Noonamah Blue wrote:
Bozman wrote:
Can I just say that I think that the "total"membership figures are very rubbery. What counts as a member? I think it can include someone who buys a 2-3 game membership, or even less if interstate. I think it is very open to abuse.
Lets look at some other indicators.
In terms of attendance at home games - Carlton is third on average, behind cwood, and just behind Essendon*. Hawthorn, who supposedly has 60K members, averages only 34K people at home games. If you look at all reg season games - carlton is ahead of hawthorn by over 3000 persons, and richmond by 4000.
Lets look at afl members with club support packages - something that cannot be manipulated - carlton has 7151 of these - this is the 2nd most - it is 500 more than Essendon*, hawthorn only has 3584 and richmond has 4324. This is even though carlton plays a lot of games at etihad.
I really think that clubs manipulate their total membership for marketing reasons, but if someone actually worked out how many real and actual members teams had, rather than token ones - i reckon carlton would be ranked 2 or 3.
The figures above would suggest that there are a lot of people "called" members who dont turn up to a game - do they exist?? who knows!! Whats stopping a sponsor saying instead of giving you 500k, i will buy memberhsip for all my employees so that the club looks more successful and maybe more sponsors will come on board....
Can anyone explain the discrepancies above? SHould we make such a big deal of the "rubbery" total membership figures?
Also, what is better, 10000 11 game membership holders, or 20000 3 game membership holders? Surely the former is?
Whether a member attends games or not is irrelevant. I have Captains Club Membership at well over $400 , but as I live 4000 kilometres from Melbourne only attend at most 1-2 games a year. Many of our interstate supporters buy the interstate member packages as that is all they can afford. I think it is ridiculous to think of them as token members.
Anyone who dips their hand into their pocket and buys a membership of any description deserves recognition as a full member as they are loyal Carlton Supporters as apposed to those that say they are Supporters but never buy a membership etc.
I think you miss my point. There is all this conjecture about why carlton doesnt have 50K members, but Hawthorn has 60k. My point is that these figures arent as solid and fair as people seem to take them for. The perfect example is that Hawthorn sells a 1 game membership down in Tasmania. So in effect, people who just want to go see an afl game in Tasmania, instead of buying a gen admin ticket, would buy a hawthorn membership ticket for around the same price. This means that someone who watches 1 game in Tasmania is counted as a member for the purposes of the memberhsip tally and only contibiute 30-50 bucks per annum.
I have no problem with the interstate members being counted, as there arent to many of them and they dont schew the numbers much at all. But, answer me this question, if you were running the club, would you believe that the club was in a healthier position if it had:
1. 20,000 11 game members in melbourne; or
2. 30,000 3 game members in melbourne?
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