Telling the story

Last night after my first blog post had gone up I had a conversation about the Phoenix situation with a workmate.

She’s not a sports fan, in fact quite the opposite but certainly is a fan of attending sports games for the wine and atmosphere. This tends to be rugby because that’s where all the best corporate hosting seems to be in her circles. That said though she knows how much of a nut I am about football – I guess it’s hard to work with me and not realise when every single weekend’s plans involve the word ‘football’.

She was the first one to ask me about it all day and her question was a very valid one - “This licence thing seems like kind of a big deal. How come the media aren’t reporting on it?”

We work with the media so she was genuinely interested and I was too. We found some great coverage was out there yesterday and I’m going share just a few:

Nix legend Paul Ifill might have explained the real problems best in his piece on  Stuff when he called out the decision for what it was – a signal of the end.

“[This] gives the FFA time to get a couple of franchises ready...and we'll get chucked out after four years anyway".

I hate those words but they are exactly how I feel. I think it hurts most that players feel that way too.

Blogger across the ditch  Andy Cussen  has once again come to the party to dispel a number of the myths circulating around what the Nix bring to the league. He highlights “that the FFA believe replacing a well-run, financially stable and passionately supported club with one likely to be situated in southern Sydney is a desperately worrying sign” and he’s right.

Every club should be worried. It’s not just the Mariners and the Jets that should find such talk to be a real concern. Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC should be just as worried given it doesn’t matter how stable their clubs are if we keep binning teams then it’s not long before there is no league to play in. A ten team league that has lost four clubs since 2005 (Knights, GCU, Fury and perhaps soon to be the Nix) is not a stable league. It is not a successful league and most worrying it is not a league that’s going to be around for long unless there is serious change.

There a numerous pieces out there attempting to address the reasons for the decision simply because the facts that disprove them often aren’t hard to find (but does prove interesting given we still don’t know what those reasons are). I’m still waiting a few more days before I bring you a stat laden piece myself but for now it’s worth reading  Hamish Neal’s extensive piece detailing the current myths and the truth surrounding each.

Shirley Bright correctly point out if this really is about the TV numbers this isn’t a Nix problem at all.

“[Sydney Derby] viewership of 78k was a drop of 57% on the figures for an equivalent match last season, coupled with a rumoured 40% drop in overall viewing for the league in the domestic market is it time to ask some questions?”

Just because your viewer numbers were good for derbies a few times doesn’t mean increasing them multiplies the effect. In fact quite the opposite. We are already seeing this decline and as  Ray Gatt points out another Sydney team could mean 9 more derbies a season. Do you think people might get bored of the manufactured rivalry with that many?

Sports personality and presenter  Scotty Stevenson this morning wrote what may be one of the more important pieces of coverage so far .

“You may not have been to a Phoenix match (I sure as hell haven’t) but you must have seen them in the stands at Westpac Stadium, bouncing up and down, all reckless abandonment and terrible singing. They make me want to go there. They make me want to like football! Oh Yellow Fever! You are the prescription for New Zealand sport’s acute case of Event Style Dysfunction.”

Here we have a high profile rugby man who has never been to a game extolling the benefits of the Phoenix and the Yellow Fever. That’s publicity I would have dreamed of if it had been under more happy circumstances but nevertheless powerful in its nature. And it’s an audience not reading the football blogs so I’ll take it.

Wait so I’ve just detailed a range of the high quality and detailed coverage that’s out there.

What does my workmate mean the media aren’t reporting it?

They were reporting on it but it’s not reporting that your average punter would see and it certainly wasn’t reporting your average punter would bother to read.

Social media outrage, sports radio interviews and online stories buried in the football section were the only sign anything was amiss. If you were game enough to read the newspaper or even some of the online coverage the key words that leapt out at you were “four year extension”. So the Nix missed out on ten years but no worries there will be another four so that’s fine. Normal service resumes.

Except anyone with more than a passing interest in NZ Football read that same story and knew what it meant. This was not normal service. This was very very bad.

The media aren’t going to tell that story. We have to do it for them. Tell your friends, your workmates, and the clerk at your local store why this matters. I don’t care if you feel like it makes a fool of you. Now is the last chance we have to tell those people how they can help because soon there might not be a club to save. Wellington loves a good bandwagon so let’s get some of these people on-board.

There is a great  petition you can point them towards but a petition only does so much.

We need bums on seats and we need members on the books. If the FFA want facts that show this club brings the thing they care about most then we have to vote with our wallets and support them before the chance is gone.

Season tickets are as cheap as $20 for a child and Club memberships as little as $50 for adults. If you were willing to sign the petition then please consider taking the small leap and  support with your wallet too. If this saves the club then fantastic but if it means we go out with one hell of a bang then that’s great too.

If even a small number of those signing the petition buy memberships we’d go well above Glory and it would likely put us ahead of Mariners and the Roar as well.

How do I feel today?

Motivated to do something tangible to save this club.

My flatmate will be receiving her membership in the post shortly.