What are the chances that if GWS doesn't take off in Sydney after another decade or so that the team gets moved to Canberra full-time? Does Barr know something that we don't?
I don’t think they’re going anywhere to be honest.
I used to work for an agency that got American college students internships in Sydney. One of our partners for our sports management students was GWS.
We regularly had groups of academics who came out to tour the facilities and check out our partners. In the past I had taken them to some of our other partners who were NRL clubs (the Bulldogs, or occasionally the Eels) and they had always been good, had a little chat to us and shown them around Belmore or Parra. They were both unavailable on this day, so I arranged to take them to the GWS head office at Olympic Park.
Whereas the Dogs and Eels had usually gotten a member of the marketing team, or a middle manager to come and chat about the organisation for fifteen minutes before a quick tour, the Giants sat us down in the board room and one of the senior execs came in and talked about the club, its vision and how the students fit into this vision. He was American (he had worked for the Red Sox in a senior role previously) and his deputy, who had been an operations manager for the University of Texas Football program also talked at length.
So I'm the only Aussie in the room, and half way through the presentation he gets a question from one of the academics: 'I've done my research, and I see your crowds are tiny compared to the rest of the league - can you explain that?' he stops, turns to me and goes 'hey Tim, real quick, you're the only Aussie here - you'd be a Swans man right?'. I say, well look, I grew up in Sydney and I'm actually an NRL guy. And he responds 'that's the exact response I expected, and if I can be blunt Tim, I'm not interested in you -
I'm after your kids. Because if in twenty years you've got an eight year old who really, really wants to go to the footy and it's our footy and not the NRL, then we've won'.
He then explained how they are prepared to take a bath for the next two decades because they know that Western Sydney isn't going to start following AFL overnight and that it's very much a marathon, not a sprint for them. They then took us on a full tour of the facilities, Leon Cameron (their head coach) stopped and talked to us for fifteen minutes about the vision of the organisation and then - the cherry on top - they let us raid the merch store. He literally said 'take whatever you want and I'll write it off'. These academics walked out of there with about five grand worth of merch (one took jerseys for each of her five kids and sixteen grand-kids!).
People mock the Giants, but in my dealings with them, they are absolutely playing 4D chess and I have no doubt they will be wildly successful in the long run.
Anyway, I know to a lot of people on here they’ll read what I just said and say ‘haha, AFL sucks though LOL’ but the fact is they are willing to invest a hell of a lot more time and effort in their code in a deeply hostile market than we are in ours.
