Screw you Doom and Gloom - let the games begin

[beebarry]

This thread has veered so many times now it has a life of its own ......

[Moods]

It's ok to have an opinion but when you start backing up your opinions with furphies then your opinion lacks credibility...in my opinion

We averaged over 40K to all our games and also for all our home games in three consecutive years - 2008, 2009 and 2010 (including finals). You have to include finals because that is the main aim. That is the ultimate target for the footy club to prosper and grow

Interestingly...we also averaged over 40K in crowds at all home games in 2004 and 2005 excluding finals - more if you include finals games

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ta-st-kilda-saints

https://afltables.com/afl/crowds/stkilda.html

To put some context around this....

We have outperformed Richmond on-field since the inception of the AFL:

Club	Saints	Essendon	Carlton	Richmond	Collingwood
Avg. Ladder Position	9.3	8.3	10	10.2	8.0

	Saints	Essendon	Carlton	Richmond	Collingwood
Finals Played	25	32	22	13	33
Finals Won	11	15	11	6	19
Finals Appearances	10	17	9	7	14
Wooden Spoons	2	1	5	2	1
Flags	0	2	2	1	2
McLellan Trophys	2	5	1	1	2
GFs	3	3	3	1	6
Caught Cheating	0	2	1	0	0

Yet look at these attendance figures:

Since 2000, we average 64,848 to our finals games. And, that includes 3 Grand Finals!! 3!

Richmond, only played in 1 Grand Final, have averaged 81,889 to their finals. Note also, that they played GWS in one of them too, and another one was at Adelaide Oval when they shut the gates at 50k cause they couldn't fit anyone else in.

Those numbers absolutely dwarf ours. And, as stated, that has come off the back of us outperforming them for 20 years on-field.


As for H&A attendances:

We average 33,325 to our games since 2000. They average 43,193.


Now this is where it gets damning, and why we will never, ever be a 'big club':

When we were good, and they were terrible between 2008 and 2011 - we averaged 40,532 and they averaged 41,734!! They still fronted up in bigger numbers to watch their team get flogged.

Now when they've been good, and we've been bad over the past 6 years - they have averaged 50,422 compared to our 27,617!!

Even Carlton have averaged 37,936 over the past 6 years to their home games. Carlton FFS!!


The reason big clubs get big fixtures, has nothing to do with their on-field performance. Nothing at all. It has everything to do with their supporter base fronting up every week.

We don't have the supporter base. And if we do, they are clearly not of the social inclination to be rooted rocking up to watch footy every week. On the other hand, the nut cases that support Richmond, Essendon, Collingwood, Carlton etc. show up no matter what.

That hasn't changed in 100 years - and it never, ever will.

It's an interesting theory. I don't subscribe to the 'Collingwood and Carlton etc have more nutcases who go to watch them no matter what.' Potentially we could have a huge fan base. We own south of the yarra. There are literally tons of supporters in the bayside area who follow the Saints.

I recall growing up in the 70's and 80's when the Hawks were a power house. They always had low numbers to their games. And they were successful for decades. Something changed in the mid to late 2000's though. All those kids who loved the hawks growing up in my era but possibly didn't get to games because their parents wouldn't take them suddenly started turning up at Hawks games. Their membership has exploded. And that was before their 3 peat - that such boosted it more.

Supporter bases are generally rooted in family. The clubs that have been around over 120 years AND have had success all have huge supporter bases. I say you need much more than 5 years of success - you almost need a generation of success, like the hawks had. The Kangas had 5 years of success in the 90's. Didn't change anything for them.

The tiges have always had a huge supporter base, but like the saints, their supporters didn't go in huge numbers. Once they were successful they have all come out of the woodwork, They have always been there, just didn't turn up.

My point? If the Saints had of been able to transfer their success in the late 2000's into a flag or 2 AND remained finals competitive like the Cats and Swans for the last 7-8 years - I reckon we would have a membership in the mid to high 50K. Potentially we have a massive untapped fan base, we just can't get our act together.

[asiu]

[rodgerfox]

Supporter bases are generally rooted in family. The clubs that have been around over 120 years AND have had success all have huge supporter bases. I say you need much more than 5 years of success - you almost need a generation of success, like the hawks had. The Kangas had 5 years of success in the 90's. Didn't change anything for them.

Exactly. Success doesn't suddenly mean people start barracking for you. This is kind of my point. Clubs have supporters, and unless St Kilda supporters start breeding at a higher rate than other clubs, we simply will not attract new supporters at a differential to the big clubs to make a dent. Even if we picked up an extra 1000 supporters a year over every other club by some act of god - it'd still be 30 years until we even drew level with most clubs.

The clubs that are 'big' were born big. Historically, clubs represented suburbs. This is why Richmond, Carlton, Collingwood etc. have always been huge. Whilst clubs such Fitzroy, North and South Melbourne were wedged in between and never had large followings.

The tiges have always had a huge supporter base, but like the saints, their supporters didn't go in huge numbers. Once they were successful they have all come out of the woodwork, They have always been there, just didn't turn up.

Did you read the figures for Richmond's crowds I posted? Even when they were a wooden spooner, and we were up the top - they still had bigger crowd number than us.

My point? If the Saints had of been able to transfer their success in the late 2000's into a flag or 2 AND remained finals competitive like the Cats and Swans for the last 7-8 years - I reckon we would have a membership in the mid to high 50K. Potentially we have a massive untapped fan base, we just can't get our act together.

The on-field comparisons I posted date back to 1990. It's like nearly 30 years. We've outperformed Richmond and Carlton during this time - yet their attendances and memberships have always dwarfed ours. There is no meaningful, long term correlation between success and attendance for small clubs.

When we've been good - our crowds still sucked. When Richmond and Carlton and Essendon have been performing far, far worse than us for extended periods of time - their crowd numbers still monster ours.

We are a small club. We always will be. That will never, ever change.


It is possible, that back in the 80s or very early 90s even, that clubs still had the opportunity to build their base. It's my opinion that most rabid footy fans are old - and the anyone under the age of 40 is pretty much just a theatre goer these days.
This is the main reason why clubs will never dramatically build their supporter base, nor will they be able to sustain membership increases in the long term. Younger people don't really give a s***. My kids have changed teams about 3 times already, and have actually been to a game of footy once in their lives. However, we've been to the basketball many times. My kids have actually been more MLB games than they have AFL games!


Fans need to forget this pining about being a 'big and powerful' club. It's a fact that the AFL does NOT alter their fixture according to on-field performance. They structure their fixture around attendances. And as has been proven - we simply do not pull crowds, no matter how well we're doing on-field.

Richmond, Essendon, Carlton, Collingwood etc. pull big crowds no matter how good or bad they are. They always have. Unless we suddenly increase our average home game attendance by 20k (which is nearly double our highest ever!!) then we are not going to be fixtured for big games.

If we are not fixtured for big games, the gap between the 'big' clubs and us will just grow and grow a grow every year. Which is exactly what is happening, and will continue to happen. It will never, ever change.

[rodgerfox]

Check this out....

Club	Conversion Rate	Supporters	Members (2017)
Western Bulldogs	19.30%	247,000	47,653
Melbourne Demons	18.40%	229,000	42,233
Port Adelaide Power	17.50%	298,000	52,129
Richmond	16.40%	442,000	72,669
North	15.30%	263,000	40,343
Hawthorn Hawks	14.30%	528,000	75,663
St. Kilda Saints	14.30%	294,000	42,052
GWS Giants	12.00%	175,000	20,944
Collingwood Magpies	11.40%	663,000	75,879
Fremantle Dockers	11.20%	459,000	51,254
Gold Coast Suns	11.00%	106,000	11,665
Carlton Blues	10.80%	464,000	50,326
Geelong Cats	10.70%	515,000	54,854
Adelaide Crows	10.50%	541,000	56,865
Essendon Bombers	10.10%	671,000	67,768
West Coast Eagles	9.70%	669,000	65,064
Sydney Swans	4.90%	1,204,000	58,838
Brisbane Lions	4.40%	489,000	21,362

According to this poll, only a year ago, we only have 294,000 supporters. Carlton have 170,000 more than us! Hawthorn have nearly a quarter of a million more than us! Collingwood and Essendon have twice as many!!

So think about it logically - how TF could anyone ever expect us to become a 'big and powerful' club? Seriously.

[The Fireman]

we could be powerful by winning flags. surely that defines a powerful club.... so yeah you are right we aren't and won't be powerful

[asiu]

that leaves 252 k supporters
... hustle $10 a head

thats 2.5 mill

.... hustle that for 5 years
there’s our debt wiped

$10 a head

can’t be that hard surely

get Warney on board
flog a sticker and a like or a follow or whatever it is
on their social media account
for a tenner ‘n a 4 year committment

seriously

how hard would it be ?

get jackman onside as well

run a global sell off comp between him ‘n warney
(friendly rivalry)
flogging saints stickers and a ‘like’ for 10 bucks

ALL , for the love of the St Kilda FC

[asiu]

better up the quality of the stickers though !!!

[rodgerfox]

that leaves 252 k supporters
... hustle $10 a head

thats 2.5 mill

.... hustle that for 5 years
there’s our debt wiped

$10 a head

can’t be that hard surely

get Warney on board
flog a sticker and a like or a follow or whatever it is
on their social media account
for a tenner ‘n a 4 year committment

seriously

how hard would it be ?

get jackman onside as well

run a global sell off comp between him ‘n warney
(friendly rivalry)
flogging saints stickers and a ‘like’ for 10 bucks

ALL , for the love of the St Kilda FC

See, that's better perspective.

Busting a nut to get 10 crackers out of every single supporter, in addition to the dough the signed up members already pay - just to clear the debt. Not become powerful and ever draw big enough crowds to get a good fixture - just to clear the debt.

That puts our prospects of ever being a 'powerful' club into perspective.

[asiu]

i’m an ’ideas’ boy

doesn’t seem that hard to me

even i could talk warney ‘n jackman into that gig

surely mr seek dot com could make it happen

*******

then there’s the side benefits of such a campaign
709 of em
all positive that i can see

capped by the Clubs name being known EVERYWHERE

it really can’t be that hard
... get the people involved
... harness whatever it is , that we have going for us

even if that is our abilities in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

[rodgerfox]

we could be powerful by winning flags. surely that defines a powerful club.... so yeah you are right we aren't and won't be powerful

The Bulldogs won a flag - and aren't powerful. Never will be.

North won two on the late 90s - not powerful.

The powerful clubs are the clubs that have always. Been big in terms of their supporter base. It's never changed, and never will.

I don't know why fans pine for their club to be 'big' and 'powerful'. It has literally zero impact on anything.

[Cairnsman]

we could be powerful by winning flags. surely that defines a powerful club.... so yeah you are right we aren't and won't be powerful

The Bulldogs won a flag - and aren't powerful. Never will be.

North won two on the late 90s - not powerful.

The powerful clubs are the clubs that have always. Been big in terms of their supporter base. It's never changed, and never will.

I don't know why fans pine for their club to be 'big' and 'powerful'. It has literally zero impact on anything.

Envy is man's greatest debilitating emotion.

[guitars4]

we could be powerful by winning flags. surely that defines a powerful club.... so yeah you are right we aren't and won't be powerful

The Bulldogs won a flag - and aren't powerful. Never will be.

North won two on the late 90s - not powerful.

The powerful clubs are the clubs that have always. Been big in terms of their supporter base. It's never changed, and never will.

I don't know why fans pine for their club to be 'big' and 'powerful'. It has literally zero impact on anything.

I agree we could win 3 premierships in a row like the Lions & we would still be a minnow in the big scheme of things like they are now .However I do agree that success is a key factor to our survival as a stand alone club & if we don't get it right we will be history. It's in the movers & shakers hands & they really need to get their act together for the benefit of all Saints fans or there won't be

[thejiggingsaint]

The Round One match against Gold Coast Suns was hardly the stuff to get euphoric about....... by the same token, it was a WIN. So I will happily bank that. It's quite often difficult to assess prospects for an entire season based on early rounds...Unless of course we're copping massive floggings or dishing one out ourselves! I'm well aware of being labelled a "Blue Sky Brigadier" when I attempt to be optimistic. At this stage of the season I see no gain in being overly negative, so ...for now... no "Doom & Gloom" for the Jiggster. Que sera, sera.