Parramatta take battle for the west all the way to Bollywood

[born an eel]

Top story, finally it seems that the focus of the club CEO's is where it should have been all along, on the team fans, NOT on the pokies.

this may be because the job was split in 2, allowing the football club CEO to concentrate on team matters.

The leagues club CEO is still on about pokie tax and "dramatically cut support for the rugby league team" and "face difficulty remaining open".

 

[MarkInTheStands]

Indeed, Parramtta is a very "Multi Cultural" area. In the first 2 months of this year I have received pamphlets about the Concert in the Park before Australia day and last week the Twilight Lunar Festival for Chinese new year.

 

[PJ Marshal]

If i were Ozzie id be going to the bloody united Arab Emirates and getting an oil tycoon throw his support behind the team, cheaper petrol for the team bus that way also

 

[born an eel]

maybe we should change our name to the "Earth Eels" to encompass a wider supporter base, it seemed to work for the Sydney roosters and Sydney dogs :sarcasm:

 

[strider]

If i were Ozzie id be going to the bloody united Arab Emirates and getting an oil tycoon throw his support behind the team, cheaper petrol for the team bus that way also

screw the bus - he could buy us some helicopters to fly the players to games :lol: ... we can be "the flying eels"

 

[MarkInTheStands]

If i were Ozzie id be going to the bloody united Arab Emirates and getting an oil tycoon throw his support behind the team, cheaper petrol for the team bus that way also

Worked for Man City.

 

[Gronk]

Worked for Sydney FC. They have a Russian billionaire who collects clubs like fast cars.

 

[TheRam]

You know what else I find hilarious, is the Memberships numbers last year. Yeah we had a tick under 4000, the Sea Eagles on the other hand, WON THE PREMIERSHIP the year before and have a tick over 3000, and this year are about 800 down, That is just outstanding.

Also when we the fans wrote the infamous report, we held up Wests Tigers as a pro-active and forward thinking membership team, that offered great benefits to their members and actively sort them. They had 4,000 members, and this year are about 500 down.

There is one article though that sticks with me, a few years ago when I was working on the Grave yard shift, I used to read the local rag to put me to sleep during the day. There was an Eels section in the Western Weekender, it had a column from Luke Burt, and all the results and photos and stats, It also had "Eels fan of the Week", the one that sticks in my mind the most was an Indian Bloke in an Eels jumper who had cared so much about the team he had his photo taken and sent into the paper.

There were a series of questions for the fan, and one of them was, How many games do you go to a year?

This Indian bloke's response, Simple "I watch them on TV when ever they are on Channel 9".

So the bloke doesn't have foxtel, and doesn't turn up at the games, yet he was the eels fan of the week, I thought that typical of Eels fans in particular. We are the ultimate in singing when we are winning.

Members 2008 after a GF Qualifer 2007 - 5450
Members 2009 after a sh*thouse 2008 - 3750.
Members 2010 after making a GF 2009 - 5950 and rising.

While it is all well and good to get them, if you consider the Magic Run we had last year, and it has inspired another 10% rise so 2008 members, but they all fall away if you don't win on the field. Most will tell you it is voting with their feet, but I still maintain voting with your feet, can do more in the long term to hurt your club then help it.

MITS at least half of the AFL teams are not winning teams in any given year, yet if I am not mistaken, most of them have over 30000 members I do believe and that is the main point of this whole exercise and push to increase club membership right across the board so as to represent the true interest in the game by its supporters.

Shane Richardson's ethos of not even responding to non members, in my opinion, is spot on. And the way the Melbournians think of themselves as members as quoted by Todd Greenberg 'Who are you a member of?' In Sydney, it's more like, 'Who do you support?', is the real and only major difference between the two codes as far as support goes. But thank freakin God that that is all about to change. Those Mexicans may have a 25 year jump on us, but on the positive side, we have much more potential for expansion of new teams and growth of fans to tap into since we are coming from such a low base and besides, we have the waaaay better product to be sure.

These are just the first steps to massive membership growth for future years. If some clubs don't take this seriously and stay roughly where they are today in regards to memberships, then they WILL surely suffer big time if not die off all together.

 

[PJ Marshal]

its worked wonders for man city ...... currently sitting 5th

 

[TheRam]

this may be because the job was split in 2, allowing the football club CEO to concentrate on team matters.

The leagues club CEO is still on about pokie tax and "dramatically cut support for the rugby league team" and "face difficulty remaining open".

So big freakin whoop. King Dingaling chose to have the two positions for himself, no one rammed them down his throat, thank you.

He was an epic fail, just like his little self promoting PR stunt over the weekend. What a tosser. :crazy:

 

[born an eel]

..... his little self promoting PR stunt over the weekend. What a tosser. :crazy:

?
what pr stunt?

 

[Gronk]

So big freakin whoop. King Dingaling chose to have the two positions for himself, no one rammed them down his throat, thank you.

He was an epic fail, just like his little self promoting PR stunt over the weekend. What a tosser. :crazy:

TBH the "stunt" on the weekend was such a non story. Why did the Telecrap bother ?

Apart from Fitzy (who is not part of the game any more), I would have hoped that the NRL had a whole bunch of their management at the ground watching everything very closely.

 

[Angry_eel]

Im sad. They could have just called me I would have sold the memberships in Westmead lol.

 

[Twizzle]

its worked wonders for man city ...... currently sitting 5th

behind Spurs

 

[Twizzle]

I have an idea

we could send out free vouchers for Chinese take away

 

[born an eel]

or just make them an offer they can't refuse ;-)

 

[MarkInTheStands]

MITS at least half of the AFL teams are not winning teams in any given year, yet if I am not mistaken, most of them have over 30000 members I do believe and that is the main point of this whole exercise and push to increase club membership right across the board so as to represent the true interest in the game by its supporters.

Shane Richardson's ethos of not even responding to non members, in my opinion, is spot on. And the way the Melbournians think of themselves as members as quoted by Todd Greenberg 'Who are you a member of?' In Sydney, it's more like, 'Who do you support?', is the real and only major difference between the two codes as far as support goes. But thank freakin God that that is all about to change. Those Mexicans may have a 25 year jump on us, but on the positive side, we have much more potential for expansion of new teams and growth of fans to tap into since we are coming from such a low base and besides, we have the waaaay better product to be sure.

These are just the first steps to massive membership growth for future years. If some clubs don't take this seriously and stay roughly where they are today in regards to memberships, then they WILL surely suffer big time if not die off all together.

Yes but after 25 years it is ingrained into the Mexicans, there is also a difference in sporting culture here in Sydney, to put it nicely in Sydney there are other things to do instead of the football.

I know the membership numbers are huge in Vic, I bought something at the Hawks shop on line a few years ago, I have received free newsletters and the membership promotions NON STOP since then. For the record, Hawthorn crested 50,000 members last year after the Grand Final Victory. This year they are only up to 41,000. Now I wouldn't exactly call the Hawthorn faithful fickle, but still it is a big swing.

Its fine to repeat what the telegraph says, but there is still a very long way to go, and then you have to consider other factors and costs to clubs like ours that clubs like Canterbury don't have to suffer.

If Parramatta ever crest 15,500 ticketed members (75% of the Stadium which a current board member has told both Suity and I is the goal) I would be the first one to congratulate the club, but I can't see it happening in the next few years. I hope I am wrong, but until then we will need money from other sources as well as membership.

Either way 15,500 would still not carry a loss of 5 Million a year the Leagues Club tips in for free. Indeed that would generate a "Revenue" of about 3.2 Million dollars, then you have to take out the $ 400,000 (game day only) in Stadium rental fees, then there is the costs of producing the other "Parraphernalia", that goes with your membership.

At the moment, the Membership debate still doesn't stack up. Indeed even if we were to get the richest sponsors in the league it still doesn't stack up quite yet.

The other issue is, one of the Driving forces for membership is to share the experience of a packed Parramatta Stadium. If we were to ever be like the AFL clubs we would need to have more seats available at Parramatta than the 20,000 there are now. Then you are turning people away from Ticketed membership because our Stadium just doesn't hold enough people. Maybe by the time we get to those sorts of numbers they will have added the 6 - 8 thousand more seats the end grandstands are supposed to generate.

 

[TheRam]

TBH the "stunt" on the weekend was such a non story. Why did the Telecrap bother ?

Apart from Fitzy (who is not part of the game any more), I would have hoped that the NRL had a whole bunch of their management at the ground watching everything very closely.

So true Gronk on both counts.

 

[TheRam]

?
what pr stunt?

Him going to the AFL on the weekend.

 

[born an eel]

found the article, I hadn't seen it previously.

Nothing in it really and I imagine he was there in his capacity of a Stadium trust director and was checking out the facilities.

Nowhere in the article did I get the feeling it was generated by DF himself as a PR stunt from him, actually he seemed to be trying to deflect any publicity or headlines.