What needs to be done to grow the support and attendance

[malloy]

17 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

I agree that FFA have thrown up roadblocks by tightening up the loan player rules. But there have been no additional roadblocks to City bringing in a big-name marquee - in fact the full-season guest marquee opportunity is an additional way we could have had a really big-name player. CFG have just not done it, except right at the start with David Villa. Regrettably that ended all to soon. 

As I understand Marwood's comments, we won't see another big-name for at least two further seasons, as CFG focuses on its "return on investment" in Melbourne City.

I agree that an independent league may induce CFG to change its mind again. How far away independence is is a matter for conjecture.

I see these comments and these actions (purely my interpretation) as being thinly veiled threats to the FFA that CFG aren't going to invest until the rules are changed. I see this as a all part of a play to have the league independently run.

 

44 minutes ago, belaguttman said:

...especially if the salary cap gets raised or removed

This is, imo, a natural consequence of an independently run league. Not necessarily straight away, but at a significantly accelerated rate of implementation that currently.

[playmaker]

Do they let the members know the results of the emailed surveys? Because it would be interesting to see whether the club actually does anything pro-active in reaction the the member's feedback.

Also, as far as I am concerned most of the social/community and targeted day events do absolutely nothing to our membership growth and nor does anyone care about them, except for the touchy feely marketers at bundoora, which tbh should all be sacked.

[jw1739]

12 minutes ago, playmaker said:

Do they let the members know the results of the emailed surveys? Because it would be interesting to see whether the club actually does anything pro-active in reaction the the member's feedback.

Also, as far as I am concerned most of the social/community and targeted day events do absolutely nothing to our membership growth and nor does anyone care about them, except for the touchy feely marketers at bundoora, which tbh should all be sacked.

@playmaker I recall seeing a couple of comments on here that the club finds the surveys useful, but I've done quite a few of them and I've never actually seen any published results. My understanding is that the two free GA tickets is in response to members' comments, and also that pressure has brought about changes in what constitutes a "family' for family membership (in terms of a child reaching a certain age). Again, though, no concrete evidence.

[citypool]

So free tickets from McDonald’s definitely helped will we see that happen again? 

[Dr.Dreas]

40 minutes ago, citypool said:

So free tickets from McDonald’s definitely helped will we see that happen again? 

i think we still would have got a better crowd if we actually won or let alone scored against sydney....

[jw1739]

1 hour ago, citypool said:

So free tickets from McDonald’s definitely helped will we see that happen again? 

 

30 minutes ago, Dr.Dreas said:

i think we still would have got a better crowd if we actually won or let alone scored against sydney....

There are so many factors that can influence attendance at any particular match. IMO the only factor that can be put forward with certainty is the drawing power of David Villa and Alessandro Del Piero.

If we look at this Round's Melbourne attendances:
Attendance City v. Wellington: 6,410; City membership: 9,411. Ratio: 0.681
Attendance Victory v. Central Coast: 16,508; Victory membership: 25,282. Ratio: 0.653.

[Dr.Dreas]

4 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

 

There are so many factors that can influence attendance at any particular match. IMO the only factor that can be put forward with certainty is the drawing power of David Villa and Alessandro Del Piero.

If we look at this Round's Melbourne attendances:
Attendance City v. Wellington: 6,410; City membership: 9,411. Ratio: 0.681
Attendance Victory v. Central Coast: 16,508; Victory membership: 25,282. Ratio: 0.653.

agreed but results matter as well...also a lack of promotion. there are may factors. 

[jw1739]

7 minutes ago, Dr.Dreas said:

agreed but results matter as well...also a lack of promotion. there are may factors. 

I was referring more to the attendance at any specific match rather than the gaping overall difference between City and Victory. I think we all know the root cause of the latter - repeated under-performance by City. IMO another fairly fundamental cause is coming into play - concern over the direction that CFG are taking the club.

[johnno cpfc]

WELL AFTER WATCHING THAT GAME it should come as no surprise that the following game the gate was down , total shite football causes this. It ok to want more members but the effort must  ultimately be made ON the pitch no ifs no buts thats the main way in which we may see any improvement but it has to be lasting, not just one game.

 

[haz]

6 hours ago, jw1739 said:

 

There are so many factors that can influence attendance at any particular match. IMO the only factor that can be put forward with certainty is the drawing power of David Villa and Alessandro Del Piero.

If we look at this Round's Melbourne attendances:
Attendance City v. Wellington: 6,410; City membership: 9,411. Ratio: 0.681
Attendance Victory v. Central Coast: 16,508; Victory membership: 25,282. Ratio: 0.653.

This is what I find frustrating when ever Victory supporters talk shit about our crowds. Yea, if of course yours are bigger... thats what happens when you have a 5 year head start. But when you look at the membership to attendance ratio, we are usually better.

[bt50]

On 11/12/2018 at 6:44 PM, haz said:

This is what I find frustrating when ever Victory supporters talk shit about our crowds. Yea, if of course yours are bigger... thats what happens when you have a 5 year head start. But when you look at the membership to attendance ratio, we are usually better.

Yeh but that requires a little more thinking and lets be honest, its not their strong point...

Edited November 19, 2018 by bt50

[Tony999]

Surely the GA wasn't full from the Macca's free tickets?? If so, just goes to show what shit food people eat here.

[n i k o]

18 hours ago, haz said:

This is what I find frustrating when ever Victory supporters talk shit about our crowds. Yea, if of course yours are bigger... thats what happens when you have a 5 year head start. But when you look at the membership to attendance ratio, we are usually better.

How far away are we from the point in time when we can't use our 5 year gap as a reason for the crowd disparity?

[Jovan]

16 minutes ago, n i k o said:

How far away are we from the point in time when we can't use our 5 year gap as a reason for the crowd disparity?

I'm there now.

It's an absolute cop out now. We have had long enough to establish ourselves and define exactly what sort of club we are. We've had 5 with heart and this is our 4th under CFG so to play the "they had a head start" argument is just lazy.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Jovan

[n i k o]

19 minutes ago, Jovan said:

I'm there now.

It's an absolute cop out now. We have had long enough to establish ourselves and define exactly what sort of club we are. We've had 5 with heart and this is our 4th under CFG so to play the "they had a head start" argument is just lazy.

Same here Jovan. Same here. Actually this is our 5th under CFG. 

[jw1739]

36 minutes ago, Jovan said:

I'm there now.

It's an absolute cop out now. We have had long enough to establish ourselves and define exactly what sort of club we are. We've had 5 with heart and this is our 4th under CFG so to play the "they had a head start" argument is just lazy.

Small correction - four seasons as Heart and this is the fifth as City.

Otherwise I agree wholeheartedly. Total cop-out. Memberships have grown since the Heart days, but nowhere near the degree that they should have done if the club actually appealed to the football public of Melbourne. I will cite, perhaps controversially, four main reasons:
The change of colours from a strong colour (red) to a weak colour (light blue), the change also making us less distinguishable from Victory (and almost indistinguishable from Sydney), and continued attempts to suppress the red colour;
No clear sense of direction or ambition from the City Football Group except as a low-cost feeder club;
Continued under-performance on the field;
General feeling of discomfort about a club majority-owned by Middle Eastern interests.

 

Edited November 13, 2018 by jw1739

[rayv36]

58 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Small correction - four seasons as Heart and this is the fifth as City.

Otherwise I agree wholeheartedly. Total cop-out. Memberships have grown since the Heart days, but nowhere near the degree that they should have done if the club actually appealed to the football public of Melbourne. I will cite, perhaps controversially, four main reasons:
The change of colours from a strong colour (red) to a weak colour (light blue), the change also making us less distinguishable from Victory (and almost indistinguishable from Sydney), and continued attempts to suppress the red colour;
No clear sense of direction or ambition from the City Football Group except as a low-cost feeder club;
Continued under-performance on the field;
General feeling of discomfort about a club majority-owned by Middle Eastern interests.

 

If you look at the branding this season I think City have actually embraced red as a secondary color. In fact im surprised we even have the red and white away strip, I thought if they were as keen as every thinks about getting rid of the red and white now would be the time to phase it out.

[jw1739]

10 minutes ago, rayv36 said:

If you look at the branding this season I think City have actually embraced red as a secondary color. In fact im surprised we even have the red and white away strip, I thought if they were as keen as every thinks about getting rid of the red and white now would be the time to phase it out.

I disagree. Why the "black" for the FFA Cup?

[rayv36]

24 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

I disagree. Why the "black" for the FFA Cup?

Primary colour is sky blue, secondary is red, white, black and navy

[bt50]

50 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

I disagree. Why the "black" for the FFA Cup?

Because people have regularly pined for 5 or so years over the charcoal kits we had back in the heart days. Nothing more than appeasing a few fans imo.

[haz]

4 hours ago, n i k o said:

How far away are we from the point in time when we can't use our 5 year gap as a reason for the crowd disparity?

4 hours ago, Jovan said:

I'm there now.

It's an absolute cop out now. We have had long enough to establish ourselves and define exactly what sort of club we are. We've had 5 with heart and this is our 4th under CFG so to play the "they had a head start" argument is just lazy.

I would look at the increase in membership for both us and Victory. If there has been not much growth, it just beens the entire 'market' in Melbourne has already committed. I doubt Victory will ever get over 30k members and I doubt we will ever get over 15k. Too many euro-snobs and 'true blue' aussies in Melbourne.

[Jovan]

1 hour ago, haz said:

I would look at the increase in membership for both us and Victory. If there has been not much growth, it just beens the entire 'market' in Melbourne has already committed. I doubt Victory will ever get over 30k members and I doubt we will ever get over 15k. Too many euro-snobs and 'true blue' aussies in Melbourne.

Totally agree. 

[citypool]

29 minutes ago, Jovan said:

Totally agree. 

What about west melbourne or team 11?

[jw1739]

17 minutes ago, citypool said:

What about west melbourne or team 11?

I think that will depend, to a significant extent, the capacity of their planned home ground. One of the issues for Melbourne City is that AAMI Park is far too big for almost all the matches we're ever likely to play there. If the number of matches you think you'll attend is, say, 10 or less, what is the point of buying a membership? Our crowds are so low that you can rock up at the gate and get a seat anywhere in the stadium. In many cases even if you haven't paid to sit there. Since we moved to City Blue in Bay 19 I've had my membership card checked no more than 4 times - and various groups of people come in and sit in the seats around us if they feel like it. At the Wellington match there was not even an attendant at aisle 18, which we use to get to our seats, to check who was coming in.

Further, having big areas of empty seats does nothing positive for the atmosphere inside the ground - another turn-off for potential spectators.

I don't know what West Melbourne are proposing, but Team11 are talking about a boutique stadium on the site of the old Dandenong saleyards. I would think if it had a capacity of 10,000, then they might get a membership towards that figure, but any greater capacity won't bring them a higher membership - more likely a lower one.

I will retain my City membership until I can no longer climb the steps to my seat. After 7 seasons of getting wet in City Gold/Premium A I like being totally undercover. I like it that I don't have to queue for a ticket, and that I can go to the match on auto-pilot without really thinking about it and guarantee that I'll be sitting with the same group of loyal supporters every time.

Ground capacity isn't the only factor in membership of course, but it does play a part. 

[haz]

10 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

I will retain my City membership until I can no longer climb the steps to my seat. After 7 seasons of getting wet in City Gold/Premium A I like being totally undercover.

We'll get you bionic legs by then JW

[jw1739]

11 minutes ago, haz said:

We'll get you bionic legs by then JW

Which do you think will come first? My bionic legs or us winning the Premiership?

[belaguttman]

54 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Which do you think will come first? My bionic legs or us winning the Premiership?

Your bionic legs

[Rasputin]

Can we count the seagulls in our attendance figures?

[johnno cpfc]

4 hours ago, Rasputin said:

Can we count the seagulls in our attendance figures?

We may as well because there were nearly as many seagulls as spectators last friday, which spoilt the game a bit for me.

 

[IssySG]

17 hours ago, johnno cpfc said:

We may as well because there were nearly as many seagulls as spectators last friday, which spoilt the game a bit for me.

 

As long as we're winning the seagulls can sit on my lap for all I care.

[citypool]

So ten pages in anything we can share with the club?

[Harrison]

13 minutes ago, citypool said:

So ten pages in anything we can share with the club?

What can they do, realistically, that will grow the supporter base? Play better music? Remove the seagulls? Sell more sausages?

They can't do much to materially grow the supporter base. Perhaps they can engage the community with events more often but I think they already do that quite well. We're very active there.

I think the responsibility falls more on FFA. The revamp cannot come soon enough. Expansion is a key part of the revamp but it looks like it'll be delayed another season, which is very frustrating. The new board have a lot of work to do. I just hope they are bold and take some risks because the league, at best, is going stale and at worst is slowly dying. 

[jw1739]

44 minutes ago, citypool said:

So ten pages in anything we can share with the club?

Yes, I think so.

Downplay the connection with all things Manchester and City Football Group and market the club to the general public as a Melbourne club for Melbourne people.

They can do what they like behind the scenes, for example, in their business links both locally and elsewhere - market the club however they want in those areas, but IMO in terms of the public and football linkages the emphasis should be on this club, here in Melbourne.

[Jovan]

3 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Yes, I think so.

Downplay the connection with all things Manchester and City Football Group and market the club to the general public as a Melbourne club for Melbourne people.

They can do what they like behind the scenes, for example, in their business links both locally and elsewhere - market the club however they want in those areas, but IMO in terms of the public and football linkages the emphasis should be on this club, here in Melbourne.

Maybe not.

Why not be more Manchester. Really emphasize the connection. Bring out Manchester City at every opportunity. Flog it hard. 

Now I'm not a city supporter but they've tried building Melbourne in its own image but seriously that hasn't worked. 

[Harrison]

Perhaps one thing they could actually do is update the rosters on the club's website. It really is amateurish.

Almost a month in and still no headshots for many of the players wearing this season's kit. A lot of information on the player cards is missing or incorrect and it's hard to tell who is actually in the senior team and who is in the youth team. Some players are in the wrong position category too. 

There is no loan section either and we have two players on loan in Genreau and Bouzanis.

The women's and youth sections aren't much better. 

It's a small thing but it reflects poorly on the club. 

[n i k o]

54 minutes ago, Jovan said:

Maybe not.

Why not be more Manchester. Really emphasize the connection. Bring out Manchester City at every opportunity. Flog it hard. 

Now I'm not a city supporter but they've tried building Melbourne in its own image but seriously that hasn't worked. 

 

59 minutes ago, jw1739 said:

Yes, I think so.

Downplay the connection with all things Manchester and City Football Group and market the club to the general public as a Melbourne club for Melbourne people.

They can do what they like behind the scenes, for example, in their business links both locally and elsewhere - market the club however they want in those areas, but IMO in terms of the public and football linkages the emphasis should be on this club, here in Melbourne.

Face it. We are now doomed with the image we have created. And we don't have a particular demographic.

All that's left really is to play like we did in 15/16 and be successful and people will come. 

[Tony999]

On 11/13/2018 at 2:06 PM, jw1739 said:

Small correction - four seasons as Heart and this is the fifth as City.

Otherwise I agree wholeheartedly. Total cop-out. Memberships have grown since the Heart days, but nowhere near the degree that they should have done if the club actually appealed to the football public of Melbourne. I will cite, perhaps controversially, four main reasons:
The change of colours from a strong colour (red) to a weak colour (light blue), the change also making us less distinguishable from Victory (and almost indistinguishable from Sydney), and continued attempts to suppress the red colour;
No clear sense of direction or ambition from the City Football Group except as a low-cost feeder club;
Continued under-performance on the field;
General feeling of discomfort about a club majority-owned by Middle Eastern interests.

 

I will just agree with one of the four you mentioned.

[Torn Asunder]

If Man City can win the Champions League, there global appeal will grow.  Being affiliated with them both a blessing and curse.  I have accepted the link and now embrace it as our point of difference, and just hope that one day we will be the powerhouse team of Asia, and the majority of Socceroos will have come through our team.

[HeartOfCity]

We havnt tried to be "Melbourne" yet as far as im concerned

- We still do the citizens bollocks (i know its all for charity but surely we can find another way to do this that isnt connected to Manchester)

- Stop the flights and tickets to Man City games as give aways, why not just give flights away using Etihad airways

- Instead of Sheikh Monsour (whatever the bloody name is) giving a end of year assessment of the club and team get bloody Scott Munn to do it, get him to do something!

There will be plenty of other things that pop up through the season that will be a link to Manchester, for eg the Premier league trophy. Sure it might have been pretty cool to see but the link is there.

Im probably gonna sound doom and gloomish here, every year is the same and its becoming more of a chore than a pleasure to go to games. I have no idea how to fix this but i would suggest that amongst the hype of being bought by a trabillionare came the hype of big name Marquee players and exciting scintillating football, now apart from the Novillo, Mooy and Tuna season and the David Villa season for 4 games i dont think the club has lived up to what people thought it was going to be. 

I guess its like watching a movie just waiting for that great series of scenes that will make it a great movie, we just havnt seen any good scenes yet. 

Edited November 15, 2018 by HeartOfCity

[haz]

Why do we even care about attendance?

Legit I just want to win trophies. I want to top the league, I want to win the championship, I want to win the ACL.

I couldn't care less if we play in a 50k stadium, I dont care if we play at CB Smith Reserve.

Who gives a fuck if we have 20k in attendance, or just a man and his dog!

I want to win! I don't get why the 'metrics' wankfest keeps growing.