1.5% for the year to the June 2025 quarter, a steeper decline than the national average fall of 0.8%. The decline for the year to September 2025 was provisionally 1.2%, also worse than the national average.
• Job Losses: Approximately 9,500 public sector jobs have been lost nationwide due to government savings drives since late 2023, which heavily impacts Wellington, a city where many residents work in the public sector. Data to June 2025 showed a loss of 5,961 jobs in the capital. One report indicated a loss of 19,430 jobs in Wellington City over one year, equal to 11.6% of jobs in that area.
• Unemployment: The number of people on the Jobseeker benefit in Wellington was up 16% annually, compared with 11.7% nationally.
• Business Closures & Retail Spending: The equivalent of 177 businesses closed down in a year. The business count in the capital dropped by 2.3%, a greater fall than the national average. Retail spending saw a significant decline of 4.8%, the largest in percentage terms across New Zealand.
• Property Market: Wellington's house prices have dropped more than any other city in New Zealand, declining over 25% to 30% from their peak in early 2022. Rents have also decreased. 

all of this results to residents being more careful with where they spend whatever small amount of money they have - things like evernts, concerts and sports are the first to go.
It's always been known that the season pass holders were in the 2500-3000 mark, then you have the other 3k fans that bought on the day, when things were good you gained the other 3-4k that brought it up to the 10-12k mark.
Eseentially the economy and last season have left us with the hardcore season pass fans who will attend regardless of the state of play.

10k is break even mark for gameday, that's never changed. I think the company has out other things in play to generate income to support the inevitable losses from gameday.

In short, it's very hard for a club/event to attract punters when spare cash is just non-existant

Add to that, that a lot of people have left Wellington (and indeed NZ) as a consequence of said job turmoil or losses. I don’t actually think the rest of the country understands how hard these pricks have smashed Wellington. 

I think there’s a slight fallacy here: attending football matches is very much discretionary spending, so that’s the impact you have to look at.

Totally pulling numbers out of the air, say that averaged across the population 80% of income goes on necessities and 20% on fun. Overall income only needs to drop by 10% and you’ve halved discretionary spending power in the region.

Obviously that’s a very crude analysis because what we care about is how potential ticket-buyers are doing, not all the people who’d have no interest in football no matter how much money they had to spare, but you get the point.

WanderingSheep

theprof

State of the decline in Wellington in recent years.....

• GDP: Wellington City's GDP fell by 1.5% for the year to the June 2025 quarter, a steeper decline than the national average fall of 0.8%. The decline for the year to September 2025 was provisionally 1.2%, also worse than the national average.
• Job Losses: Approximately 9,500 public sector jobs have been lost nationwide due to government savings drives since late 2023, which heavily impacts Wellington, a city where many residents work in the public sector. Data to June 2025 showed a loss of 5,961 jobs in the capital. One report indicated a loss of 19,430 jobs in Wellington City over one year, equal to 11.6% of jobs in that area.
• Unemployment: The number of people on the Jobseeker benefit in Wellington was up 16% annually, compared with 11.7% nationally.
• Business Closures & Retail Spending: The equivalent of 177 businesses closed down in a year. The business count in the capital dropped by 2.3%, a greater fall than the national average. Retail spending saw a significant decline of 4.8%, the largest in percentage terms across New Zealand.
• Property Market: Wellington's house prices have dropped more than any other city in New Zealand, declining over 25% to 30% from their peak in early 2022. Rents have also decreased. 

all of this results to residents being more careful with where they spend whatever small amount of money they have - things like evernts, concerts and sports are the first to go.
It's always been known that the season pass holders were in the 2500-3000 mark, then you have the other 3k fans that bought on the day, when things were good you gained the other 3-4k that brought it up to the 10-12k mark.
Eseentially the economy and last season have left us with the hardcore season pass fans who will attend regardless of the state of play.

10k is break even mark for gameday, that's never changed. I think the company has out other things in play to generate income to support the inevitable losses from gameday.

In short, it's very hard for a club/event to attract punters when spare cash is just non-existant

Add to that, that a lot of people have left Wellington (and indeed NZ) as a consequence of said job turmoil or losses. I don’t actually think the rest of the country understands how hard these pricks have smashed Wellington. 

Living in Auckland and having visited Wellington a couple times in the last few months, the difference in how busy bars/restaurants are is noticeable.

To add to this, this article by the spinoff last month showed there was a net 2.2k international migration. This means at least that number moved over, likely a bit more.

Screenshot 2026-01-14 at 9.27.30 AM.png 192 KB

On a brighter note, everyone coming out for Samba shows that there are new fans to be found.

WanderingSheep

theprof

State of the decline in Wellington in recent years.....

• GDP: Wellington City's GDP fell by 1.5% for the year to the June 2025 quarter, a steeper decline than the national average fall of 0.8%. The decline for the year to September 2025 was provisionally 1.2%, also worse than the national average.
• Job Losses: Approximately 9,500 public sector jobs have been lost nationwide due to government savings drives since late 2023, which heavily impacts Wellington, a city where many residents work in the public sector. Data to June 2025 showed a loss of 5,961 jobs in the capital. One report indicated a loss of 19,430 jobs in Wellington City over one year, equal to 11.6% of jobs in that area.
• Unemployment: The number of people on the Jobseeker benefit in Wellington was up 16% annually, compared with 11.7% nationally.
• Business Closures & Retail Spending: The equivalent of 177 businesses closed down in a year. The business count in the capital dropped by 2.3%, a greater fall than the national average. Retail spending saw a significant decline of 4.8%, the largest in percentage terms across New Zealand.
• Property Market: Wellington's house prices have dropped more than any other city in New Zealand, declining over 25% to 30% from their peak in early 2022. Rents have also decreased. 

all of this results to residents being more careful with where they spend whatever small amount of money they have - things like evernts, concerts and sports are the first to go.
It's always been known that the season pass holders were in the 2500-3000 mark, then you have the other 3k fans that bought on the day, when things were good you gained the other 3-4k that brought it up to the 10-12k mark.
Eseentially the economy and last season have left us with the hardcore season pass fans who will attend regardless of the state of play.

10k is break even mark for gameday, that's never changed. I think the company has out other things in play to generate income to support the inevitable losses from gameday.

In short, it's very hard for a club/event to attract punters when spare cash is just non-existant

Add to that, that a lot of people have left Wellington (and indeed NZ) as a consequence of said job turmoil or losses. I don’t actually think the rest of the country understands how hard these pricks have smashed Wellington. 

That's literally me. Otherwise I'd be in the fever zone every week like I was for the previous decade. The effect has been insane

I love you guys and this forum.. only us can turn a regular A League game on a cold Sunday afternoon between two average teams into a full on discussion about the Wellington economy 😁keep it! I love it 

It feels to me like we might be turning a corner though. The job market seems to be getting better and a lot of investment is being made in city infrastructure. 

5 wins in succession and the corner will have turned.

Jessie Merino

5 wins in succession and the corner will have turned.

God I hope no Nix fan is waiting on five wins in a row before getting a haircut...

Also the brain drain to Australia and London (to a lesser extent) is real in Wellington.

dunnix

Jessie Merino

5 wins in succession and the corner will have turned.

God I hope no Nix fan is waiting on five wins in a row before getting a haircut...

IMG_8904.jpeg 619.54 KB

Friar Tuck

dunnix

Jessie Merino

5 wins in succession and the corner will have turned.

God I hope no Nix fan is waiting on five wins in a row before getting a haircut...

IMG_8904.jpeg 619.54 KB

How he'll end up in 2 years:

nx06sq2c1x581.jpg 43.93 KB

I'd say our previous persistent lows were around 4-4.5k

Craig Goodwin on Adelaide radio:
"Honestly it was the most difficult conditions I've been involved with. It was insane. The winds, the gusts were up to one hundred kilometers. And the ball... In that stadium, anyone that knows that stadium and all the Wellington people will know, and the players, it swirls in that stadium. It goes around in a circle. So there's times where the ball is coming at you, it's moving left to right, continuously it drops suddenly if the gusts comes up and blows it further. Honestly, the most difficult situation or environmental situation I've ever ever played in. It was disappointing to not get the win, but we have to keep going.

And the next day there was hardly any wind.