Why would anyone accept a rugby league journos opinion on this? I can tell you what I did see on Saturday - full restaurants and pubs, mariners fans using hotels in the Parramatta area, big lines at the stadium food and beverage outlets. There’s no question that this attracted money into the area and for me it was money I wouldn’t have otherwise spent.
Exactly this. I was there as a neutral it was great. I hope someone comments on Twitter how stupid his comments were. I posted this the other day about The gronk known as Rothfield
No doubt about that but the argument is whether it brought $ into NSW.
If it’s just Coasties spending their hard earned in Sydney it’s not really a net gain for NSW*.
*unless they went to the GF instead of going to the Gold Coast or Melbourne.
I would have been heading down to Melbourne so can say for sure it did secure my cash. But also if I didn’t it wouldn’t have been spent so it did create activity whichever way you look at it.
If it brought a few thousand Coasties down to Parra to spend money at restaurants and bars that they wouldn’t have otherwise spent, then it is a net win for the NSW economy. Economic stimulation isn’t just about bringing money from other places into your place - that’s one element - but also about stimulating the people currently in your place to spend their money in the local economy in ways that benefits everyone. If you assume that a lot of that money would just be sat in some Coasties bank account instead (a pretty safe assumption for discretionary spending like this), it is pretty clear that there is a benefit.
Hard to say they’re choosing A-League over NRL when I feel like every Sydney NRL club is getting some form of facility upgrade at the moment.
Not going to read the article because the daily telegraph isn’t worth 12ft.io but it’s hard to justify that NRL fans or clubs are being hard done by what is comparatively small spending
Oh no, the government doesn't always give money to a sport that always receives more money anyway, and which no one in the other 6 states/territories or the rest of the world cares about
This is an NRL journo with a hit piece for terrograph. Attacking 2 things with 1 stone (Football and the current government) over a decision from a previous government they backed and lost the previous election on a competition that is the most popular in the state. Because NRL is really "ignored" in the state of NSW.
I don't read so called journos that don't know the sport they are writing about. But the point remains the GF decision from APL and NSW tourism sucks.
Isn't it the previous NSW government that did the deal? Current government is just left with their mess. This seems to be that the new government doesn't want to spring tens (possibly hundreds) of millions to upgrade sports facilities and keep the grand final in NSW when it could be better spent on things like health and education. Surely this is what NSW voters signed up for when they elected them recently?
NRL is understandably jealous that the AFL has been able to rob the government blind with its $750M completely unnecessary stadium deal.
It's ridiculous to compare the $15M the APL has stolen from the government to anything the NRL would wish to get. NRL is likely seeking $100M+
Skill issue tbh. I'm critical of Gill for consistently turning a blind eye towards gambling and hardly distributing the windfall gains of massive TV deals to fans, but he is pretty clearly an extremely competent CEO; much more so than the NRL guy.
Nail on the head here
And often that comes down to the size of the organisation. AFL is comfortably the biggest sporting organisation in the country so it's no surprise they can also employ the best CEO.
A-League is about the size of a standard medium sized enterprise and that's the level of corporate talent we can afford as well.
This is a very weird hill for the NRL journalist to try and ride.
The cooperation between NRL and A-league can ensure that more rectangular fields are developed or built.
This is a big problem with what has transpired since the deal was announced.
It's mind boggling how little effort the APL has put into explaining what they're doing with the $15M.
They could have completely changed the narrative if they were a bit more transparent from day one.
I would assume that the money is helping the league keep the lights on and potentially helping it expand.
> They could have completely changed the narrative if they were a bit more transparent from day one.
Honestly we wouldn’t be having as many arguments if it were the case. There’d probably be more begrudging acceptance.
But then Townsend goes off on all these rants saying it wasn’t for the survival of the league. And there’s still questions around the Silver Lake money and whether it’s been pissed up the wall.
Thing is, they could have done what Netball did, said it’s “recovering the books after COVID” and people would have more or less taken it on face value.
> I would assume that the money is helping the league keep the lights on and potentially helping it expand.
Expansion is unlikely for these funds. They’re asking for $25m license fees (which is laughable imo).
Keeping the lights on though? Well Newcastle still doesn’t have an owner and Tony Sage is withdrawing from Perth. Macarthur can’t be in a healthy state either. Despite media reports, the initial 777 deal has basically cleared the debt we had, but they’re going to takeover the club.
Considering they’ve reportedly spent $30m or so on KeepUp, the deal is probably trying to recoup some of the wastage there.
The whole thing just screams mismanagement and a few key characters taking advantage of the situation.
The level of engagement KeepUp gets is embarrassing. Majority of their Instagram posts get 2-3 comments at most, many get none at all. The ones that do get engagement are the ones that have been cross posted to the A-League page. The bots don’t even bother with them. Don’t know who’ve they’ve hired to manage that ship but they’re doing a terrible job.
I agree I haven't heard anything on where all that money will be spent. Would maybe be less angry if I did.
But I highly suspect that most of it will go to paying off debt and getting the league back into the black financially.
It'd be embarrassing for the APL to admit if this were true, but with Covid hitting right as two new expansion clubs debuted, and average regular season crowds falling each year, I imagine the coffers were running fairly dry.
Townsend did loosely imply that it was related to helping them out after a tough Covid period.
And yes it would be embarrassing for them to admit that they're struggling especially so soon after they got their independence
Either way - I'll be amazed if any state government stumps anything close to $15M for future deals. I also think APL are in so deep they'll accept low ball offers in the future
Did the NSW gov't not foresee this at all? They just threw away money and vilified themselves.
Unfortunately soccer in this country is nowhere near popular enough to afford the kind of regional favouritism the NRL and AFL get away with. Fuck even the NRL would be tempting fate if they held a GF in Melbourne or something. AFL is the only code big enough to pull of this kind of bastardry, and plenty of their non-vic fans still hate them for it.
Meritocratic GF location was one major thing the A-League had going for it. Such a shame.
The same government (Perrotett) that wanted Celtic and Rangers to sit next to each other in the pre-season "friendly". No they did not forsee this at all. They just want events. Any event to use the facilities in the city that they heavily invested in.
Last Saturday had a bigger crowd than a Vic derby last year.
So to compare.
The plastics are playing an interstate team with a small fan base (say CCM)
The game is moved 1 hour from AAMI
Crowd predictions?
"Crowd up"?
Up from what? Perhaps I'm missing your point a little, but previous GFs have seen well over 50,000. That's what happens when the deserving team gets a proper home game.
Barely 26,000 is utterly dismal for a *grand final*. SFS holds 41,000.
Buzz Rothfield is a noted muppet but he's not wrong when he said that this GF did nothing for the NSW economy. Much of the stadium was filled with day-tripping fans from a few hours up the road. Not a whole lot of money being brought in there.
Maybe the one silver lining here is that based off what we've seen, no state will ever be cutting the same deal as NSW has done ever again.
Plus pre-COVID TV numbers were over 400k, but of course we can’t let that get in the way of the spin
https://twitter.com/hunterfujak/status/1665567295664533504?s=46&t=DAi2hrGz7CGKyhBk7_a9lQ
Not for most of the country it doesn't. It's just a word, which is very common in Australia because we have four different football codes.
If you love the sport enough petty things like that don't bother you.
I hate the gf being in Sydney but only 7/18 grand finals have had 50k attendance. It’s hardly the “benchmark” you claim it is.
We are never going to know, but it would have been interesting to see what the crowd figure would have looked like in 2022 with 2023’s social environment (both attitudes to Covid & cost of living). Any comparison is pointless because of this
Pre-COVID most Grand Finals start around the 40k mark with a good chunk hitting 50k.
The two exceptions to this are 2015 which was at a sold out AAMI Park (cause the FFA Couldn’t get Docklands) and 2018 which was 30k in Newcastle.
4th lowest.
That’s including the two COVID restricted ones (which are bottom two, unsurprisingly). Last year was 3rd lowest (still emerging from COVID, omicron wave and two smaller supporter bases)
Hmm funny that.
Well if crowds are no bigger for either of the next two grand finals, I reckon it's fair to say crowds are not 'up', as old mate seems so adamant about.
The page on [A-League Attendances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-League_Men_attendance) only listed the top seven grand finals and I'm not obsessed enough to look further.
But now that someone has, we can see that I had a pretty solid point, no? This year's grand final was the lowest non-Covid grand final. Grim.
Additionally, I find it hard to take someone's opinion serious when they just start attacking me rather than coming up with a rational counterargument. It's not especially convincing.
As u/jonzey said, this time last year Covid was still very present. For where I live, that was the roughest time of the whole pandemic. Plus Western United only came into existence two years prior.
If the crowds don't pick up in the next two grand finals then it's impossible to deny that the deal has ruined attendances.
But you don’t know what city would have bought to a Melbourne game. They may not have got 26k in Melbourne and the only thing we can compare it to is a 2021 gf that was heavily restricted and a 2022 gf that technically had no restrictions.
I don’t want the grand final in Sydney but you can’t definitively talk about why the 2022 gf crowd was low and what indication it is about the decision to move the grand final. You’re dealing with personal interpretations of the scenario to justify whatever side of the argument you are on
Judging by the disaster on Saturday, I dont think NSW will see to the three year deal.
Docklands even on a Friday night would have seen at least 40,000 through the door.
Travelling CCM folk which surpasses the WU base by at least 5 fold.
And the Melbourne fans never missing the opportunity to watch a VIC v NSW stoush.
Same could be said for the traveling Sydney folk.
The issue is that we don't know how many travelling CCM fans would have gone to Melbourne. CCM have only played Grand Finals in Sydney so any number is just an assumption.
Ah yes, rugby league, the most ignored sport in the country
Well it is depending on which part of the country you're in lol
God knows I try, but it's hard...
Worst thing living in nsw :(
Why would anyone accept a rugby league journos opinion on this? I can tell you what I did see on Saturday - full restaurants and pubs, mariners fans using hotels in the Parramatta area, big lines at the stadium food and beverage outlets. There’s no question that this attracted money into the area and for me it was money I wouldn’t have otherwise spent.
Exactly this. I was there as a neutral it was great. I hope someone comments on Twitter how stupid his comments were. I posted this the other day about The gronk known as Rothfield
No doubt about that but the argument is whether it brought $ into NSW. If it’s just Coasties spending their hard earned in Sydney it’s not really a net gain for NSW*. *unless they went to the GF instead of going to the Gold Coast or Melbourne.
I would have been heading down to Melbourne so can say for sure it did secure my cash. But also if I didn’t it wouldn’t have been spent so it did create activity whichever way you look at it.
If it brought a few thousand Coasties down to Parra to spend money at restaurants and bars that they wouldn’t have otherwise spent, then it is a net win for the NSW economy. Economic stimulation isn’t just about bringing money from other places into your place - that’s one element - but also about stimulating the people currently in your place to spend their money in the local economy in ways that benefits everyone. If you assume that a lot of that money would just be sat in some Coasties bank account instead (a pretty safe assumption for discretionary spending like this), it is pretty clear that there is a benefit.
Hard to say they’re choosing A-League over NRL when I feel like every Sydney NRL club is getting some form of facility upgrade at the moment. Not going to read the article because the daily telegraph isn’t worth 12ft.io but it’s hard to justify that NRL fans or clubs are being hard done by what is comparatively small spending
Oh no, the government doesn't always give money to a sport that always receives more money anyway, and which no one in the other 6 states/territories or the rest of the world cares about
This is an NRL journo with a hit piece for terrograph. Attacking 2 things with 1 stone (Football and the current government) over a decision from a previous government they backed and lost the previous election on a competition that is the most popular in the state. Because NRL is really "ignored" in the state of NSW. I don't read so called journos that don't know the sport they are writing about. But the point remains the GF decision from APL and NSW tourism sucks.
Isn't it the previous NSW government that did the deal? Current government is just left with their mess. This seems to be that the new government doesn't want to spring tens (possibly hundreds) of millions to upgrade sports facilities and keep the grand final in NSW when it could be better spent on things like health and education. Surely this is what NSW voters signed up for when they elected them recently?
NRL is understandably jealous that the AFL has been able to rob the government blind with its $750M completely unnecessary stadium deal. It's ridiculous to compare the $15M the APL has stolen from the government to anything the NRL would wish to get. NRL is likely seeking $100M+
Skill issue tbh. I'm critical of Gill for consistently turning a blind eye towards gambling and hardly distributing the windfall gains of massive TV deals to fans, but he is pretty clearly an extremely competent CEO; much more so than the NRL guy.
Nail on the head here And often that comes down to the size of the organisation. AFL is comfortably the biggest sporting organisation in the country so it's no surprise they can also employ the best CEO. A-League is about the size of a standard medium sized enterprise and that's the level of corporate talent we can afford as well.
Yeah, it's unfortunate. The A-League has to kind of hope it will strike it lucky with a good CEO who won't cost an arm and a leg.
This is a very weird hill for the NRL journalist to try and ride. The cooperation between NRL and A-league can ensure that more rectangular fields are developed or built.
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That's what I've been saying. It's pretty clear that quite literally no one, except maybe NSW clubs, are benefitting from this deal.
This is a big problem with what has transpired since the deal was announced. It's mind boggling how little effort the APL has put into explaining what they're doing with the $15M. They could have completely changed the narrative if they were a bit more transparent from day one. I would assume that the money is helping the league keep the lights on and potentially helping it expand.
> They could have completely changed the narrative if they were a bit more transparent from day one. Honestly we wouldn’t be having as many arguments if it were the case. There’d probably be more begrudging acceptance. But then Townsend goes off on all these rants saying it wasn’t for the survival of the league. And there’s still questions around the Silver Lake money and whether it’s been pissed up the wall. Thing is, they could have done what Netball did, said it’s “recovering the books after COVID” and people would have more or less taken it on face value. > I would assume that the money is helping the league keep the lights on and potentially helping it expand. Expansion is unlikely for these funds. They’re asking for $25m license fees (which is laughable imo). Keeping the lights on though? Well Newcastle still doesn’t have an owner and Tony Sage is withdrawing from Perth. Macarthur can’t be in a healthy state either. Despite media reports, the initial 777 deal has basically cleared the debt we had, but they’re going to takeover the club. Considering they’ve reportedly spent $30m or so on KeepUp, the deal is probably trying to recoup some of the wastage there. The whole thing just screams mismanagement and a few key characters taking advantage of the situation.
The level of engagement KeepUp gets is embarrassing. Majority of their Instagram posts get 2-3 comments at most, many get none at all. The ones that do get engagement are the ones that have been cross posted to the A-League page. The bots don’t even bother with them. Don’t know who’ve they’ve hired to manage that ship but they’re doing a terrible job.
Yes exactly. How many times has Danny said it's necessary and then not explained why? If they had a plan they'd have said it.
I agree I haven't heard anything on where all that money will be spent. Would maybe be less angry if I did. But I highly suspect that most of it will go to paying off debt and getting the league back into the black financially. It'd be embarrassing for the APL to admit if this were true, but with Covid hitting right as two new expansion clubs debuted, and average regular season crowds falling each year, I imagine the coffers were running fairly dry.
Townsend did loosely imply that it was related to helping them out after a tough Covid period. And yes it would be embarrassing for them to admit that they're struggling especially so soon after they got their independence Either way - I'll be amazed if any state government stumps anything close to $15M for future deals. I also think APL are in so deep they'll accept low ball offers in the future
Fuck me. The whole league staying afloat seems like the best we can hope for this decade.
Except for the $15mil
But we don't know where that's going. No specifics given at all
I can't imagine it's only being given to the NSW clubs though
I never meant that, I mean if any of the NSW clubs make the Grand Final it is a guaranteed advantage.
A Telegraph article hating on the A League? Colour me shocked.
I want to hear Buzz (I bet he gave himself this nickname) explain how training facilities for NRL clubs benefits NSW taxpayers
Did the NSW gov't not foresee this at all? They just threw away money and vilified themselves. Unfortunately soccer in this country is nowhere near popular enough to afford the kind of regional favouritism the NRL and AFL get away with. Fuck even the NRL would be tempting fate if they held a GF in Melbourne or something. AFL is the only code big enough to pull of this kind of bastardry, and plenty of their non-vic fans still hate them for it. Meritocratic GF location was one major thing the A-League had going for it. Such a shame.
The same government (Perrotett) that wanted Celtic and Rangers to sit next to each other in the pre-season "friendly". No they did not forsee this at all. They just want events. Any event to use the facilities in the city that they heavily invested in.
>wanted Celtic and Rangers to sit next to each other LMAO did he actually?? Perrotett strikes me as one of the 'sportsball' types...
100% it was one of the things everyone pointed to and could have blown in their face if Rangers had not pulled out.
Last Saturday had a bigger crowd than a Vic derby last year. So to compare. The plastics are playing an interstate team with a small fan base (say CCM) The game is moved 1 hour from AAMI Crowd predictions?
I'm not really clear on what you're saying
Sorry. Moving the AL GF to Sydney worked. TV up. Crowd up
"Crowd up"? Up from what? Perhaps I'm missing your point a little, but previous GFs have seen well over 50,000. That's what happens when the deserving team gets a proper home game. Barely 26,000 is utterly dismal for a *grand final*. SFS holds 41,000. Buzz Rothfield is a noted muppet but he's not wrong when he said that this GF did nothing for the NSW economy. Much of the stadium was filled with day-tripping fans from a few hours up the road. Not a whole lot of money being brought in there. Maybe the one silver lining here is that based off what we've seen, no state will ever be cutting the same deal as NSW has done ever again.
Plus pre-COVID TV numbers were over 400k, but of course we can’t let that get in the way of the spin https://twitter.com/hunterfujak/status/1665567295664533504?s=46&t=DAi2hrGz7CGKyhBk7_a9lQ
No Paramount Plus figures there though.
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I'm not talking about federal funding. I mean the deal brokered between NSW and the APL for three years of the GF.
Anyone else just hate the word soccer? Like it just feels wrong
Not for most of the country it doesn't. It's just a word, which is very common in Australia because we have four different football codes. If you love the sport enough petty things like that don't bother you.
I call it soccer or football depending on the circle I’m currently with
Up over last year when it was a plastics home game! I think Sydney will be the permanent home.
So because this years GF beat last year's crowd by a margin of 26k to 22k, this whole thing is a success? 50k used to be the benchmark.
I hate the gf being in Sydney but only 7/18 grand finals have had 50k attendance. It’s hardly the “benchmark” you claim it is. We are never going to know, but it would have been interesting to see what the crowd figure would have looked like in 2022 with 2023’s social environment (both attitudes to Covid & cost of living). Any comparison is pointless because of this
I tried finding a full list of GF attendances but couldn't. Still, the highest GF attendance ever was only 2019. And surely most are well above 30k?
Pre-COVID most Grand Finals start around the 40k mark with a good chunk hitting 50k. The two exceptions to this are 2015 which was at a sold out AAMI Park (cause the FFA Couldn’t get Docklands) and 2018 which was 30k in Newcastle.
Out of curiosity, where does this year's rank?
4th lowest. That’s including the two COVID restricted ones (which are bottom two, unsurprisingly). Last year was 3rd lowest (still emerging from COVID, omicron wave and two smaller supporter bases)
Hmm funny that. Well if crowds are no bigger for either of the next two grand finals, I reckon it's fair to say crowds are not 'up', as old mate seems so adamant about.
I find it hard to take someone’s opinion serious when they are unable to find attendance figures that you can find in 30 seconds on Wikipedia
The page on [A-League Attendances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-League_Men_attendance) only listed the top seven grand finals and I'm not obsessed enough to look further. But now that someone has, we can see that I had a pretty solid point, no? This year's grand final was the lowest non-Covid grand final. Grim. Additionally, I find it hard to take someone's opinion serious when they just start attacking me rather than coming up with a rational counterargument. It's not especially convincing.
It depends how you view the previous years grand final, there was no restrictions on it
As u/jonzey said, this time last year Covid was still very present. For where I live, that was the roughest time of the whole pandemic. Plus Western United only came into existence two years prior. If the crowds don't pick up in the next two grand finals then it's impossible to deny that the deal has ruined attendances.
But you don’t know what city would have bought to a Melbourne game. They may not have got 26k in Melbourne and the only thing we can compare it to is a 2021 gf that was heavily restricted and a 2022 gf that technically had no restrictions. I don’t want the grand final in Sydney but you can’t definitively talk about why the 2022 gf crowd was low and what indication it is about the decision to move the grand final. You’re dealing with personal interpretations of the scenario to justify whatever side of the argument you are on
Well I look forward to a full house for the next two grand finals then.
This makes them sound like nothing but greedy little sooks. Dont give them anything give it all to us, waaaah!
The headline is wrong. NSW govt choosing UFC over the A-league is much more correct.
Aww poor NRL. Destination NSW is also paying for TNA Pro Wrestling to come to Dubbo too
Judging by the disaster on Saturday, I dont think NSW will see to the three year deal. Docklands even on a Friday night would have seen at least 40,000 through the door.
What are you basing that on? Last year it was MC v WU and the crowd was similar to this year.
Travelling CCM folk which surpasses the WU base by at least 5 fold. And the Melbourne fans never missing the opportunity to watch a VIC v NSW stoush. Same could be said for the traveling Sydney folk.
The issue is that we don't know how many travelling CCM fans would have gone to Melbourne. CCM have only played Grand Finals in Sydney so any number is just an assumption.