Dees2014

Can I just add that I am 100% behind the current administration. I think they are doing a wonderful job on and off the field, and I am confident that we are on track for a flag in the next 4 years. I can't describe how happy that would make me. We all though need to think how we can make our club stronger and more dominant. Multi smart heads can only make us stronger, not only now, but in the long term!,

Sure. There was an initiative during I think Dean Bailey's time to invite groups of Chinese to a game and to broadcast it in Mandarin (not sure whether they were students or not - I think it might have come from the number one ticket holder at the time, a well known owner of a leading Chinese Restaurant in China town - can't remember his name). It floundered in a short space of time, I suspect because they did not put around it the "infrastructure" which is designed to attract and hold the client base. In this case, that involves making it as much as an inclusive social gathering (the Belonging bit - a huge challenge for overseas students/migrants) as a sporting one. I suspect there weren't any "free hooks" either, a basic element of net marketing i.e. give-aways to get and hold their interest. In this case, initially free membership tickets and education about the game in their own tongue and the broadcast. The other thing is you need to give it time to work and follow through is critical. Sets of free tickets, and broadcast of one game in Mandarin wouldn't cut it. Like any successful marketing strategy it requires commitment and time.

Well that is where I would strongly disagree. New ideas are the life-blood of successful organisations, it doesn't matter where they come from. In fact those organisations that don't have a process to capture, nurture and recognize them, die-out, along with those internally who resist change.

No one said you had to. Ideas clearly are not you thing!

Thanks for your constructive comment Skuit. Part of building a brand is to do things that the run of the mill don't do. In my original submission to the club I went into a great deal of detail about how the MFC could become a social hub for overseas students so that the AFL via the Demons could become their social hub of assimilation. My University friends who work in the overseas student industry all the time see this development of social networks as being a huge challenge particularly outside their immediate ethnic group. For Indians, cricket has played a critical role in their past assimilation and the AFL has started to for Africans. To attract university types though you need to give them a bit more than just a seat at the game. Make them a "student of the game" you would have them and their families for life and if that came from the MFC, we would have literally hundreds of thousands of them and their offspring being as fanatical as we are for the mighty Dees well into the future. None of the clubs are doing it strategically - it is a huge opportunity.

As I said before, this is not primarily about Chinese and Indians in China and India. It is about those people who come here to study and most of them also want to live here in the long term. What better way to assimilate than become an AFL tragic like me! The other point I made is that people (even me -a 40 year veteran) do not always understand the subtleties of the Game. If we offered that tuition during and after the game in the context of social interaction you would have them forever, and would do wonders for their overall assimilation, which I understand is a major issue for overseas students who become migrants. What better migrants could we have - educated, used to Australia, employable, and love the Dees! Absolutely perfect in my view. May even eventually barrack for us in the Cricket!

Sorry, but I thought most of the post I set was about targeting Chinese and Indian students already in Australia, particularly Melbourne which is the centre of Australia's international student population. My point is we should target them first, but to surrender the advantage we have to a back block like Port Adelaide is, I'm sorry, sheer incompetence. Those in charge clearly do not understand marketing strategy and how to build a brand. We have many many advantages, but thinking strategically and going outside our narrow locally based target of 40000 members is not one of them. We have a potential global brand like Manchester United, but we are stuck in a city based parochial mindset sadly.

Shanghai 's population is 20 million people....enough said!

Schwabby was the problem - he did not even acknowledge the opportunity. You guys are amazing in your myopia! (well maybe not, considering what else appears on Demonland!)

Well it is a reflection of the lost opportunity this represents to us. China and India is a huge opportunity, and those of us who have been lucky enough to work closely with these economies know exactly what the opportunity we have here. Both countries have a curiosity about Australia, and almost universally amongst those who are interested in sport cannot understand how we with such a small population (in comparison to them) can achieve such excellence in sport. My answer has always been Aussie Rules _ all Aussie sports target those athletes who don't make the AFL draft and there have been many world champions from them. Their market is wide open for us, particularly with our very high student intake from those countries. I know there are many in our country who simply wish these people were not here, but it is a fact of life they are (to our great benefit as a society I would argue). When there are over 100,000 a year arriving in our city, many of them becoming permanent migrants after graduation, why wouldn't we want to "own" this market. To say this is already happening for the MFC, is absurd.

He might, and am a great admirer of the current regime. We dropped the ball on China, no action on India or the MCG (bigger opportunities in my view) when we had the initial inside running. There has been zero activity on the other issues. Oh and by the way, if people took the trouble to write in to companies I ran and the executives responsible were too lazy to reply to them, they would not last long. Customer feedback is the lifeblood of any company. sitting in ivory towers is never acceptable! Oh by the way, did you actually read what I wrote? Your comments did not reflect it!

· During the Cameron Schwab era, and subsequently supplied to Peter Jackson, I supplied the following suggestions to the club. I have been a passionate 40 plus years Dees supporter, and have extensive marketing experience, plus General Management experience in Asia, the US and Europe. My suggestions were based on that. I had no feedback at all about this from the Club, although some of the suggestions were taken up by others but not in a way that would make them successful much to my annoyance. We can do much much better. 100,000 membership is well within our reach. It requires though innovation and a deep understanding of marketing strategy. Notes on Strategic Options For Melbourne Football Club February, 2010 “Building Towards a 100,000 membership future” Introduction Melbourne Football Club is the oldest football club of any code in the world. In the 1850s it was pivotal in developing the indigenous games of Australian Rules Football and along with the Geelong Football Club, was a foundation member of the Victorian Football League. Although in those early days, Aussies Rules was seen as “exercise for gentlemen between cricket seasons”, and indeed the club itself was the football section of the Melbourne Cricket Club up until the 1970’s, the game quickly grew into something unique to Melbourne cultural life and it became clear its spectacular nature was highly popular with people of all walks of life. Today, it is Australia’s most popular spectator sport, and the AFL (the governing body) is the most powerful and wealthy sporting organisation in the country. Through this growth, the MFC has failed to develop in a manner that befits its position, and since the introduction of the professional game in the 1970/80s, has failed to adapt. Today in a national game, the club is an also-ran both on and off the field, having failed to win a premiership since 1964, has one of the smallest memberships in the league, and over the last decade has barely kept its head above water financially. For much of that time, it has been heavily in debt, and on several occasions had to be bailed out financially by the AFL. In parallel to this, the club since the 1970, when it moved out of the MCG as sole-tenant, has not had its own home base, with its playing and administrating facilities scattered all over Melbourne, with much of its training facilities substandard and its sports medicine resources almost non-existent. This has contributed greatly to its lessening of competitiveness in the field. Since 2008, with the coming of a new Administration under the Chairman Jim Stynes, the club has embarked on a total re-build both from a playing and administrative perspective. By the beginning of 2010, there are very promising signs the Club is turning the corner on and off the field. This paper is written from a layman’s perspective of what its strategic options might be in the future to build on these good beginnings, especially to get its supporter and club membership up, and to allow the club to be admired in the future for its professionalism and it success. Progress since 2008 1. The appointment of the new coach, Dean Bailey, and an almost completely new support staff. 2. The $5m debt has been substantially reduced and is expected to be under $1m by mid 2010. 3. Over the last three years when the club has come last in the competition, it has the benefit of priority draft picks, which have largely been taken up by 17, 18, and 19 year olds. With the retirement of much of the previous list, the playing future is looking bright as these brilliant youngsters get senior game time and experience. 4. The Club has built its membership from the low 20000s to over 30,000 in 2009 despite of its lack of on-field success. 5. New training and playing facilities have been developed at Casey Fields in the outer suburbs of Melbourne (in partnership with the local Casey Shire Council), and these will complement the new administration and training facilities located in the city sporting district at the new AAMI stadium with a training oval nearby. 6. The club has recruited a very professional board and senior management, particularly with the appointment of Cameron Schwab as CEO who not only has a strong sports administrative background, but is also a highly credentialed professional business leader and innovator. 7. The reconnection with the Melbourne Cricket Club, which has been moribund for years, has developed and potentially represents one of the MFC’s great strengths. The Membership Challenge The Current situation In spite of the good work put in by the new Administration, and the progress which has been made with membership numbers so today it is over 30,000 (a club record), this still lags behind many of the Melbourne AFL clubs. The benchmark clubs are Collingwood and Hawthorn with over 50000 members, which have grown significantly in the last decade, particularly Hawthorn’s. If MFC is to become the dominant AFL club it aspires to be, it must meet and exceed their major competitions’ numbers. Why are Membership Numbers Important? Membership numbers are important because they are a key measure of the Club’s progress in the football marketplace. They are not only a key source of revenue upfront, but they are an indicator of the MFC’s brand in the marketplace. It is fair to say the MFC brand has lain dormant for a number of years and has declined in strength along with the Club itself, but with a growing membership base it indicates the club is starting to make progress in market-share terms, but the progress to be frank has been slow. What is possible? This paper seeks to outline a path whereby the club develops a membership base of 50,000 within three years, and 100,000 within six years. Membership Strategic Options With the right brand positioning and a clear understanding of its strategic strengths, there is no reason why the above numbers should not be achieved. It requires is some innovative thinking and a much stronger and creative focus on the strengths. The Club has many unique strengths about which it is not currently taking advantage. Hawthorn are a good example of what can be done. 20 years ago the Hawks had one of the lowest membership bases in the AFL. Now they expect regularly to be above 50000, and vie for the largest Victorian based club membership with Collingwood. That didn't happen by accident, and the MFC has many more natural advantages than them. Let’s look at the Football marketplace. (During Cameron Schwab's time I sent him a series of concepts to build the MFC supporter base, by applying some my professional marketing techniques - I never got a reply, but some of the ideas which turned up mysteriously about 12 months later). The Market Opportunities 1) the obvious markets are immigrants, both internal and external, who settle in Melbourne every year. This has averaged over last five years about 1500 people week, most of whom are not Aussie rules supporters. On the basis that most new arrivals want to fit into their new environments, an obvious way to do that is to adopt a local footy team. So if you then break down these arrivals by sub segment and look at their characteristics which matches our MFC advantages. An obvious sub segment are sports lovers in general, and these can then be sub segmented again into football lovers (eg soccer, rugby union, gridiron) and cricket lovers. Football followers instinctively understand football cultures but usually not Australian rules. Many of the Union followers are also cricket lovers (people from the UK - fourth biggest source of migrants, South African - seventh biggest source, and NZers - second biggest source). All these people know and understand the fame and importance of the MCG, (as do people from the Indian subcontinent - now our biggest source of migrants), which also happens to be our biggest strength, and many of those same people take a tour of the MCG soon after they arrive. Each year something like 350k people take the tour of the MCG. The MFC should own this space via its association with the MCC by providing seminars for those people taking the tours which explain the Aussie Rules game, and provide free passes to those people to the next Melbourne game as guest of the MFC and even provide complimentary MFC scarfs which it should get sponsored by for instance WEBJET or someone associated with the tourist industry. This should then be followed up by providing commentary on the web on MFC games in Hindi and Mandarin so they could follow the Dees when they return to their home country, and also for local supporters who have been migrants (a suggestion the MFC subsequently took up for Mandarin both for tourists returning home and new arrivals emigrating, but has subsequenhtly I understand been discontinued). The MFC should also give a free season's tickets to those new arrivals, provide facilities for them after the game and have someone analyse the game on their behalf perhaps in their native tongue. The test for this of course is the number of season tickets you sell the following season, but if you can't convert 10-15k new members from this exercise it would be very surprising, and considering the MFC only have at most this year 40k this would be significant. It would also help in having much bigger crowds at home games; 2) Melbourne is the biggest destination for Indian students in the country, some 120k study here at any one time. About a third of them officially migrate here after graduation (Probably the most efficient and least divisive immigration system ever divised) and subsequently become some of the biggest money earners in Melbourne. They are also almost always obsessed with Cricket and therefore see the MCG as a Mecca, and therefore often take the tour and tell this (loudly) to their envious relatives back home. Indian students are also notorious for being isolated in this society and sometimes have very little social life not only within the broader community but even within their own community. There is an opportunity here. Why couldn't the MFC build an Indian student branch of the MFC which is as much a social club for them to get together and meet people as it is a football club, but it has football at its core. The MFC could hand out to them free members tickets in the first year after their arrival and sell them discounted student tickets in subsequent years until graduation, but it could provide in ground facilities on match day as a social venue. The Club could sell them drinks etc to cover some of the costs, and perhaps sign up an Indian oriented company as a sponsor. The task would then be to sign a significant number of them up as permanent members after graduation and set up branches of the MFC Indian Social club in major Indian cities for when they return home and they can then listen to the game on the net in Hindi. When and if they become subsequent immigrants, which statistically many of them do, they will be already converted Melbourne supporters and hopefully members. The same idea could also be tried with Chinese students although it would need to be in a different form, but with many of the same ideas. Australians must remember education is in its top half dozen export industries, and Melbourne is at the centre of it. It has got to be a huge opportunity for the MFC as long as the Club is culturally sensitive in the way it goes about it; and 3) the recruitment of kids. The club is up against the recruitment of kids because of its small supporter base and the biggest characteristic of Club preference for kids is inherited behaviour. BUT there are opportunities if you look. There are families whose sons and daughters play Aussie rules who are not strongly affiliated to a club, and there are new arrivals whose kids take up the game as a means of social acceptance. What the MFC could do is to heavily sponsor underage footy teams, invite the three best players (as nominated by their local coach) to a games as guests of the MFC every month where they will be introduced to the players, given insights into how the game is played, and analysis of the game they have just seen by MFC nominated analysts. At the end of the season, the Club could invite the 6 most outstanding players in each junior competition to a function where they could informally talk to the players and coaches and are given football related prizes (eg junior club memberships which entitle them to attend MFC games for free) maybe even giving educational scholarships for the most outstanding players (need a sponsor for this, maybe a major private school interested in recruiting outstanding Aussie Rules players). The idea in this would be to get word of mouth going amongst kids and parents that the MFC is a great organisation, and therefore it is ok to become a Melbourne fan. Winning games will help enormously of course, but grass roots action would back this up. There were numerous other ideas I wrote in the original paper, a few of which were taken up. The point is that there are lots of sophisticated marketing ideas which can be applied to building a supporter base. I don't think we are even close to maximizing the Club’s membership numbers yet. . strategies2 (2013_07_01 00_39_27 UTC).pptx

I have a lot of problem with this "listen to supporters" stuff. If you took that literally there would be zero change and progress in the game. The common man has a huge resistance to change of any sort in almost all walks of life. It is the same in politics - you just need to see the historic results of referenda to see that. I'd rather leave it up to those in authority who have the knowledge and expertise to make the right decisions eg AFL/parliament to run the sport/country, and if you don't like it, chuck them out every three years in the case of politics, and elect to stay at home in the case of sport. No one can stand still in sport as in life if you want to progress and renew.

Why would television want to reduce length of games? I would have thought higher scoring games (therefore more ad breaks) but the same actual time would be perfect for Channel Seven. More "attractive" football, therefore higher ratings, therefore more revenue, equals wealthier AFL. The rule change to last player to touch the ball before it goes out get penalised ticks all the boxes. It is what the AFL is all about - making money, not what is good for the game. As I said before, it is just in this instance, it also makes us less competitive given the structure of our current side and its key personell i.e. Big Max. I am sure we will adjust, but it is a major change.

I detect there is a real push to clarify the out of bounds rule. It has been suggested that it should be changed to something like Rugby, Soccer and Hockey have i.e. the side that touches it last is penalised. I actually quite like this suggestion, I think it makes sense, but we Dees supporters need to understand its implications. Think of it, we would effectively be eliminating more than 60-70% of powerful ruckmen like Max's role. Rucks would only come into into play as ruckman when there is a ball up at the beginning of quarters, after goals and around the ground as there will no longer be any throw in. It would in other words totally change the game in a way far more than for instance when they brought in the out of bounds on the full rule. Let's be clear here. There will be no role for giants like Max unless he turns himself into a Paul Salmon (not a bad idea incidentally). As it stands now though, this rule change would greatly disadvantage us as we have by far the best tap out ruckman in the league. We need to be aware of this potentiality.

I suspect it might be an attitude problem with Kent. Certainly he has been ordinary in the 2's sometimes this year, with some saying he hasn't looked too interested. With now good competition for places, if correct this attitude should not be tolerated. Gone are the days when we gift games thank god!

Don't understand this comment. If they are 50/50 to play you select them and then leave them out saying they "didn't come up" and replace them as from your emergencies. Simple I would have thought. Think it might be yet another Scott brother whinge.

Try Stef Martin.

Wow, that would put her in the top ten this year I would have thought. A quality person too I think, just like her bro.

Yes,z we need to be creative. Having lost for the time being the beast that is Max aNd the best ruck in the competition, and his loyal deputy having gone down, it is time for a rethink. The advantage of Frost is he has the height, not the weight, but he certainly has the speed. This could well be a major plus. The question is does he have the endurance. Somehow I have my doubts, but we need to make sure we don't burn out JW in the meantime.

Yes, just the same as we played galently against Geelong. We were crueled by injury. I thought we fought it out very well tonight, and when we can get through a game normally we will be fine. The kicking seems to have improved (it would want to), but we will have a much better second half of the year than the first. And we will get max back for the last 8 games. The challenge is to keep in the game until then! It will be a challenge.

Try Hawthorn round 20 last year. They were firing up til then and we were all over them. Allegedly it was a major factor in Clarkson cleaning out his list; it was certainly the major reason Jordan Lewis chose us over the other 16 clubs who were chasing him. I think sometimes we can be too down on ourselves. We are a young, developing list. Sometimes I think we don't recognise how much. I was talking to my ex Demon supporting brother the other day. Now a Sydney resident and Swans fanatic; when I told him we were the youngest side with the least number of games played per player in the first round he could not believe it, even though he still follows the D's closely, and if anything is more bullish about our future than the Swans. We are building nicely. Will have our ups and downs, but overall going in the right direction, and very likely to at least make the 8. Roll on a repeat of 1987 I say. Now that would be exciting!

We seem to forget that the Dockers have an appalling record at the "G", unlike in Perth. We start a long way in front from that alone. It would be a Dons/Blues loss, circa 2016, if we were to lose this one. You would hope we would over that. A real test for the maturing group.

Sorry, should have been hogan. Will fix.

I have reconsidered - said in haste and dissappointament. Our performance Saturday was not bad, just unlucky in several ways. We outplayed them for most of the match, it was just our kicking and max injury which let us down. There is plenty to work on, and Spencer will be much better than we all expect. All is not lost by any means. The Tiger will be the test, but we will have hoges, Bernie and Jesse back for them too which will help a great deale.