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A-League's Wanderers top the list for membership sales in western Sydney
Date September 1, 2014 - 7:07PM
Dominic Bossi Sports reporter
Western Sydney Wanderers fans show their fervour during a match at Pirtek Stadium earlier this year. Photo: Brendan Esposito
Western Sydney Wanderers can perhaps already lay claim to being the most popular sporting team in Sydney's western suburbs – they have sold more full memberships than any other football club in the region.
The emerging powerhouses of Australian football are preparing for just their third season but have already sold 2000 more individual season tickets than five other western suburbs football clubs.
The Wanderers have already exceeded the full-season ticket sales of the Parramatta Eels, Penrith Panthers, Wests Tigers, Canterbury Bulldogs, and Greater Western Sydney Giants. This is despite the A-League season not beginning for another month.
By the numbers: The sales figures tell the story.
They play their first home game on October 25.
More than 15,333 of their existing season ticket-holders have been retained from last year and the Wanderers are on course to sell their entire allocation of memberships before they will go on sale to the general public.
Due to the limited capacity of 21,487 at Pirtek Stadium, the A-League club is first offering existing members the opportunity to retain their season tickets before those on a waiting list will be given a chance to become ticket-holding members.
The club redesigned the seating plan to accommodate more fans this season and while a final number is yet to be determined, it is likely a membership limit of just under 16,000 will be hit before the end of next week, if memberships continue to sell at the current rate.
As a result of the large uptake, the Wanderers are beginning to issue non-ticketed memberships to supporters. Some are opting to pay up to $80 to join a waiting list for a season ticket.
The record sales ensures the Wanderers will already eclipse the second-highest figure sold by their co-tenants at Pirtek Stadium, the Parramatta Eels, who claim 12,900 of their 20,300 members as season-ticket holders. The Eels also suffer the capacity restrictions in Parramatta and have to accommodate their large number of walk-up sales and three-game membership packages.
The sales further strengthens the push for major renovations for Pirtek Stadium to improve the capacity to more than 30,000 as the two most popular clubs, in terms of members, are regular tenants.
Both the Eels and the Wanderers are lobbying the NSW government to improve the facilities and capacity of the venue.
The two clubs set the benchmark for season-ticket holders but are closely followed by AFL club the GWS Giants, who claim approximately 11,800 season-ticketed members, although about 30 per cent of those are registered only for games played in Canberra.
A Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs membership drive clinched 15,500 members, though only about 8000 are season-ticket holders. Penrith Panthers boast 6872 full-members while Wests Tigers have 7553 mostly venue-specific members.
If you're talking A-League v NRL, they're on at different times of year. It's more the case wheher soccer will overtake cricket, as a summer spectator sport. It probably already has in terms of tickets sold, but a comparison/rivalry between soccer and league is pointless.
