FVB, I imagine they were spending more than they were making the whole time, right? Just looked good because they were getting publicity, making great ads and getting decent crowds.

The World Cup will probably boost next seasons crowd numbers as long as Australia does fairly well.

Have posted lots of times on this.

The world cup will not do much for crowds when the a-league launch their season in the middle of the afl/nrl finals which just takes away momentum. The world cup reminds a lot of people that most of the Socceroos DO NOT play in the a-league!

I posted last year that a-league crowds were on track for record lows and people argued with me, saying that once footy seasons were out of the way crowds would fire up - it never happened. they averaged under 10k for the regular season down on something like 13k the year before.

the a-league face some significant crowd problems.

a) Gold Coast and Townsville dragged their averages down signficantly this year and Townsville will again this year - GC may yet play is my mail
b) Melbourne crowds were down by an even bigger % than the league average - and Melbourne has always dragged their average up..... and really did over exagerate their crowds
c) Their only really growth has been Wellington - a market that they just don't really need .... so little impact commercially for rhe league or ther other clubs

Average crowds are down nearly 5000 per game across the whole season from 2 years ago.

Isaac is of course correct about spending. Add to that crowds plummeting, and bad news about club survival now the norm not the exception, and spending increasing annually (salary cap) .... you can expect sponsors to now review their position and investment both team by team and with the league. Looks like a downward spiral.

If Clive Palmer does in fact pull out his GC team he will be run out of town. He must be bored with soccer as this time last year he was spruiking that GC United would win the comp and he would spend whatever was neccesary to ensure they did win...

He may be obscenely wealthy and good on him for that but his attitude is increasingly seeing him come across as a knob. The only time he is seen in public is when he is throwing his cash around, was even on the news a few months back telling everyne how he just spend 6 mil on a boat for his daughters 16th bday, then added that he didnt even like the boat but its only 6 mil so who cares. Doesnt really endear himself to the general public

All the moguls with the money are with the AFL and NRL; you can't run any sporting franchise without a major owner or sponsor with "throw away money".

You've got to keep in mind that Euroleague and NBA have billionaire owners who can blow the money and not complain when the season goes astray.

Both the A-League and NBL need to hammer advertising more and supplement finances for all the teams so that ticket prices can be lowered. Give the assistance for each franchise for a few years so the fan base can build, then remove the support and let the teams run 100% off their own funds.

the nbl is being built for the current financial times.

it is being put together in the middle of a GFC,as a recession proof league.

low salary cap,great entertainment and in comparison to others..... affordable for families.

value for money!!(hard to find these days)

Interesting Discussion.

AFL clubs and NRL clubs alike lose money before league distributions (lets call them that not TV rights distributions).

Some AFL clubs and a number of NRL clubs lose money after those distributions. Cost of labor is the single biggest expense for all of them and free agency will really hurt the AFL clubs if introduced.

If the A-league distribute then its minor. The NBL simply cannot afford to distribute and if it is getting 800k pa from TEN which someone has suggested here then it will still not be able to distribute.

The a-league's marketing campaign this year was subdued and the NBL cannot afford one.

Lowering ticket prices is not a panacea. The Dragons had very reasonable ticket prices but just could not draw could enough crowds to break even at their venue despite working hard on grassroots linkages. if all NBL clubs reduced ticket prices to Dragons levels then they would all be broke pretty quick. Townsville had outrageous ticket prices for years in their "sell-out" era and were profitable as a result.

good get anon, it means they are giving the clubs 12 million this year out of Tv revenue of about 18 million. Thats incredibly generous for a fledgling league and if they grow the league you would reckon the distribution would shrink, not grow.

as i live in Townsville I've been hearing about the FURY a lot lately and I haven't found many ppl here that give a shit!

Fowler didn't do much to pull crowds here, really, it's simple... there aren't that many soccer lovers in this city.

Townsvillians love Basketball on Rugby League AND the city isnt big enough for all 3 at this stage.

They lost $4.5 million this year!

While the Dragons ticket prices were cheap compared to the Tigers, they were comparable to most teams. Overall in their first and last years the Dragons were close to breaking even overall on their venue, but of course you need to be making good money from your game night to be balancing your books, or even getting close.

Something most clubs need to do is make children's tickets more affordable. If you can get a child to support your club, the long term benefit far outweighs the small loss in revenue from dropping your kids ticket from $10 to $2 ala the AFL.

Given only Perth are anywhere a full stadium each week, there is no reason not to try and get more kids into the stadium, because they invariably bring parents and want merchandise.