The Decline Of AFL.
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 10:54 am
http://www.afr.com/p/lifestyle/review/o ... ttendances down
Since the AFL’s latest expansion when two new teams entered the competition – Gold Coast in 2011correct and Greater Western Sydney in 2012correct – total and average game attendances have fallen.
Despite more matches played than ever before, unprecedented promotions, media attention and schedules strung out over longer periods – official AFL attendance figures show declining numbers, with last season the lowest since 2006.
The total number of attendances in the past season was 6,238,876, compared with 6,525,071 the season before. The average match attendance was 31,509, which compares with 34,893 the season before, the lowest since 1996. At the time of writing, the average game attendance has dropped even lower and is trending downwards.
Several commentators, including the AFL itself, have acknowledged the challenge of falling attendances, but have explained it away as “the divide between rich and poor clubs” (whatever that means) or cases of bad club administration. But this is a distraction. These factors have existed as long as any football code has existed, anywhere.
Elite football competitions have thrived from their beginnings in mid 19th-century Britain, and spread all over the world, partly owing to the fixture and draw. This is the mechanism by which a match calendar can be published at the start of the season and by which all teams get to play one another at least once.
The competition structure ensures a fair path to the ultimate prize – a premiership title – regardless of wealth, dodgy administration or media favouritism .
A more recent example highlighting the value of integrity and competitiveness is the long-standing Ford Australia sponsorship of Geelong Football Club. Once revered as a major selling brand and a cornerstone of Australian industry, the Ford name is now seriously tarnished following the impending shutdown of its local manufacturing.
The demise stems largely from the failure of Ford’s best-selling vehicle, the Falcon, to compete in an increasingly competitive market; and because its integrity was called into account as the company sought taxpayer handouts and failed to stay the course.
The forecasts for Australian manufacturing are now bleak and local economies face perilous times.
Just as Ford’s manufacturing once blossomed nationally from its bases in Melbourne and Geelong, but then nose-dived, another behemoth from the same region flourished, reaching its claws into new territories – the Australian Football League. But how long can this expansionary course last and is the base support sufficiently secured?
Hence, the AFL behemoth is faltering. Expansionary zeal has combined with monopolistic hubris, an emphasis on “sport as theatre” and the distortion of the fixture and draw for marketing purposes.
These have resulted in a fixture schedule that confounds and annoys fans and a draw featuring too many one-sided walkovers and too many games featuring sub-competitive teams head-to-head: a switch-off for most sports fans.
Ignoring integrity and competitiveness is bad business practice. It is the danger that lies within any organisation. In effect, by decree the AFL has engineered a long, cumbersome cattle train privileging some sections while disadvantaging others.
Ladder percentage is an excellent measure of both an individual team and a competition’s competitiveness. It’s a mathematical formula combining each team’s ability to score and its ability to stop the opposition from scoring. It is a calculation of relative overall attack and defence capabilities. The range of ladder percentage between the respective teams, and especially the number of teams at the bottom of the scale, is a crucial factor determining competitiveness.
From 2011 to now, the number of teams bunched at the top and bottom end of the ladder percentage scale is unprecedented since the first non-Victorian team entered the competition (Sydney in 1982).
Based on a combined ladder percentage average for the period, there are three teams above 132.00 (highly competitive) – Hawthorn, Collingwood and Geelong. Three teams are below the 75.0 nominal benchmark for sub-competitive – Melbourne, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney.
By comparison, between 2000 and 2011 there were only three instances of one team falling outside the benchmark ladder percentage range.
The decline in competitiveness and attendances since 2011 should ring alarm bells. Instead, the AFL has responded with corporate and public relations jargon. It has published a 122-page promotional booklet with a foreword listing the code’s six guiding principles, which are presided over by a general manager of broadcasting, scheduling and legal affairs.
Legal affairs is the giveaway. Lumping scheduling and broadcasting implies an invitation for lobbyists and special interests groups to bargain for what they can get out of AFL management with all the risk, legal damages and settlements that can bring. Fans can no longer expect a fixture and draw that is inherently simple, consistent, fair and designed to promote competitiveness as best as possible between the competing teams.
The six guiding principles do not mention the words “fair” or “competitiveness”. The closest reference to these core principles is a declaration the AFL should, “develop, as close as possible, [my italics], a fixture which gives all clubs equal opportunities”, which is the kind of statement you would expect in a United Nations human rights declaration, not a football code.
By hedging “equal opportunities” with the proviso “as close as possible”, it’s a reasonable assumption that the AFL – in the business of managing equal opportunities and administrative fiat – has overtaken the management of a fair competition between the competing teams.
That’s sad because it’s only owing to a fair fixture and draw that the ultimate premiership holder is properly legitimised. This asset is not a plaything to be tampered with or scoffed at by marketeers and salesmen.
The prime agenda stated by the booklet is the maximisation of crowds and viewing audiences and expansion of the competition’s national footprint through what’s called, “scheduling teams in matches across all markets throughout the season”.
In other words, expect more scheduling by decree. Expect more special interest games pre- and post-weekend. Expect more main attraction games targeted for primetime viewing and preferred attendance times. Expect more sport as theatre. And most troubling of all: watch for the cultivation of a de facto divisional structure with drawcard teams scheduled in prime viewing and attendance times. And, at the lower level filling the gaps, games featuring “less appealing” teams and match-ups.
Thinking and acting beyond the principles of integrity and competitiveness is a dangerous business for the AFL. Like Ford Australia, the name and sales numbers are a shadow of what they once were in this part of the world. Ken Wagner’s butcher shop was not able to withstand the onslaught of supermarket chains selling fresh meat. But for me, and many Moe district people, his integrity remains intact and treasured.
To best prosper in business and sport you need integrity and competitiveness.
Ted Hopkins is a writer, Carlton premiership player and founder of Champion Data. Data and spreadsheets related to this story can be found at: www.tedsport.com.au
Since the AFL’s latest expansion when two new teams entered the competition – Gold Coast in 2011correct and Greater Western Sydney in 2012correct – total and average game attendances have fallen.
Despite more matches played than ever before, unprecedented promotions, media attention and schedules strung out over longer periods – official AFL attendance figures show declining numbers, with last season the lowest since 2006.
The total number of attendances in the past season was 6,238,876, compared with 6,525,071 the season before. The average match attendance was 31,509, which compares with 34,893 the season before, the lowest since 1996. At the time of writing, the average game attendance has dropped even lower and is trending downwards.
Several commentators, including the AFL itself, have acknowledged the challenge of falling attendances, but have explained it away as “the divide between rich and poor clubs” (whatever that means) or cases of bad club administration. But this is a distraction. These factors have existed as long as any football code has existed, anywhere.
Elite football competitions have thrived from their beginnings in mid 19th-century Britain, and spread all over the world, partly owing to the fixture and draw. This is the mechanism by which a match calendar can be published at the start of the season and by which all teams get to play one another at least once.
The competition structure ensures a fair path to the ultimate prize – a premiership title – regardless of wealth, dodgy administration or media favouritism .
A more recent example highlighting the value of integrity and competitiveness is the long-standing Ford Australia sponsorship of Geelong Football Club. Once revered as a major selling brand and a cornerstone of Australian industry, the Ford name is now seriously tarnished following the impending shutdown of its local manufacturing.
The demise stems largely from the failure of Ford’s best-selling vehicle, the Falcon, to compete in an increasingly competitive market; and because its integrity was called into account as the company sought taxpayer handouts and failed to stay the course.
The forecasts for Australian manufacturing are now bleak and local economies face perilous times.
Just as Ford’s manufacturing once blossomed nationally from its bases in Melbourne and Geelong, but then nose-dived, another behemoth from the same region flourished, reaching its claws into new territories – the Australian Football League. But how long can this expansionary course last and is the base support sufficiently secured?
Hence, the AFL behemoth is faltering. Expansionary zeal has combined with monopolistic hubris, an emphasis on “sport as theatre” and the distortion of the fixture and draw for marketing purposes.
These have resulted in a fixture schedule that confounds and annoys fans and a draw featuring too many one-sided walkovers and too many games featuring sub-competitive teams head-to-head: a switch-off for most sports fans.
Ignoring integrity and competitiveness is bad business practice. It is the danger that lies within any organisation. In effect, by decree the AFL has engineered a long, cumbersome cattle train privileging some sections while disadvantaging others.
Ladder percentage is an excellent measure of both an individual team and a competition’s competitiveness. It’s a mathematical formula combining each team’s ability to score and its ability to stop the opposition from scoring. It is a calculation of relative overall attack and defence capabilities. The range of ladder percentage between the respective teams, and especially the number of teams at the bottom of the scale, is a crucial factor determining competitiveness.
From 2011 to now, the number of teams bunched at the top and bottom end of the ladder percentage scale is unprecedented since the first non-Victorian team entered the competition (Sydney in 1982).
Based on a combined ladder percentage average for the period, there are three teams above 132.00 (highly competitive) – Hawthorn, Collingwood and Geelong. Three teams are below the 75.0 nominal benchmark for sub-competitive – Melbourne, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney.
By comparison, between 2000 and 2011 there were only three instances of one team falling outside the benchmark ladder percentage range.
The decline in competitiveness and attendances since 2011 should ring alarm bells. Instead, the AFL has responded with corporate and public relations jargon. It has published a 122-page promotional booklet with a foreword listing the code’s six guiding principles, which are presided over by a general manager of broadcasting, scheduling and legal affairs.
Legal affairs is the giveaway. Lumping scheduling and broadcasting implies an invitation for lobbyists and special interests groups to bargain for what they can get out of AFL management with all the risk, legal damages and settlements that can bring. Fans can no longer expect a fixture and draw that is inherently simple, consistent, fair and designed to promote competitiveness as best as possible between the competing teams.
The six guiding principles do not mention the words “fair” or “competitiveness”. The closest reference to these core principles is a declaration the AFL should, “develop, as close as possible, [my italics], a fixture which gives all clubs equal opportunities”, which is the kind of statement you would expect in a United Nations human rights declaration, not a football code.
By hedging “equal opportunities” with the proviso “as close as possible”, it’s a reasonable assumption that the AFL – in the business of managing equal opportunities and administrative fiat – has overtaken the management of a fair competition between the competing teams.
That’s sad because it’s only owing to a fair fixture and draw that the ultimate premiership holder is properly legitimised. This asset is not a plaything to be tampered with or scoffed at by marketeers and salesmen.
The prime agenda stated by the booklet is the maximisation of crowds and viewing audiences and expansion of the competition’s national footprint through what’s called, “scheduling teams in matches across all markets throughout the season”.
In other words, expect more scheduling by decree. Expect more special interest games pre- and post-weekend. Expect more main attraction games targeted for primetime viewing and preferred attendance times. Expect more sport as theatre. And most troubling of all: watch for the cultivation of a de facto divisional structure with drawcard teams scheduled in prime viewing and attendance times. And, at the lower level filling the gaps, games featuring “less appealing” teams and match-ups.
Thinking and acting beyond the principles of integrity and competitiveness is a dangerous business for the AFL. Like Ford Australia, the name and sales numbers are a shadow of what they once were in this part of the world. Ken Wagner’s butcher shop was not able to withstand the onslaught of supermarket chains selling fresh meat. But for me, and many Moe district people, his integrity remains intact and treasured.
To best prosper in business and sport you need integrity and competitiveness.
Ted Hopkins is a writer, Carlton premiership player and founder of Champion Data. Data and spreadsheets related to this story can be found at: www.tedsport.com.au
