MITS, Idon't think 15000 ST holders is either feasible ir sustainable. I think it should be but for a numbr of reasons ( I don't know them all), it's not.
Parra fans (probably not just Parra though), are notoriously fickle, as we all know. When the team is doing poorly the number of empty seats outnumbers the full ones. Sad but true. Our average attendance from 2005 - 2008 was aprox 14000 (can't remember the exact figure you quoted). If you recall there were quite a number of games in 2005 that were sellouts which skew the figures. The same thing happened in 2001, however we can't plan based on having a season like that every 6 years (or whatever it hapens to be). If the team performed as it did in those years on a consistent basis then we wouldn't have a problem, but we know that can't happen.
I think there are roughly 6000 current season ticket holders, someone else may know the correct number. For mine 10000 is a more achievable number. The question is, how do we do it?
A couple of ideas of the top of my head with no real thought whatsoever.
- Make the tickets better value for money. By that I don't mean reduce the cost as that obviously eats into the profit the club needs to make. Perhaps we can include things within the price of the ticket. For example a players polo. There are no doubt better suggestions but again I've put next to no thought into it, however I believe the retail for aprox $60. The cost to the club would be significantly less and would add value to the ticket.
- The ability to pay for tickets by direct debit over a period of say 4 months. I think they already do somethng along these lines but I cant be sure. This would be especially helpful to families who are buying 4 or 5 or even more tickets at once. Taking the average of $215 x 4 is $860 jumping out of the family budget in the lead up to Christmas....a huge turn off to most people. Sure there are plenty of people who go with friends and only pay for 1 ticket that we need to attract but surely if we are after sustainability surely families are the way to go.Lock in the fans of tomorrow today.
- We need to make season ticket holders feel like they are part of the club. I don't know how we do this but a simple Season ticket holders forum doesn't cut it for me. Personally I have very little interest in attending one and from all reports on the turn out clearly I'm part of the large majority. The stadium tour was a definite step in the right direction but more needs to be done. Perhaps things like a season ticket holders golf day in the lead up to the season where each group has a part of the NRL squad playing with them. I don't really know and I'm sure you guys have some ideas in that respect.
- We also need to make a day at Parramatta stafium a real event. Alot of people (myself included) only really care about the football, and thats fine. But like me, these people are probably coming back regardless. It's the casual fan who comes along once or twice, or only when the team is winning that we want to lock up. There needs to be more done in this area. It also wouldn't hurt if you could buy a beer without missing half of either the NYC or NRL game...but thats just me.
Those are just some random thoughts off th top of my head. I'm sure you guys are full of better ideas than that or ways to improve on my ideas.
