Does the A-League need a Big Bash style experiment?

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The fans roar as the fireworks explode – with music blasting a Mexican wave engulfs the stadium. Cricket Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL) has succeeded in attracting families to their sport, which is something that the A-League could look to replicate.

The A-League could learn from both the failures and successes of the Big Bash League to rejuvenate football in Australia, with a BBL style concept to attract consumers and fans to the A-League in a unique manner.

However, an approach into a BBL style experiment would have to be taken carefully as there is a fine line between creating a product that is viewed as a serious competition and creating a product that is looked down upon such as AFLX.

The BBL’s peak was on January 2, in 2016 when 80,883 fans packed into the MCG to watch a match between the Melbourne Stars and the Melbourne Renegades.

While the Big Bash has been in a supposed decline in popularity since, the league has still been able to produce some large attendances.

54,478 people attended a Melbourne Derby on January 4 earlier this year – the third highest crowd for a BBL game in the league’s history.

Meanwhile the A-League’s highest crowd before COVID-19 interrupted the 2019/20 season was 33,523 people at October’s draw between Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City.

Cricket Australia’s success with the BBL came from creating an experience geared towards families and children – with pump up music, fireworks and flamethrowers that were suited to T20 cricket with its high scoring, exciting and shorter format.

Former Liverpool star Craig Johnston has suggested an idea of what an A-League version of the BBL would look like.

“Four quarters, 15 minutes each, rotating substitutes, sin bins, all the things you’re not allowed to do in soccer,” he told The Daily Football Show in 2019.

“So effectively in midfield, you could take a touch, get past a player and you could shoot for goal. Then the goalkeeper’s either saving that shot or it’s a goal.”

“We’re utilising the same players but we’re taking out their midfield and we’re giving the players and the consumers four times more of what they want in the quarter of the time.”

Johnston believes that a Big Bash style format should be adapted by Australian football with A-League teams.

“The big idea is the Big Bash of soccer, but then the kids copy it at their training grounds,” he said.

“It is professional six-a-side with A-League teams. The A-League teams split in half, red versus blue, they play against each other.”

“The Big Bash and the One Day series is the best thing that ever happened to cricket in terms of engaging young minds and future minds.”

If the A-League was to try BBL style product it would need to make sure the best players are available – a weakness of the Big Bash has been that some of the biggest names in Australian cricket do not play regularly in the competition as the league clashes with international fixtures.

An A-League Big Bash competition would also be taken more seriously if the best players were playing regularly.

Perhaps the naming rights sponsor of the competition could provide a cash prize to the winning club, to entice clubs to field their best players.

One lesson that the A-League could learn from the Big Bash is that it has been made too long, something that even stars of the competition like Glen Maxwell have admitted.

“I think the length of the tournament when it was 10 games, I think we all really enjoyed that. I think it was the perfect amount,” Maxwell told SEN in early 2020.

“I just think 14 games is just a little bit much. It just makes for a very long tournament and probably goes for a touch too long.

“With school starting again it makes it a bit more difficult to keep the interest levels going until the end (of the season).”

The Big Bash was at its best when there was a limited number of games played predominantly in the school holidays.

If each A-League team played each other once in a new competition it could have an 11 game season plus a short finals series.

Ideally the A-League Big Bash concept would need to have as many games broadcast on free-to-air as possible – in order to easily accessible to fans.

There seems to be a lack of momentum coming into the 2020/21 A-League season, which is just under a week away. An Australian football version of the BBL could potentially be played as a lead in tournament to the A-League season, bringing attention and hype to the beginning of the competition.

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Daniel Foley is a sports junior journalist with Soccerscene. He reports widely on football policy and micro industry matters.

A-Leagues Independent Chairman Stephen Conroy on how the APL will evolve post-World Cup

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Stephen Conroy - A-Leagues Chairman
Image via KEEPUP

For Stephen Conroy and the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), it has been a time of significant change.

In his new role as Independent Chair, Conroy has recently seen the departure of former Chief Executive Officer Danny Townsend, leaving A-Leagues Commissioner Nick Garcia and KEEPUP Managing Director James Rushton to lead the APL.

Ahead of launching the 2023/24 A-Leagues season, it has proved to be a very busy period for the APL in amongst the CEO change – with the reversal of the Grand Final decision, announcing the brand-new U-Nite Round to take place in Sydney, confirming the sale of Perth Glory and identifying the preferred bidder for the Auckland licence.

After bidding farewell to the APL’s inaugural CEO, the focus has shifted to restoring faith in the A-Leagues fanbase – as the men’s and women’s World Cups need to be the kick-starter for football in Australia.

Speaking at Melbourne Victory’s Chairman function at AAMI Park before the Round 2 match against Newcastle Jets, Conroy reflected on a whirlwind period for the APL and football as a whole.

“It’s an exciting time coming off the back of the exceptional performance of the Matildas,” Conroy said.

“The standalone women’s round for the Liberty A-League was hugely positive with the record crowd and atmosphere we saw at the Sydney Derby.

“You’re seeing the enthusiasm with 1.6 million Australians and two million New Zealanders watching the two respective nations play.

“In funny because people almost forget the Socceroos and how well they did at Qatar – we talk about 2006 and the Golden Generation, but genuinely the performance in this tournament was absolutely stunning.”

The record attendances and memberships have been a huge plus for Conroy and the APL, particularly for women’s teams with numbers reaching unprecedented levels.

“As an example we’ve already seen Melbourne Victory go past 20,000 for memberships, so that’s a huge tick,” he said.

“With record turnouts and memberships, we are getting the sense that it is really happening now for people around the country in football.

“There’s so much in front of us at the moment.”

An integral part of the APL has been KEEPUP, which has recently undergone a revamp to split A-Leagues content into its own site.

Conroy outlined the digital strategies behind KEEPUP which has been a major inclusion since the APL’s inception.

“KEEPUP was launched when we unbundled from Football Australia – recently people might have been wondering why the app has morphed back into A-Leagues,” he said.

“In the rush to unbundle, we didn’t own the rights to call it the A-League app, but now we’ve got that sorted.

“What we will now start to see is a more rich product and this turns eyeballs into bums on seats or viewing on TV.

“KEEPUP’s mission is to drive people to watch the game at the ground, through free to air or streaming.”

Conroy also linked back to the numbers we saw from the Women’s World Cup, and how that will be a motivator for future growth of the A-Leagues.

“For all of us that went to any of the World Cup matches, part of it was needing to download the FIFA app,” he said.

“As we saw earlier, there’s 1.6 million Australians who want to watch a game of football – so we’ll be sitting down with Football Australia to work out how to succeed together.

“What we want to see is which team people want to support, get them to more games in-person and turn more casual fans into fully-fledged members.”

KordaMentha Partner Scott Langdon on why the Newcastle Jets need long-term investment

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McDonald Jones Stadium - Newcastle Jets
Image credit: Grant Sproule

The sale of Newcastle Jets has been announced by the club’s Executive Chairman Shane Mattiske, where they have appointed professional services firm KordaMentha to oversee the formal process.

A consortium of parties formed in 2021 that was linked to other A-League clubs was initially started as a provisional measure to maintain the Club, to put out a team that could compete and strong growth during a challenging period for the Jets in the middle of the Covid crisis back in January 2021.

KordaMentha is an independent and reliable firm providing their knowledge on cybersecurity, forensic, financial crime, performance improvement, real estate and restructuring services across the Asia-Pacific region.

Fast forward to now, the owners of today have been responsible for the successes of the increasing membership signups, captivating more sponsors and developing a strong core of talent through the Youth Academy.`

KordaMentha Partner Scott Langdon spoke to Soccerscene – providing an insight of his involvement in the sale process, what he hopes to achieve for the club and the A-Leagues as well.

“The shareholders reached out to us a few weeks ago in relation into commencing a sale of the club – they considered at the time to put Newcastle Jets on the market and find a long-term owner, for someone that won’t be there for a short period of time,” he said.

“The current shareholders didn’t have the intention of being there long-term, so we need to be there for Newcastle to get them through a challenging period.

“Shane has done a great job in getting the club as a business back on its feet – it’s now in a position where it’s stabilised and it’s time for a long-term owner in a natural progression stage for the club.”

Langdon explained what he sees in Newcastle and why should someone should get behind them, tapping into the unique area they represent.

“In the last couple of weeks that l have been involved, it has been overwhelming, for the local community and the region that Newcastle has and the support for them,” he said.

“l think that whilst we are looking globally to find an owner and we are having conversations with people throughout the world, there is a great ability to connect within the Newcastle region which is a very passionate soccer region.”

“The strong local links to the community is another key reason why we’re involved, and it’s an exciting opportunity to be part of the process.”

As recently seen with Perth Glory and their new Australian consortium owners Primeland Group signing the contract, Langdon shared whether KordaMentha is looking for someone within Australia or abroad.

“We are definitely looking on a global stage for a long-term owner – we have attracted interest within our first 48 hours from around the globe,” he said.

“We are all focused on completing it by Christmas which we think is entirely achievable.”

Newcastle Jets now has highly competitive men’s and women’s A-League teams, underpinned by a strong academy containing 13 boys’ and girls’ teams delivering exciting talent into these squads.

It is now a key time for the club to follow suit with what has gone ahead at Perth Glory, to lock in a sustainable future.

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