The Case for Adelaide.....

[reanimate]

I'm sorry but most of this is just totally baseless conjecture.

Every club has jumps in support when they are successful, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that the Swans jumps in memberships since the late 90s, and particularly after their GF wins, had anything to do with latent support from South Melbourne.

Any team that has similar periods of success see's similar growth in support as the Swans have, and nobody in their right mind would suggest that it's for any reason other than their success, and using Occam's razor there's no reason to believe that it's any different for the Swans.

I'm only talking about their jumps in support in Melbourne, not overall. I'm suggesting their jumps in support there after their GF wins were at least partially due to latent South Melbourne supporters, that had drifted away since the team's struggles in the 70s-80s and relocation, getting back on board. All those people that would still casually follow the team, but might not pay to go and see them or pay for an interstate membership etc.

Here's a page that gathered quotes from news articles along with membership numbers:

It’s been suggested that 1/3rd of Swans members are based in Melbourne by some in the Rugby league fraternity,

The Age reported that Swans memberships in 2013 were approaching 10,000 (on a then current figure of 8,000 before Round 1 that year) – a record for them in the Victorian capital. The same year they had a membership total of over 36,358, which suggests that the proportion is closer to a quarter than a third.

Swans team of the century player Tony Morwood, who runs the club’s Victorian office, said membership was more than 8000 four weeks before the round-one clash with Greater Western Sydney, compared to 5700 for the same time last year, and was on track to exceed 10,000. The previous high was 9500 Victorian members after the 2006 grand final.

The previous record of 9,500 was set in a year where membership reached 30,382, and making the perception of a third a reality. at the time.

In September 2016, The Age reported that there were more than 12,000 paid up Melbourne based members out of the clubs reported total of 56,000.

Sydney Swans team of the century player Tony Morwood, who runs the club’s Victorian office, says local membership is steadily growing.

“We have over 12,000 paid-up members in Victoria. It is the strongest of any [interstate] club,” Mr Morwood says. “And it comes back to our history. There are generations of families who have stuck to the red and white colours.”

Melbourne memberships have at times represented anywhere from a quarter to a third of the Swans' membership base. That's a huge percentage.

Also South Melbourne were a small club by AFL standards, but by general standards they were relatively strong, I mean take their average attendance in the ten years proceeding their relocation:

1972 - 14263
1973 - 12602
1974 - 12369
1975 - 13306
1976 - 16331
1977 - 18139
1978 - 20060
1979 - 16936
1980 - 18434
1981 - 16849

Sure they were struggling financially and struggling on the pitch, but were they a small club. . . I don't think so. I mean, by NRL standards today they'd be one of the biggest...

We're talking about AFL, they were one of the smaller and struggling clubs. By other sports' standards, maybe you wouldn't consider them a struggling club, but by the AFL's standards they were.

 

[reanimate]

Again I'm not arguing against relocation, just stupid ways of attempting to relocate... Like trying to actively support both fan bases, thus trying to be everything to everybody, thus alienating everybody.

For every Lakers there's a Cleveland Barons, and we can learn just as much from the Barons failure as we can from the Lakers success.

I agree with you somewhat when it comes to tackling new locations. If, for example, the Sharks were relocated and became the West Coast Sharks, or the Adelaide Sharks, I agree with you that they should be all in when it comes to playing in their new city. I don't think they should do any splits between playing in their new city and playing home games in Sydney or retain any territory in Sydney. They should play all home games out of their new city and fully commit to the city from juniors and up.

I do, however, think they should come up with Sydney membership packages that would allow their Sydney based fans to feel like they're a part of the club and to get to games when they're playing away games in Sydney. Those memberships are obviously very successful in the AFL and should be replicated with any relocated NRL teams in the future.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

I agree with you somewhat when it comes to tackling new locations. If, for example, the Sharks were relocated and became the West Coast Sharks, or the Adelaide Sharks, I agree with you that they should be all in when it comes to playing in their new city. I don't think they should do any splits between playing in their new city and playing home games in Sydney or retain any territory in Sydney. They should play all home games out of their new city and fully commit to the city from juniors and up.

I do, however, think they should come up with Sydney membership packages that would allow their Sydney based fans to feel like they're a part of the club and to get to games when they're playing away games in Sydney. Those memberships are obviously very successful in the AFL and should be replicated with any relocated NRL teams in the future.

No one was suggesting splits on "home" grounds is a viable option that i've read if that's the inference.. I certainly wasn't.

Simply put - if a relocated team plays back in Sydney, against whoever at wherever, they will have support at these games from their "original" fan base. Whereas supporters for a brand new interstate club will be limited/possibly zilch. It's a benefit - not a reason to relocate anyone nor a pillar for a business case.

Relocations have worked in Australia. Many relocations overseas have worked, and others haven't. All have their individual aspects. It's not everyones' preferred option but viable nonetheless.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

Melbourne memberships have at times represented anywhere from a quarter to a third of the Swans' membership base. That's a huge percentage.

Indeed!

 

[reanimate]

No one was suggesting splits on "home" grounds is a viable option that i've read if that's the inference.. I certainly wasn't.

Simply put - if a relocated team plays back in Sydney, against whoever at wherever, they will have support at these games from their "original" fan base. Whereas supporters for a brand new interstate club will be limited/possibly zilch. It's a benefit - not a reason to relocate anyone nor a pillar for a business case.

Relocations have worked in Australia. Many relocations overseas have worked, and others haven't. All have their individual aspects. It's not everyones' preferred option but viable nonetheless.

I agree 100%. It was in relation to Great Dane’s point that you can’t please everyone by trying to appeal to both markets. That’s where, in my opinion, the new Bears’ bids come up short. The Gold Coast Bears and West Coast Bears ideas both included rhetoric about playing 1-2 games at North Sydney Oval/Central Coast Stadium. I don’t think that idea, or the idea of a relocated club holding onto their old Sydney territory in any official capacity, would be the right approach. The Swans/Lions approach is the right one; play all games at their new home ground and go all in on development in their new city, but continue to market memberships to fans back in Sydney as away members that can go to games and still see them.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

And if you look at any NRL match in Sydney where interstate teams are are playing... these are matches with little "away" support, smaller crowds as a result (unless its a top of the table blockbuster and the like). They are also ones that can often get moved to a regional area in order to get a cash-injection.

If you had even 2,3k extra fans at these games - fans of the "away" team... that's a big boost. You'd expect more though based on the experience of the Swans etc - even given fans who'd be pissed off and "lost to the game".. I'd bet my left nut that if the Bears were resurrected and sent to Adelaide in full kit and recognising its roots, it'd attract loads of fans in both cities.

Again I'm not advocating relocation and far prefer "grow your own", but relocations would work if managed well.

This ie a really great point!

Turn the Wests Tigers into rhe Western Tigers or Western Magpies, split their games between Perth Oval and Campbelltown. The six games at Perth Oval could be against NQ, Bris, GC, Mel, Can and NZ. The crowd numbers for those gamed in Perth would probably be better than what they would get at Campbelltown.

 

[greenBV4]

I agree 100%. It was in relation to Great Dane’s point that you can’t please everyone by trying to appeal to both markets. That’s where, in my opinion, the new Bears’ bids come up short. The Gold Coast Bears and West Coast Bears ideas both included rhetoric about playing 1-2 games at North Sydney Oval/Central Coast Stadium. I don’t think that idea, or the idea of a relocated club holding onto their old Sydney territory in any official capacity, would be the right approach. The Swans/Lions approach is the right one; play all games at their new home ground and go all in on development in their new city, but continue to market memberships to fans back in Sydney as away members that can go to games and still see them.

I agree with not having "home" games in the old market, but what about being allowed to keep some of the junior catchment if they are still going to maintain a leagues club? and maybe also run/have ties to a club keeping the old name in the nsw cup as a feeder club

 

[The Great Dane]

I'm only talking about their jumps in support in Melbourne, not overall. I'm suggesting their jumps in support there after their GF wins were at least partially due to latent South Melbourne supporters, that had drifted away since the team's struggles in the 70s-80s and relocation, getting back on board. All those people that would still casually follow the team, but might not pay to go and see them or pay for an interstate membership etc.

I was only talking about their support in Melbourne as well, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that their jumps in support had anything to do with anything other than their success, just like the Storm's, Rooster's, and Richmond's jumps in support across the country after their GF wins.

It's Occum's Razor, 'the simplest answer is most often correct'.

Now if you have hard reason to believe what you do, then great, show me the evidence.

Here's a page that gathered quotes from news articles along with membership numbers:

Why are quoting the source I provided you back to me?

Melbourne memberships have at times represented anywhere from a quarter to a third of the Swans' membership base. That's a huge percentage.

When members from Melbourne represented a quarter to a third of their membership base that was still only a group of around 10k and under.
In other words the fact that their membership from Melbourne was ever a quarter to a third of their membership base is more a reflection of the size of their support in Sydney at the time, than it is on the size of their support in Melbourne.

You are also still assuming that all, or even the majority, of those 10ish thousand members are connected to South Melbourne when there's no evidence to believe that is the case.

We're talking about AFL, they were one of the smaller and struggling clubs. By other sports' standards, maybe you wouldn't consider them a struggling club, but by the AFL's standards they were.

You've totally missed the point. . .

If, as you assert, the Swans had successfully maintained a strong fan base in South Melbourne, then going by the size of their fan base prior to the relocation you'd expect a larger fan base from South Melbourne to still be following them.

In other words, you'd expect them to have a large and solid fan base in Melbourne from day one (i.e. significantly more than 10k members from day dot), they don't and they never did.
You'd expect them to have a particularly large away attendance in Melbourne, they don't and they never have.

You'd expect a bunch of other stuff as well, like unusually large merchandise sales in Melbourne for a team based outside of Melbourne, unusually high ratings in Melbourne compared to comparable clubs, etc. Now I can't be bothered to try to find their stats on those, but considering that the other two aren't the case I'm going to guess that the Swans don't have particularly high merch sales or ratings in Melbourne when compared to similar clubs like West Coast or Adelaide.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

I agree with not having "home" games in the old market, but what about being allowed to keep some of the junior catchment if they are still going to maintain a leagues club? and maybe also run/have ties to a club keeping the old name in the nsw cup as a feeder club

That's an insult to the fans in Sydney. You're more or less telling them their job is to invest their money and time playing the game and running junior competitons, then hand over the rewards to Adelaide and Perth.

What does Sydney get out of it?

 

[T-Boon]

I must be the only fan of splitting home games.
I don't think Adelaide would be worthy of 12 games presently nor Perth for that matter. 6-8 would be plenty. The other 4-6 could be played at the old home ground of the club (eg Sharks).

To me that is a better deal than sitting around waiting for something that is not going to come, Perth and Adelaide are only getting teams if its through relocation and the above model would be a fine relocation option for the new city and a better deal for the old suburb as they still get some home games.

 

[reanimate]

I was only talking about their support in Melbourne as well, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that their jumps in support had anything to do with anything other than their success, just like the Storm's, Rooster's, and Richmond's jumps in support across the country after their GF wins.

It's Occum's Razor, 'the simplest answer is most often correct'.

Now if you have hard reason to believe what you do, then great, show me the evidence.

I highly doubt the Roosters are getting membership boosts in the thousands in cities like Adelaide and Melbourne after a premiership win. I can see West Coast getting that, as they’re one of only two teams in Perth and there’s a lot of Perth transplants in Melbourne.

You keep saying Occam’s razor, but I think Occam’s razor favours my argument. The Swans have a strong Melbourne base and got a big membership boost in Melbourne after their premierships, such a big boost in fact that those members compromise a third to a quarter of their base at times. Is the reason for that:

A) The Swans are a former Melbourne based club who maintain a link with their old Melbourne base. They actively try and keep both their old fans and their descendants in the city involved with the club and the premierships brought a lot of old jaded fans in the city who had drifted away back on board. (The Swans themselves say this the reason they’re the club with the biggest interstate membership base.)

B) All clubs in all codes get the same big boost of members in other cities, but none of them ever promote that information or their numbers like the Swans do, despite the fact that it would be extremely attractive to sponsors and would be a major bragging point for the club.

You are also still assuming that all, or even the majority, of those 10ish thousand members are connected to South Melbourne when there's no evidence to believe that is the case.

There’s far less evidence that the Swans have just plucked them out of nowhere in some generic post-premiership membership boost that just happens to be particularly big in Melbourne. The Swans themselves put down the fact that they’re the club with the biggest interstate membership base to their South Melbourne connection and their efforts to re-engage it and keep it alive.

If, as you assert, the Swans had successfully maintained a strong fan base in South Melbourne, then going by the size of their fan base prior to the relocation you'd expect a larger fan base from South Melbourne to still be following them.

In other words, you'd expect them to have a large and solid fan base in Melbourne from day one (i.e. significantly more than 10k members from day dot), they don't and they never did.
You'd expect them to have a particularly large away attendance in Melbourne, they don't and they never have.

You'd expect a bunch of other stuff as well, like unusually large merchandise sales in Melbourne for a team based outside of Melbourne, unusually high ratings in Melbourne compared to comparable clubs, etc. Now I can't be bothered to try to find their stats on those, but considering that the other two aren't the case I'm going to guess that the Swans don't have particularly high merch sales or ratings in Melbourne when compared to similar clubs like West Coast or Adelaide.

Why would you expect that? The South Melbourne base had to be won back. There’s no chance most of their fans were happy they were leaving and becoming a Sydney club. There would have been some true believers who supported them through thick and thin, but that group would be small. The far larger group would be composed of those who refused to support the club anymore and those who, to various degrees, understood why they had to go and kept casually supporting the club, but weren't particularly moved to show up to games, be members or buy merch given that the club had left the city and were still playing like shit. The early Sydney Swans performances wouldn't have enamoured any of those people who become casual supporters, it just would have felt like more of the same, just with the team being far away now. Those drifters were there to be won back and they obviously succeeded with some of them.

 

[The Great Dane]

No one was suggesting splits on "home" grounds is a viable option that i've read if that's the inference.. I certainly wasn't.

Nor was I talking about splitting games. You don't need to split games to split the fan base.

Again I use the Chargers as the example, this is a good general response from football fans in LA to the idea of the Chargers playing in LA.

All I'm saying is that it's very easy to stuff up a relocation, and a great way to do that is to only have one foot in the door...

Relocations have worked in Australia. Many relocations overseas have worked, and others haven't. All have their individual aspects. It's not everyones' preferred option but viable nonetheless.

I am not arguing that relocation can't work or that they shouldn't happen in the NRL, I am simply arguing that, like with all things, there are good and bad ways to go about relocation, and the ideas you were putting forward of trying to represent both the old and the new market have proven to be really bad ideas in the past.

 

[T-Boon]

I am not arguing that relocation can't work or that they shouldn't happen in the NRL, I am simply arguing that, like with all things, there are good and bad ways to go about relocation, and the ideas you were putting forward of trying to represent both the old and the new market have proven to be really bad ideas in the past.

when has it been tried in Australia?

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

This ie a really great point!

Turn the Wests Tigers into rhe Western Tigers or Western Magpies, split their games between Perth Oval and Campbelltown. The six games at Perth Oval could be against NQ, Bris, GC, Mel, Can and NZ. The crowd numbers for those gamed in Perth would probably be better than what they would get at Campbelltown.

Ahh - it's not what I meant mate. I meant more that - for example - If the Adelaide "Bears" were playing in Sydney against Manly at Brookvale.... you'd get loads of old Nth Sydney bears fans at the game... versus the Adelaide Rams playing at Brookie where you'd get sweet FA. Ie the crowd at Brookie would be bigger for Bears than Rams. Just an example.. It's simply a benefit to the Sydney Clubs' gate, and the NRL overall.

I don't think that splitting home games between cities is the way to go.. (ie for the example above - between Adelaide and Nth Sydney Oval). But that's just my opinion.

The GWS Giants do that. Homebush and Canberra. I simply don't get it. Until I caught a flight back to Sydney one night and the whole team were on my plane. I got chatting to the bloke next to me, one of the senior managers there. I asked him why and simply put - it was to boost memberships and thus revenue. I get the business angle there, but to me is bastardises why the team is there in the first place - to represent Greater Western SYDNEY. Its only a few games a year but at the same time, to me it just defeats the purpose of establishing a team in an area and trying to grow it.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

I agree 100%. It was in relation to Great Dane’s point that you can’t please everyone by trying to appeal to both markets. That’s where, in my opinion, the new Bears’ bids come up short. The Gold Coast Bears and West Coast Bears ideas both included rhetoric about playing 1-2 games at North Sydney Oval/Central Coast Stadium. I don’t think that idea, or the idea of a relocated club holding onto their old Sydney territory in any official capacity, would be the right approach. The Swans/Lions approach is the right one; play all games at their new home ground and go all in on development in their new city, but continue to market memberships to fans back in Sydney as away members that can go to games and still see them.

Yep that's where I'm at too. Just replied to GROTD's post similarly, with the GWS as an example - and they haven't even relocated!

 

[reanimate]

I agree with not having "home" games in the old market, but what about being allowed to keep some of the junior catchment if they are still going to maintain a leagues club? and maybe also run/have ties to a club keeping the old name in the nsw cup as a feeder club

It just makes things really messy. It could be done well, but say Cronulla gets relocated to Adelaide but gets to keep their NSWRL district and NSW Cup side (I know they don't have one at the moment, but for argument's sake let's say they do), if RL in the area dies off as a result of the anger from the relocation, I can't see a team based in Adelaide being able to rekindle League in their former area as well as that district being merged back into being part of St George and it being handled by them. Both scenarios would be met with anger, but St George being next door on both sides makes access, integration and development much easier than trying to maintain an active link with Adelaide.

I could be wrong though, the Storm and the Sunshine Coast do a good job in partnership with each other, despite being in different states. It's all about execution. The Rugby League dead zone in Sydney's North Shore is the situation that has to be avoided, no matter what approach you take.

 

[Bring back John Fifita]

Nor was I talking about splitting games. You don't need to split games to split the fan base.

Again I use the Chargers as the example, this is a good general response from football fans in LA to the idea of the Chargers playing in LA.

All I'm saying is that it's very easy to stuff up a relocation, and a great way to do that is to only have one foot in the door...

I am not arguing that relocation can't work or that they shouldn't happen in the NRL, I am simply arguing that, like with all things, there are good and bad ways to go about relocation, and the ideas you were putting forward of trying to represent both the old and the new market have proven to be really bad ideas in the past.

Hello again Dane..

Firstly - all good. And yes I do agree that there's good and bad ways of going about it.

Secondly - I'm not promoting what you seem to think I am. So let me clarify and restate if this helps..

• A BENEFIT of having an existing Sydney team relocate interstate would be that, if managed correctly, there is a guaranteed base of fans who would attend games in Sydney... Eg as above in my reply to GROTD's post. Just an example..
• A benefit is not an idea to make relocation work, a reason to relocate, or a pillar on which a relocated team must rely on for success. There are far more important need in a business case to ensure success.
• I am NOT suggesting splitting home games or anything of the like.

Previous relocations have absolutely worked in Australia. For example I believe the Swans have done outstandingly well as a team that's been able to relocate to a new state while still maintaining a large, core group of fans in their origins. For decades. They are "Sydney", play home games in Sydney, are known to fans as "Sydney" but also respect and recognise their roots (eg SMFC on their jerseys). @reanimate made a very good point that a 3rd/quarter of the Swans Membership base is in Melbourne. That's an enormous number. In no way do I see this as unsuccessful. Similarly for the Brisbane Lions.

So - it's not an idea. its a benefit.

Tracing back to the original question in this thread that raised all this, I think from @T-Boon , would relocation work...

I think yes it would. And a benefit of such a situation is as I've reconfirmed above.

 

[The Great Dane]

I highly doubt the Roosters are getting membership boosts in the thousands in cities like Adelaide and Melbourne after a premiership win. I can see West Coast getting that, as they’re one of only two teams in Perth and there’s a lot of Perth transplants in Melbourne.

What about Brisbane, Newcastle, Canberra, etc. . . I mean those are the more applicable comparisons in the context of the NRL, and I've got no doubt that the Roosters, Storm, whoever, see relatively large jumps in support across the board in those cities after their successes.

That jump may not show up as prominently in memberships numbers in the NRL, but A. unless you can find a break down of the clubs membership numbers we don't know that for a fact, and B. memberships aren't as prominent in the NRL in the first place so you wouldn't expect such a dramatic jump in memberships like you see in the AFL. Merch sales would probably be a better indicator in the NRL.

You keep saying Occam’s razor, but I think Occam’s razor favours my argument. The Swans have a strong Melbourne base and got a big membership boost in Melbourne after their premierships, such a big boost in fact that those members compromise a third to a quarter of their base at times. Is the reason for that:

If you truly think that, then frankly, you don't understand Occam's razor...

A) The Swans are a former Melbourne based club who maintain a link with their old Melbourne base. They actively try and keep both their old fans and their descendants in the city involved with the club and the premierships brought a lot of old jaded fans in the city who had drifted away back on board. (The Swans themselves say this the reason they’re the club with the biggest interstate membership base.)

B) All clubs in all codes get the same big boost of members in other cities, but none of them ever promote that information or their numbers like the Swans do, despite the fact that it would be extremely attractive to sponsors and would be a major bragging point for the club.

Again this is just baseless speculation.

You've literally not shown one piece of hard evidence to back any of this.

There’s far less evidence that the Swans have just plucked them out of nowhere in some generic post-premiership membership boost that just happens to be particularly big in Melbourne. The Swans themselves put down the fact that they’re the club with the biggest interstate membership base to their South Melbourne connection and their efforts to re-engage it and keep it alive.

I never said they only picked up fans after premierships, just that they picked up more after successful years (which is true of every club) and every club spontaneously picks up fans outside of their target market all the time, there's nothing unusual or strange about that at all.

You're assuming that the Swans fan base in Melbourne is particularly big compared to other clubs, which I highly doubt, I'd bet that all the larger clubs from outside of Melbourne have relatively sizable fan bases in Melbourne.

Finally, unless you've got a breakdown of all the AFL clubs membership numbers, we don't actually know that the Swans have the largest interstate membership.

Why would you expect that? The South Melbourne base had to be won back. There’s no chance most of their fans were happy they were leaving and becoming a Sydney club. There would have been some true believers who supported them through thick and thin, but that group would be small. The far larger group would compromise those who refused to support the club anymore and those who, to various degrees, understood why they had to go and kept casually supporting the club, but weren't particularly moved to show up to games, be members or buy merch given that the club had left the city and were still playing like shit. The early Sydney Swans performances wouldn't have enamoured any of those people who become casual supporters, it just would have felt like more of the same, just with the team being far away now. Those drifters were there to be won back and they obviously succeeded with some of them.

If "they balanced adopting their new city and retaining their old fans and branding quite well" then you'd expect a big portion of their old fan base to be on board with the club despite the relocation, which again, you simply don't see.

In the lead up to their relocation their average attendance was hitting 20k (which wasn't particularly unusual throughout their history), to support an average attendance of that size you need a fan base that is quite a bit larger than that, so that means that they had tens of thousands of fans of varying degree.

Even if we take their highest number of Melbourne members of 12k, assume that all of them are old South Melbourne fans (which is an utterly asinine thing to do), are you really going to tell me that 12k out of the tens of thousands of fans is successfully "balancing adopting their new city and retaining their old fans and branding quite well"?!

Realistically the number of fans connected to South Melbourne is probably a lot less than that 12k, let's say 5k if we are being generous, which is f**king nothing in the context of either the Sydney Swans or the South Melbourne Swans.

 

[reanimate]

What about Brisbane, Newcastle, Canberra, etc. . . I mean those are the more applicable comparisons in the context of the NRL, and I've got no doubt that the Roosters, Storm, whoever, see relatively large jumps in support across the board in those cities after their successes.

That jump may not show up as prominently in memberships numbers in the NRL, but A. unless you can find a break down of the clubs membership numbers we don't know that for a fact, and B. memberships aren't as prominent in the NRL in the first place so you wouldn't expect such a dramatic jump in memberships like you see in the AFL. Merch sales would probably be a better indicator in the NRL.

That's, as you keep saying, baseless speculation. I've no doubt they see some sort of jump in other areas, but not the huge numbers and huge percentage of their membership base that the Swans enjoy from Melbourne.

If you truly think that, then frankly, you don't understand Occam's razor...

Again this is just baseless speculation.

You've literally not shown one piece of hard evidence to back any of this.

I have- the Swans note that they're the club with the biggest interstate membership base and have provided figures, there is nothing from any other club that challenges that notion, nor are there any figures that challenge that notion. You keep rejecting this in favour of some vague notion that all big clubs must have big membership bases in other cities. West Coast has 80-90k members, far more than the Swans- why aren't they trumpeting their obviously bigger than 12k interstate member base in Melbourne to garner more corporate support and sponsorship dollars?

You're assuming that the Swans fan base in Melbourne is particularly big compared to other clubs, which I highly doubt, I'd bet that all the larger clubs from outside of Melbourne have relatively sizable fan bases in Melbourne.

'I highly doubt', i.e. you're speculating.

If "they balanced adopting their new city and retaining their old fans and branding quite well" then you'd expect a big portion of their old fan base to be on board with the club despite the relocation, which again, you simply don't see.

I never said they nailed it out of the gate, they've built on it and made it work over the years, despite the pain of the relocation and of the team's continued poor performances for years. It was always going to be hard work, but now they enjoy sizeable fan and membership bases in both cities.

Even if we take their highest number of Melbourne members of 12k, assume that all of them are old South Melbourne fans (which is an utterly asinine thing to do), are you really going to tell me that 12k out of the tens of thousands of fans is successfully "balancing adopting their new city and retaining their old fans and branding quite well"?!

When those 12k are a third of their membership base, as it is in some years, absolutely it is.

 

[The Great Dane]

Hello again Dane..

Firstly - all good. And yes I do agree that there's good and bad ways of going about it.

Secondly - I'm not promoting what you seem to think I am. So let me clarify and restate if this helps..

You are promoting exactly what I think you are.

You are trying to promote the idea a relocated team that spends a lot of time trying to actively engage with the fan base in their old market along with the new one.

That never works how the owners want it to and always sours both markets to some degree, in other words it's a bad way of going about relocation.

A BENEFIT of having an existing Sydney team relocate interstate would be that, if managed correctly, there is a guaranteed base of fans who would attend games in Sydney... Eg as above in my reply to GROTD's post. Just an example..

Show me one actual real world example where that has actually happened!

Look at the Swan's average away attendance, now compare it with other similar clubs from outside of Melbourne like the West Coast, Adelaide, and Brisbane. What you find is that apart from the odd year where Sydney and and West Coast's numbers have jumped up past 35k, all of their average away attendances are pretty similar.

If the Swans (or for that matter Lions) had abnormally large fan bases in Melbourne made up of supporters of the team before they relocated then you'd expect that their away attendances to be significantly larger than other similar clubs, but that simply isn't the case.

A benefit is not an idea to make relocation work, a reason to relocate, or a pillar on which a relocated team must rely on for success. There are far more important need in a business case to ensure success.

All of those things are important questions for the business to answer before they relocate, otherwise their relocation is doomed to fail. So honestly I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say.

I am NOT suggesting splitting home games or anything of the like.

I never suggested that you were, and you don't need to be for your ideas to still be bad ones.

Previous relocations have absolutely worked in Australia. For example I believe the Swans have done outstandingly well as a team that's been able to relocate to a new state while still maintaining a large, core group of fans in their origins. For decades. They are "Sydney", play home games in Sydney, are known to fans as "Sydney" but also respect and recognise their roots (eg SMFC on their jerseys). @reanimate made a very good point that a 3rd/quarter of the Swans Membership base is in Melbourne. That's an enormous number. In no way do I see this as unsuccessful. Similarly for the Brisbane Lions.

I never suggested that relocation can't work in Australia, which suggests you are the one misunderstanding me and not the other way around.

There's no evidence that the Swans have maintained a large group of South Melbourne fans. Literally not one piece of actual hard data has been presented that they have. Also who cares what tokenistic crap they have on their jersey if there's no evidence that it's actually had any real world impact.

Finally if you had actually follow the argument and read what data we have you'd know that Reanimate's "very good point" that a ¼ to ⅓ of the Swans Membership base is in Melbourne, A. was in the past not now, B. sounds like a bigger deal than it was when in reality that ¼ to ⅓ only represented a max of 10k people, and C. there is literally no evidence whatsoever that it was made up mainly of old South Melbourne fans.
Basically the quarter to third thing was a fancy way of making the statistic sound more significant than it actually was, you know, lies, damned lies, and statistics.

BTW, there's even less evidence of a large group of old Fitzroy supporters than there is of old South Melbourne supporters.

So - it's not an idea. its a benefit.

The problem with your "benefit" is that there's no evidence behind it to support that it is actually a benefit at all, and there's good evidence that suggests it doesn't actually work the way you expect it to.

That evidence doesn't only come from here in Australia (as been discussed), I mean look through the relocation histories of teams like the Rams or Sacramento Kings, the picture's pretty clear that even when they tried to maintain their old fan bases they couldn't do it in any significant numbers and it hurt their business in the new market.