Franchise sport and fans

[RammyClaret61]

Why would anyone give their support to a franchise? In the US, the San Diego Chargers of 56 years have just uped sticks and moved to LA. Completely sh1tting on fans that have supported them for a lifetime.

Here in Australia all sports are franchise based except Sheffield shield cricket. In the A-League while I've been here, Gold Coast United finished bottom two years running and the league dumped them. North Queensland went the same way a couple of years before. Last season Wellington were threatened with loss of franchise if their crowds didn't improve. Then at the 11th hour given a 3 year licence. What's the point in throwing your support behind a "club" that might only have a 3 year lifespan?

Many years ago in Aussie Rules, which was mainly played in Victoria. The AFL was born to take the sport national. What happens was several clubs were forced to relocate. South Melbourne became the Sydney Swans, Fitzroy Lions the Brisbane Lions, and the Footscray Bulldogs forced to rename the Western Bulldogs to cover the whole of western Melbourne.

TheA-league are talking about expansion at the moment, the A-league as just 10 teams. But going about it completely the wrong way. In the beginning there was just Melbourne Victory in Melbourne. Crowds of around the 20,000 mark. So they thought Melbourne is a hot bed for football, let's have another franchise, Melbourne Heart were born. Trouble being most football fans were now aligned with Victory, and we all know you can't change your club! So Heart struggled with 4-5,000 crowds. They also were at risk of losing their licence. Then Manchester city stepped in and they were saved. They have the most resources in the league, but still only attract 9-10,000 crowds. But the A-League are now looking at adding another Melbourne franchise!! Talk about milking the pot dry! There is a stumbling block though, TV! Every A-league game kicks off at a different time so it can be broadcast live. Foxtel can't fit any more into their schedule so aren't keen on more clubs, so at the moment it's not happening.

It's only happened once in England where a club was taken from one set of fans and given to another. Ima tradionalist, I think history means something. Just hope sport in England does not go down the franchise route, the route were fans really are a commodity to be thrown away at a whim.

I think only rugby league as a kind of franchise system.

Sorry I went off on one there. Hope I made my point.

UTC.

[bfccrazy]

Think the joy of football in England is the size of the country - You can access any match you want to go to and not have to travel days by road or fly to an away game.

Even in Spain/Italy etc the away followings are quite poor as a whole.

With Australia, I can't see football growing as rapidly as they'd like it to with the ingrained "you are a fan of ...... And thats that" that comes from your dad/grandad etc...

In a couple of generations I think football will be bigger there though.

[RammyClaret61]

Agree with you on the Aussie sports fan. Even the media are against "new" sports growing in their areas. Here is AFL territory. Last season Melbourne Storm rugby league got to the Grand final, but you'd never know with the press coverage, or lack of. But if a rugby league player gets in trouble, it's front page news.
There as been a little trouble in Melbourne on football days. When there is it's a 4 page spread in the papers, with them calling for the sport to be banned altogether in Melbourne. Any trouble at AFL and you might find a paragraph on page 12 somewhere.
When Melbourne Storm are live on tv on a Saturday, they don't even show it on the main channel in Melbourne, preferring to show some old movie instead.

There is a whole lot more wrong with sport in Australia, but I don't think I've got the skills to articulate it properly.

[bobinho]

I'll admit I was wrong about the franchise idea. I thought that with the "success" of Wimbledon/MK dons, it would become the norm, but it seems to still be the only example.

I still think it was disgusting, and I still refuse to acknowledge MK Dons as a football club. When Burnley play them, it's treated as an international break by me.

[wilks_bfc]

May be a little different now it is more established but what I found when I was over in Australia and went to see Brisbane (now Queensland) Roar play Wellington Phoenix, was that a lot of the crowd were ex-pats getting their footyfix.

There there was a mix of English team shirts there from the obvious "big 4" down to Sheffield United & Yeovil. I even saw another Burnley shirt there.

Like others have said, you don't just pick up supporting a team. You either are born into it or you gain that affinity over time.

[minnieclaret]

Agree with your point but San Diego Chargers not the best example.
The owners are wanting to put money in and grow the club. San Diego City Council won't allow them a new stadium, same problem Becks is having in Miami, so they've moved to LA.
Aussie Rules is a super sport and I can understand them wanting to take it nationwide from Victoria. Sharing teams around was not the way to do it. National League startup followed by promo/releg was the way to go

[bfcjg]

I worry about the Premier League going down a sort of franchise road. Most clubs are American,Chinese or foreign owned and the owners could very well vote that each team plays six home games in the states for example. No difference financialy gate wise between sixty thousand at the Emirates and sixty thousand at the Yankees stadium but possibly more tv viewers and merchandise sold in the host country.

[Devils_Advocate]

I think part of the Premier Leagues USP is its intensity which is driven by the fans passion and passed on to the players. A lot of this comes from the historical relationship between a club and its community and i also think because of our countrys size and the close proximity of all the clubs fierce rivalries have been created which further adds to this.

Its true the money comes from the global TV rights and not the fan spending their money but if you started just picking up clubs and playing their games across the world the matches would become more and more like glorified friendlies and the intensity and importance of the league would reduce. The players wouldnt be under the same pressures and have the same passion and commitment and eventually the global interest would wane and the money would dry up

I may be way off the mark but thats my opinion and why I think our game will be well safe from the franchise model for the foreseeable future but will definitly keep one eye on the Chinese experiment with interest