Gus

[franklin2323]

My concerns exactly.
In regards to football he is a genius, in terms of business and running a club, well we can't really say he's no good but he has no experience.

What he has brought is ambition, in spades. First things first I want a winning footy team. If he can achieve that, the fans will come.

Blackhole gone, PI gone, Panthers Shop gone. Away coaches gone. There's 4 outlets to have fan interaction and possibly player meetings gone!

 

[Caged Panther]

Blackhole gone, PI gone, Panthers Shop gone. Away coaches gone. There's 4 outlets to have fan interaction and possibly player meetings gone!

In fairness with regards to the Panthers shop, with the extortionist rents that westfields charge there is no way that place could have been making a profit.

 

[franklin2323]

In fairness with regards to the Panthers shop, with the extortionist rents that westfields charge there is no way that place could have been making a profit.

No but even having a shop in the carpark of Panthers or the ground. Will get more traffic then pretty much a counter in the club. You could have banner design comps, meet the players, pass the ball etc.

We win the comp in 91 no merchandise department. We should of captilised on our exposure and popularity .21 years later we are still making the same mistakes.

 

[maple_69]

Blackhole gone, PI gone, Panthers Shop gone. Away coaches gone. There's 4 outlets to have fan interaction and possibly player meetings gone!

See the interesting thing about that from a sport management point of view, is those are all outlets aimed at the diehard fan more or less. Fans sitting in the blackhole, frequenting PI and engaging with away coaches are the fans, like we all are here pretty much, that will go to the game regardless, and buy the jersey.

I don't think on the surface they're great decisions but potentially they're isolating what is a small base (comparitive to many Sydney clubs) of diehard fans. What will be interesting is to see if these are simply cost cutting or if the club implements different measures to bring more casual fans closer into the fold. Moving to social networking mediums and smaller membership packages would certainly point this way.

 

[Kilkenny]

Simply reigning in costs. Can't keep losing money hand over fist.

 

[franklin2323]

No doubt costs are a problem. They could get a sponsor for the supporter coaches. When those emails go out they could say catch the 'sponsor' supporters coach. Do a deal with a bus company to do the team coaches as well. Get a sponsor for PI. Put a portable office in Panthers carpark near the pie shop. Put the members team in there and they save money on staff. There was other options then just cutting services.

 

[betcats]

Thats all easily said.

 

[Big Mick]

No doubt costs are a problem. They could get a sponsor for the supporter coaches. When those emails go out they could say catch the 'sponsor' supporters coach. Do a deal with a bus company to do the team coaches as well. Get a sponsor for PI. Put a portable office in Panthers carpark near the pie shop. Put the members team in there and they save money on staff. There was other options then just cutting services.

All easier said than done.

What exposure do you get going on a members e-mail? What sponsor outside of Penrith would want that or want to fork out enough sponsorship $ to cater for multiple buses each week.

Who wants to sponsor a forum that's rigid & to be honest was lucky to have 100 active members - again outside of Penrith.

The membership staff are already stretched thin...what makes us think that they'd have the time to put a portable office (Aside from cost of the portable office)?

I'm sure options were saught after but eventually the opportunity cost outweighs the benefit and while those services may be back at some time in the future...I dunno...guess they had their reasons.

IMO the uproar over PI was the most funny thing. The place was dead as, it was full of idiots who just wanted to stir shit. The Pride website is much better, less restricted and overall a better experience than PI. That's a credit to Steve and IMO it is a better "fan" group than PI was.

 

[betcats]

Pretty much you cannot just expext Gus and the club to pull sponsors out of there ass for everything.

This is a wild guess but i'd say we(Panthers) are at the lower end of the ladder in terms of sponsorship demand amongst NRL clubs.

 

[Doomednow]

Some success should change that to a degree, but we'll never be a "glamorous" club.

 

[Big Mick]

Sponsors are hard to come by.

I mean it took us a while to get Oak on board as our major sponsor and arguably that would be the easiest to attract given exposure.

And look at some other clubs...still looking for sponsors.

It's not as easy as "lets just get one".

 

[franklin2323]

Pretty much you cannot just expext Gus and the club to pull sponsors out of there ass for everything.

This is a wild guess but i'd say we(Panthers) are at the lower end of the ladder in terms of sponsorship demand amongst NRL clubs.

Did we try? The top clubs do things like that. Off field you can spend what you want. We need to increase exposure. Things like no supporters coach will make less people able to attend away games. If you don't go into the club you don't see the shop.

Having a club a in a national comp should be an easy sell for minor sponsors. We are talking $10k roughly. There would be plenty of local companies wanting a piece of that surely. Major sponsor and sleeve are a different thing. Yet we filled them

 

[betcats]

I am not going to act like I know much about sponsorship and the club but to just presume we haven't tried any of that seems wrong to me, you are attacking(attacking might be a bit harsh, can't think of a better word atm) Gus and the club for something that you are not even sure has been attempted or not.

The big clubs might do it but we are not a big club, a club with big ambitions maybe but not a big club.

 

[Spitty]

I was upset about some of these losses as well at first, but when you think about it many of them really are the norm. How many other clubs have supporters stores outside of the licence club or the home ground? Apart from Newcastle's dindgy centre aisle stall at Charlestown square I can't think of one. Granted I haven't been to every single shopping centre in RL territory but even if there are a few they'd certainly be in the minority.

How many clubs run official fan forums? Again there'd be a few but only a few.

I thought the black hole thing was pretty foul though. Clearly an attempt at getting more money out of the more loyal fan. That's against the grain of other clubs who generally try and find an area for their supporters groups. Granted those areas usually aren't as good viewing as the black hole had.

The supporters buses were 1/2 empty when they ran and the club gained no benefit from them, only an expense. They were fast phasing themselves out.

There's no doubt that all these things are geared at only disappointing the hardcore fans, knowing that they'll support the club no matter how much poo you throw at them. While I don't agree with that mentality, in this day and age it's the norm. Man U aren't one of the richest sports clubs in the world because they look after the little guy in the stands who sings week in, week out. They're the richest because they reach out to the billions in China that will probably never step foot in Manchester let alone Old Trafford.

 

[franklin2323]

You make good points. I guess my main point is we are competing with 8 other NRL teams, the Waratahs, 2 AFL teams. For corporate support and exposure. Even when we went well in 2010. We had negative stories about only score of kicks etc.

Rothfield won't allow positive stories in the telecrap while Gus is in charge. You can go a month before a panther appears on a panel show. So we need to do things to get the name out there.

 

[betcats]

You make good points. I guess my main point is we are competing with 8 other NRL teams, the Waratahs, 2 AFL teams. For corporate support and exposure. Even when we went well in 2010. We had negative stories about only score of kicks etc.

Rothfield won't allow positive stories in the telecrap while Gus is in charge. You can go a month before a panther appears on a panel show. So we need to do things to get the name out there.

This is a big one. At the start of the year I was impressed with the coverage we received in the newspapers, I thought it was much increased but as the year went on the Slothfield influence became obvious and the articles took a negative turn.

Anyway, I dont really having anything constructive to offer on that point, just venting.

 

[Caged Panther]

In the end I guess it's an issue of priorities and at the moment the priority has to be getting the on field stuff right. Once that happens and does so consistently there should be more money (sponsorship, gate receipts etc) that may allow us to bring back some of these niche things that have gone by the way side.

 

[betcats]

True, a few successive successfull seasons would do wonders for us imo.

 

[Spitty]

In the end I guess it's an issue of priorities and at the moment the priority has to be getting the on field stuff right. Once that happens and does so consistently there should be more money (sponsorship, gate receipts etc) that may allow us to bring back some of these niche things that have gone by the way side.

This seems to be Gus's plan. It's interesting that's it the exact opposite of what Shaun used to promote. Maybe an indication of why Shaun moved on.

Whether its right or not, only time will tell.

 

[darkbloom]

That would be a stupid approach.

The role of the marketing manager is to get maxium leverage from a winning side and ensure a losing side has minimum impact. To stop marketing when losing is the very thing that caused the abysmal off field performance in the post 1991 days. They led to having a crowd of 4,000 at Carty's farewell game.

Come to think of it, we might have returned to those days.