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http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...t-all-the-way-to-bollywood-20100222-orsk.html
Parramatta take battle for the west all the way to Bollywood
February 23, 2010
Trailblazing club have opened up a new front in the struggle for memberships, writes Glenn Jackson.
Paul Osborne is staring out of a 24th floor hotel room overlooking Mumbai Harbour when an eagle flies past his window. This is not where he expected Parramatta's membership drive to reach. ''This is surreal,'' Osborne concedes.
He is in India spruiking membership of his club. As you do. You read right - he has spent the past few days in Hyderabad and Mumbai attempting to convince a Bollywood star to spruik rugby league to potential Parramatta fans. Which means that after signing Jarryd Hayne, Osborne's next signature has been Nandamuri Balakrishna, the new face of rugby league in the west. Way west. In India.
The plan has worked. In the next few months, Balakrishna will travel to Sydney to sell the sport of rugby league to thousands of people of Indian heritage living in the Parramatta district. The idea occurred to him after witnessing thousands converge on Parramatta Park for a concert last month. Data showed many of them lived around Harris Park, Guildford and Parramatta, which makes them all potential members.
''The last thing I wanted to do was fly halfway around the world for three days, but this is a great opportunity for us,'' Osborne says. ''It was a big decision to make. I missed the trial against Penrith. But long-term, this is just going to be enormous for us.''
And others. Closer to home yesterday was South Sydney chief executive Shane Richardson, but spreading the same message. Richardson was at the Murwillumbah races, where he came across a man who introduced himself not by his name, but by his member number - 9508.
Membership was important to this man, and it is equally so for Richardson. He does not respond to emails, phone calls or even fans on the street unless they can quote their member number.
''If you're not a member, I don't want to talk to you,'' he says.
What's all this about? Where did this membership craze come from? And how has it left one chief executive responding to emails from a hotel in Mumbai and another refusing to do so in Sydney? It is, according to both, the new lifeblood of Sydney clubs.
''I think there'll come a time when we'll get nothing from poker machine revenue, but that doesn't frighten me,'' Osborne says. ''We've got to start relying on our membership. I think it will ultimately be what makes or breaks any club.''
For Richardson, membership has paid for much more than two coffees.
''It's absolutely crucial,'' Richardson says. ''The TV money's not going to change until 2013. It's tough in the marketplace corporately. Membership is the biggest growth area there is. We've gone from making $300,000 a year off membership to $2.5 million.''
All Sydney clubs are locked in a battle to reach 10,000 ticketed members first, with the prize being a $50,000 advertising package. Souths lead the way, with St George Illawarra snapping at their heels and the Bulldogs creeping ever closer. It is serious business. Yesterday, the NRL told the clubs the numbers would be audited to ensure all memberships were genuine.
It is also a PR battle. Richardson boasts his club has members from ''garbos to Kerry Stokes''; Parramatta has sprinter John Steffensen, (bizarrely) Brad Fittler, Australian-born TV star Simon Baker (Bollywood to Hollywood), and through its new Indian connections, billionaire businessman Dr M.V. Ramana Rao (who set up the meeting with the Bollywood star and is attempting to garner support from cricketer V.V.S. Laxman).
Souths are the pioneers of the movement among the NRL clubs, beginning their push about four years ago, but the fact is this is an old story in most other sports.
Richardson has taken ideas from National Football League club Pittsburgh Steelers (specifically players hand-delivering membership packages) and the Green Bay Packers, the latter boasting a season-ticket waiting list with more than 81,000 names - which means a 30-year wait. ''Green Bay fans are no more passionate than sections of the Rabbitohs fan base,'' co-owner Peter Holmes a Court says.
The AFL has led the way in this country. Richardson visits Collingwood and Hawthorn biannually, and has taken ideas from both those clubs. He has also taken a membership manager from the Sydney Swans - Paul Grzanka, who was with the Swans for seven years, has a bird's-eye view of the membership-driven AFL.
''For the Rabbitohs to be sitting on 10,000 ticketed members - they haven't been successful over the past 25 years, they were kicked out of the comp it's a credit to our supporters,'' he says. But this so-called race to 10,000 is possibly a misnomer, because that suggests the combatants will be stopping. ''We're a long way behind the AFL,'' Grzanka says. ''We're 25 years behind.''
He hopes for a day when all Sydney clubs boast memberships of between 40,000 and 50,000. ''People now get it, and that's a great thing,'' he says.
Those people include Bulldogs boss Todd Greenberg, who says the membership was run by the club's receptionist when he took over the club. Now there are four in the department.
''We had to culturally make some changes,'' Greenberg says. ''If you go to Melbourne, when you get off the plane the first question they ask you is, 'Who are you a member of?' In Sydney, it's more like, 'Who do you support?' They're similar but different. I think that's changing.''
This is why Richardson doesn't believe in this talk of war with the AFL. League can learn something.
''We've had the Swans in our backyard,'' Richardson says. ''Some people like Hungry Jack's and some people like McDonald's. But if Hungry Jack's is there it's going to attract people to McDonald's too.''
Maybe the real battle ground stretches further than Sydney's west. As far as India.
