Nick Bendel
If you build it, will they come?
September 10th 2008 07:02
Masses of empty seats at Saturday night's elimination final
If you build it, will they come?
This is the dilemma facing the AFL, as it plans to introduce a new team to western Sydney in time for the 2012 season.
With the Gold Coast Football Club due to enter the competition the year before, the Western Sydney Football Club, as it is currently known, will become the AFL’s 18th team. While there will be intelligence to be gleaned from the way in which the Coast conducts itself, and while lessons are there to be learned from the histories of the current 16 outfits (in particular the Swans), there is no doubt that WSFC is going to face a unique set of challenges. And it is these challenges that must have the AFL very concerned.
These challenges have always been real, but they have suddenly assumed greater significance since Saturday night, when not even 20,000 people could be bothered to attend the Swans’ elimination final against the Kangaroos. Although all sorts of excuses were offered- abysmal weather, poor marketing, economic uncertainty, unglamorous opposition- scant mention was made of the main reason: Sydney is not an Aussie Rules town.
That is despite the fact that we are now coming to the end of the Swans’ 27th season in the nation’s biggest city. Having struggled for credibility- and survival- during the first decade and a half, the old South Melbourne seemed to have turned a corner in 1996, when its run to the grand final generated a surge in media coverage and public sentiment that has essentially continued to this day. Yet while crowds, membership, merchandise sales and television ratings have all increased since those dark, early years, they have not increased- and show no sings of increasing- to the extent that the Swans can become a self-sustaining organisation. For despite the fact that the club has recently appeared in two grand finals, despite the fact that the club has recently won a flag, despite the fact that the club boasts the competition’s longest finals streak (six years and counting), it is still reliant on handouts from the AFL. Indeed, chairman Richard Colless has just conceded that a loss will be recorded for the 2008 season.
While Sydney may have finally taken the Swans to its heart, it regards the Bloods not with the ardour that one reserves for a lover, but the somewhat condescending affection that one bestows on an awkward friend. Grand finals for the Swans are somewhat like birthday parties for this friend- the outpouring of excitement and devotion may be genuine, but once the occasion has ended, the relationship continues on its former terms.
Sydney has long been, and for the foreseeable future will remain, a rugby league town. If the Swans’ presence has now been cemented, it is nevertheless a niche presence. The niche is larger than that occupied by the Melbourne Storm, yet a niche it still is, and a niche it will for the foreseeable future remain. Although all the promotions and all the Auskick clinics have grown the market for Aussie Rules in Sydney, they have not produced a sufficient return on investment, nor have they grown the market to the extent that even one team- let alone two- can sustain itself. While the AFL already knew this, Saturday’s crowd and Colless’s confession rammed home the message.
And that brings us back to the opening question: if you build it, will they come? It is the AFL’s belief that as things currently stand, the market can never be sufficiently increased to allow for the introduction of a team in the city’s western suburbs. Run all the promotions and clinics you like, this argument goes, but until the people of the west have someone to support, they will never embrace the game. Therefore it is the introduction of WSFC - and only the introduction of WSFC - that will create the conditions necessary for WSFC to survive. Build the club and suddenly more people will want to come along to an AFL game.
Although there is a certain logic to this argument, it is only of the most self-indulgent kind. The argument runs around in a circle, so as to be proven not by reason, but itself. Several years from now, however, fuzzy logic will no longer suffice. The AFL not only has a salary cap, it also has a floor below which player payments are not allowed to drop, which means that WSFC will be obliged to spend millions of dollars each year. If the Swans of 2008 cannot turn a profit, what will happen when an outfit bereft of tradition is plonked into an apathetic region?
Of course, the new club will have several advantages over the Swans of 1982. There will be derbies to excite the public, and if the market is not as large as it should be, it is certainly larger than that in which South Melbourne was dumped. But the fact remains that a lot of dollars will be needed- dollars that the Swans’ experience suggests WSFC will be unable to find.
The only conclusion to be reached is that the AFL is committing itself to an exorbitant project. Even once the enormous start-up costs have been paid, the league will have to provide ongoing support to not one, but two, NSW teams. Sooner or later, one would assume, both the Swans and WSFC will grow their respective Sydney markets large enough to become self-sustaining. However, if the last 27 years are anything to go by, it will almost certainly be later. The AFL is taking an enormous gamble with its 18th team. It will take tens of millions of dollars and decades for it to succeed.
| 69 |
| Vote |
