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Expansion club fanbase sizes

docbrown

docbrown

Coach
Messages
11,842
Different expansion clubs will have different fanbase sizes. This isn't the only metric for measuring a club's potential. For instance, a club in a metropolitan area will likely access more corporate support than one in a regional area. This just shows where your favoured expansion club will sit in the scheme of things in terms of ongoing support once the dust has settled. For comparisons' sake, I've included all the existing football clubs in Australia and New Zealand.

God Tier – The biggest football clubs in the country out of any sport
Brisbane Broncos, South Sydney Rabbitohs & Parramatta Eels
Collingwood Magpies, Essendon Bombers & Richmond Tigers

A Tier – Fans spread across 2-3 states/nations and/or dominating a state/nation
PNG NRL TEAM
St George-Illawarra Dragons, Wests Tigers, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
West Coast Eagles, Adelaide Crows, Hawthorn Hawks, Carlton Blues,

B Tier – Fans spread across their state/nation and/or in the top 2 clubs in those areas
SOUTH/WEST BRISBANE NRL TEAM
Dolphins, North Queensland Cowboys, New Zealand Warriors, Penrith Panthers, Sydney Roosters
Port Adelaide Power, Fremantle Dockers
Auckland Blues

C Tier – Fans dominate a large regional area or are a non-major code in a larger city
PERTH NRL TEAM, ADELAIDE NRL TEAM
Canberra Raiders, Newcastle Knights, Melbourne Storm
Geelong Cats, Sydney Swans, Melbourne Demons
ACT Brumbies
Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers, Melbourne Victory

D Tier – Fans dominate smaller regional areas, non-major codes with niche following in large city or suburban/minority enclave clubs
WELLINGTON NRL TEAM, CHRISTCHURCH NRL TEAM, WESTERN MELBOURNE NRL TEAM, CENTRAL COAST NRL TEAM, BEARS NRL TEAM, SUNSHINE COAST NRL TEAM, CAIRNS NRL TEAM, BRISBANE-PASIFIKA NRL TEAM, NEW ZEALAND-PASIFIKA NRL TEAM
Gold Coast Titans, Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, Manly-Warringah Sea-Eagles
Brisbane Lions, North Melbourne Kangaroos, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs, Tasmanian fumbleball team
New South Wales Waratahs, Wellington Hurricanes, Waikato Chiefs, Canterbury Crusaders
Melbourne City, Adelaide United

E Tier – Would or are perpetually struggling for fans and likely remaining at this tier
CENTRAL QUEENSLAND NRL TEAM, CAIRNS-PASIFIKA NRL TEAM,
Queensland Reds, Western Force, Otago Highlanders
Brisbane Roar, Newcastle Jets, Central Coast Mariners, Wellington Phoenix, Perth Glory

F Tier – Failing or failed
DARWIN NRL TEAM, DARWIN-PASIFIKA NRL TEAM,
Gold Coast Suns, Greater Western Sydney Giants
Melbourne Rebels, Fijian Drua, Moana Pasifika
Macarthur Bulls, Western United
 
docbrown

docbrown

Coach
Messages
11,842
mongoose said:
what are you basing these rankings on? I hate fumble-bumble victoria ball too but their biggest clubs are way bigger than ours. Only the Broncos come close. Geelong Cats is a massive club, much bigger than our regional clubs.
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This is not an ant-AFL post. I describe the attributes of each level in the original post.

The Brisbane Broncos are bigger than every single AFL club, even Collingwood. They are the biggest club of any code in the country. They had the entirety of South Queensland to themselves for a very long time, whereas Collingwood share Melbourne with 8 other teams. The number of supporters the Broncos have that are fanatics or casual fans would be over one million, as per the Gemba Report. The surveys I've seen for Collingwood sit around 750k.

AFL fans sometimes argue that the Swans are bigger than the Broncos but you only need to compare their TV ratings to see this isn't the case. People will be polled as saying that they're Swans fans simply because they live in NSW and that's the AFL team that people know. In the meantime those people only watch games when the Swans are in grand finals, most won't have watched or kept track of the AFL for years. They're not fans, they're bandwagoners. Storm are very similar in this regard. As for Geelong, I've seen them surveyed around 550k, which is around what the Cowboys get and both are regional teams.

After Broncos and Collingwood are Essendon and Richmond then Eels and Rabbitohs. Also be mindful that with polling there are bandwagoners in years where clubs are successful and declines when they're not. I'm just talking general averages regardless of performance.
 
Western Melbourne

Western Melbourne

Juniors
Messages
42
Not sure on the specifics for this criteria, but Storm should defo be ranked up the list imo. Using the same metric from the Roy Morgan source, they're 2nd (828k+) just below the Bronx (1m+). As of 2023, they're currently 3rd in memberships with over 20k.
 
docbrown

docbrown

Coach
Messages
11,842
Western Melbourne said:
Not sure on the specifics for this criteria, but Storm should defo be ranked up the list imo. Using the same metric from the Roy Morgan source, they're 2nd (828k+) just below the Bronx (1m+). As of 2023, they're currently 3rd in memberships with over 20k.
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The Roy Morgan survey results for the Sydney NRL and Melbourne AFL clubs are quite accurate. Teams like Storm and Swans are a different kettle of fish. The Storm have lots of fans who live in NSW and QLD. But a lot of that figure is very bandwagon support for the Storm. It's people who haven't watched a TV game or attended a live game in several years. You can see that reflected in the Melbourne FTA TV ratings. If they were bigger than the Broncos, then they'd be pulling Broncos type TV ratings in Melbourne. I'd argue they'd be rating 100 to 150k minimum in Melbourne when they're on. Instead it's more like 50k. I'd say the real figure is around the 400 to 500k mark in fanatical/casual support, about 350k of that in Victoria.
 
greenBV4

greenBV4

Bench
Messages
2,510
docbrown said:
But a lot of that figure is very bandwagon support for the Storm. It's people who haven't watched a TV game or attended a live game in several years.
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Have you seen the TV rankings and crowd averages for teams like the Bulldogs lately? who you have ranked as an A-tier club. But no, only expansion teams have band wagoners...

Memberships are probably the best metric of the number of invested supporters (but obviously not the only one), they literally have invested money into the club rather than just switched on a tv - and are also at massive odds with your list. Take a guess which club currently sits on top?
 
greenBV4

greenBV4

Bench
Messages
2,510
quick table I whipped up to rank clubs based on 2022 using data instead of opinion for supporter base size in Australia (or probably more accurately engagement)

1684413476459.png

Membership, Crowd Avg, TV Avg (in 1000s), and the yearly Roy Morgan survey.
If anyone wants to provide me with other data for the season would be happy to add it in (fan based revenue? hard to find for all clubs..)

more seasons would give more accurate results, but for now its enough to show the data doesn't agree with the OP post
 
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C

Colk

First Grade
Messages
6,750
greenBV4 said:
quick table I whipped up to rank clubs based on 2022 using data instead of opinion for supporter base size (or probably more accurately engagement)

View attachment 74383


If anyone wants to provide me with other data for the season would be happy to add it in (fan based revenue? hard to find for all clubs..)

more seasons would give more accurate results, but for now its enough to show the data doesn't agree with the OP post
Click to expand...

One thing you have to consider is the Warriors support in NZ. Ranking them only on their support in Australia seems a little futile in respects to gaining a proper understanding of their overall popularity.
 
greenBV4

greenBV4

Bench
Messages
2,510
Colk said:
One thing you have to consider is the Warriors support in NZ. Ranking them only on their support in Australia seems a little futile in respects to gaining a proper understanding of their overall popularity.
Click to expand...
yeah I forgot to mention to the post that this is Australian support only
 
docbrown

docbrown

Coach
Messages
11,842
greenBV4 said:
Have you seen the TV rankings and crowd averages for teams like the Bulldogs lately? who you have ranked as an A-tier club. But no, only expansion teams have band wagoners...

Memberships are probably the best metric of the number of invested supporters (but obviously not the only one), they literally have invested money into the club rather than just switched on a tv - and are also at massive odds with your list. Take a guess which club currently sits on top?
Click to expand...
All clubs have bandwagoners. The Lions, Swans and Storm simply have more of them. Yes I've looked at the Bulldogs lately. They're having a down period. Clubs do that. That's why it's better to take a long term view of things. TV ratings will always fluctuate based on the matches that get scheduled. If you're not on FTA that much your average is reduced. Same too if the games scheduled are of lower quality against lower quality opposition, then your average will be impacted. Same with your season by season performances. Again another reason to look at longer term trends. I look at Bulldogs crowds and I see a club that when it's in a downward trend is still pulling crowds of around 15k - which is around the typical NRL average for all clubs. So at their worst, they're meeting the NRL average. That means when they're performing just in that middle 6th to 10th range they pull around 18k or so but when they're performing well they're getting 20-23k. By comparison the Storm when doing well average 17k-18k. But their bottom can be around 11-12k. So if you want compare by crowds, yes Bulldogs are consistently bigger than the Storm. I'm also happy for you list all of the Storms TV ratings in Melbourne and compare them to the Bulldogs TV ratings in Sydney. Then ask yourself where are the million Storm fans and why aren't they watching? Membership is one metric of measuring fan support but it's also still relatively new to the NRL. If you were to judge the competition based on that metric 20 years ago, all the clubs would have failed. The Storm has a leg up in this regards because club membership is part of the Victorian psyche, unlike NSW & QLD.
 
Pneuma

Pneuma

First Grade
Messages
5,475
greenBV4 said:
Have you seen the TV rankings and crowd averages for teams like the Bulldogs lately? who you have ranked as an A-tier club. But no, only expansion teams have band wagoners...

Memberships are probably the best metric of the number of invested supporters (but obviously not the only one), they literally have invested money into the club rather than just switched on a tv - and are also at massive odds with your list. Take a guess which club currently sits on top?
Click to expand...
A large % of memberships as counted by many clubs not have a monetary contribution. They may be people on an email list. Club memberships as a metric of support dissipated some years ago.
 
The Penguin #6.

The Penguin #6.

Juniors
Messages
1,161
SpaceMonkey

SpaceMonkey

Immortal
Messages
40,353
How are the Raiders, Knights, Cats and Brumbies C tier but the Crusaders, Hurricanes, and Chiefs D tier (as well as hypothetical Wellington or Christchurch league sides)?

Wellington, Christchurch and the Waikato ante all similar sizes markets comparable to Canberra or the Hunter, and bigger than Geelong, and all are currently dominated but their Super Rugby teams, with only Wellington having some minority sport competition in the Phoenix.
 
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