2016/17 Phoenix Fixtures - Saturday Night Fever

CCM's home game against us will be in Canberra

Hopefully there will be early bird SingAir package deals for the supporters?

*(hint hint)

I'm sure one of the reasons the club agreed to the fixture will be a deal with this new Wellington to Canberra route

That is going to be one FKN cold shirts off.Anyone else going 

I was in Canberra last September and it was in the low 20's. A lot warmer than here. The direct flight will be handy rather than having to go through Sydney.

That is normal there. Canberra is notorious for really cold nights outside the peak of summer, much colder than Melbourne or Adelaide which are further south than Canberra. This is purely due to its proximity of the Snowy Mountains, and relative distance of Canberra from the coast.

Not quite the same but comparable in some ways to the climate between the Seaward and the Inland Kaikoura ranges (Marlborough), or some places in inland Wairarapa, obviously with correction for latitude.

Canberra does get to -1 during the winter months.. Just saying :)

That's why Canberra Cosmos really deserves a place in the A-League. 

They would be hard to beat in summer, if they've trained all winter.

Snow can be considered a metric, I guess. Promotes the A-League if play is abandoned.

So four games out of Wellington, sucked not having back to back games in Wellington and think this is going to make it worst. Want to grow crowd numbers but take games out of Wellington. http://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/nix-take-four-g...

Have the club said anything or are they speculating? They did manage to mistake nelson for Napier too

Yeah after I didn't read it in a blind rage... It does say "upto four" as well. So could just be that there is two away games and both are going to be in Auckland this time in a hope to increase #Metrics

If they are doing say 3 then one during the xmas / new years period in a holiday destination wouldn't be bad.

It's like it hasn't quite clicked for the club administrators. We all know the only proven way to build crowd numbers is by consistently winning games. I'm not sure how more travelling and more time spent away from your home base is supposed to help with that.

It's important that we do all we can to grow our national profile, to turn the abundance of glory-hunting euro-snobs into an abundance of Nix fans. Four, however, is excessive, and I can't help but feel the FFA have had a word in the ear of WelNix about moving closer to the 'New Zealand Phoenix' that Lowy Sr. wanted.

This season just been we built all that hype and good will in the Wellington public with the Save the Nix game vs Adelaide, which then turned out to be a cracking match with a massive crowd. There were heaps of people saying "I should come more often" and things like that. We then didn't have another game in town for a month, and all the hype and interest had died down. Plus it was almost Christmas and people had other things on by then. We still got 10k to that game but I think we could have got a lot more than that again if it had been a couple of weeks earlier.

To me that shows exactly why the traveling road show games are bad for the club in the long term. Ultimately it's regular attendees in Wellington who will sustain the club. And marketing and promotion costs build hype for multiple games in the city, whereas in Auckland or Chch they only go for that one game. If someone gets hooked in Wellington they can go to another game in a couple of weeks hopefully. If someone gets hooked in Auckland they have to wait a year.

Of course, the FFA don't see it that way and were making a big deal about us building the brand across NZ so even if WelNix didn't think it was the best plan anymore they might be contractually obliged to.

Also, constantly traveling and living out of suitcases and playing on unfamiliar grounds kind of fudges the home advantage up

Two visits to the North Harbour Stadium? Oh god, the excitement.

When the organisation governing the competition you play in puts you on notice to increase your commercial value to that competition, when your main sponsor wants you to have a strong presence in Auckland, and when the failure to do those things means you probably don't have a club in four years' time, you gotta do what you gotta do.

I have been to the majority of the travelling roadshow games (Akld x 3, Napier, Palmerston North, ChCh x 2 Dunedin x 2). For me the novelty factor of travelling to Home-Away games has now well and truly passed and at this stage, it would be unlikely that I will attend any. 

The FFA see the 4.7 million population of New Zealand as one market.

Football doesn't work like that.

The FFA don't care.

WelNix has to be seen to be doing what the FFA want, even if the Nix are expected to travel distances far beyond any other club in the competition in order to play home fixtures.

FFS - Have they not listened and learned??? If other places in New Zealand have not heard of the Wellington Phoenix by now, they never will cotton on. The club is being extremely stupid in this. Sure, they might make a few dollars out of it but as for building your home base, this will just kill it. Especially with fewer games here, then season tickets should be coming out a lot cheaper. It was bad enough with 2 games away but 4 is just sheer stupidity.

This sort of think just fudges me off big time. If the club want to really increase the home base, try winning games. Better to build up the core than this frigging circus. Or are the club going to put together some sort of travelling packages for local fans and if they are, please not through Williment travel as they tend to be 3 or 4 times more expensive than doing it yourself. 

Sadly, I can see this actually being the end of my run of games/ Last season I wasted a lot of Annual Leave to attend those home games and spent a lot of money that I really should not have. The clubs "initiative" is now making this an easier decision for me to make and they will be losing income. 

How to lose friends and alienate people - Great move Wellington Phoenix aka Monty Pythons Travelling circus.

I know having an opinion as a Jaffa right now is a little dangerous - and I know this is mostly venting but for me the issues are:

1) a regular home/away season - not Home Home Away Away Away Home - which if you read the article says the Nix have asked FFA to fix this.

2) the timing of the out of Wellington Home games - silly to do them in a situation that leaves fans in Wellington a month between games - do the nix have enough control to be able to achieve this?

Obviously as someone based in Auckland I can see the advantage of taking games to the biggest city but of course that's frustrating for the Wellington based fans - but surely this is better than no team at all? 

The Home/Away/Home will still leave 4 weeks between matches in Wellington I they take any 'Home' matches to other centres.  Will be WEL/AUS/AKL/AUS/WEL.  Be very easy for this to end up 1 game in 6 or 7 like it did in Ernie's first season.  I'd actually prefer, though people will disagree, the first 2 home matches to be in Auckland and the Wellington season to start later. 

Also be nice if at least 1 of the other Home/Away matches was driving distance.  I've done AKL 5 times (incl West Ham), CHCH Twice, P.NTH, and Napier, and it is certainly a lot nicer knowing that I could get back home after the 2 drivable ones.

I think this decision is one that will annoy a lot of the faithful.  I have a family and its hard enough getting a pass for 2 matches a season, let alone 4.  And thats not to mention looking at a trip to Aussie for an away day.  Its becoming VERY expensive to support my LOCAL team

Unless of course three of the Home-Away games are played at Hutt Rec !

At a rough guess, a trip to Akld (leaving aside the stress and heartache it causes on the homefront) costs probably the thick end of $500, maybe more depending on your individual level of alcoholism , flight prices, the degree of mingingness of accommodation etc then toss in Wellington Airport smacking you $60 for a couple of days parking.

For me, I will save the money and put it towards the proposed "proper" away game tour

I think two in Auckland can work. Each stadium is basically a different catchment area, so have them in different stadiums, with a long enough time passed between games. Also one needs to be near the end of the season to cash in on any potential bandwagon situation. 

It's the other two games I don't like. Maybe have one, and rotate it between centres every year to keep the novelty value up. But 4 games is too many. You WILL end up with large gaps between Wellington games in that case - no matter what the FFA manage to do. 

Perhaps the first game of the season would be a goer. Seems the Lions have a home game in each of first three weekends of October.

first game in Auckland, then another Auckland game later in the year to cash in on a potential bandwagon. It could just work. But yeah that's not the issue for me, it's the 2 other games - it should just be one. 

As we all know it's all about 'metrics'. If the Nix were to get on a roll and achieve consistently high A-League crouds at Westpac (12 - 15,000?) either by winning or by some/any other means, plus regularly attract stronger viewing figures ditto - then there wouldn't be any need for this travelling circus. As we all know.

I agree with the above ideas to have one of the games be the first in the season and another maybe over the Xmas break. I think two games away is the maximum they should do. Both Auckland makes sense too, or you could do one in somewhere like Tauranga over Xmas/NY because it's a holiday destination.

I'm fine with 2, properly scheduled road show fixtures. There should never be more than 3 weeks between games in Welly either IMO.

The other factor in the metrics debate is membership numbers. 2 games in Auckland could mean that you can get an "Auckland membership" which is just those 2 games plus a fridge magnet or whatever, but that could potentially mean thousands more "members" for the #metrics.

Also, could the 4 games Done is referring too include preseason games against A League sides? I sure hope so! Should have an FFA cup game in another NZ city too, although I know the FFA wasn't them all in Aussie

One at Mt Smart would be good. The seats are the right colour.

"Yellow, yellow!"

PRETTY PRETTY NIX! 

New Zealand Nix...sigh.

Working around cricket scheduling could be interesting too.

Chappell-Hadlee series (in OZ on a Friday and a Sunday in December), PLUS Australia ODIs here in Jan/Fen PLUS plus South Africa tour here (20:20, ODIs and tests)  in March.

I'd love for all the Nix games to be played in Wellington.

But if the tradeoff is not having a team in the A-League anymore versus having one more game somewhere else in the country per season (which is actually a very realistic tradeoff due to the 433 deal), I know which option I'd take without doubt.