Eels Blogs

The only way is up. That was the message from both the club’s new CEO and coach as they addressed a small group of “influential supporters” about the club’s ambitions, particularly in relation to its membership plans.

The invite arrived just two days ago. “The Ken Edwards, Chief Executive of the Parramatta Eels would like to extend an invitation to you to join an influential members forum”. Ouch, on the mail merge. I’m afraid from now onwards, I’ll have a hard time thinking of our new CEO as anyone else but “The Ken”. Sorry, Crapper, you’ll need to find a new third-person nomenclature.

We were invited to somewhere I didn’t even know existed. The fourth floor boardroom at the Leagues Club, so special it requires reception to swipe you up. It was dark. Lots of leather. Very Denis Fitzgerald.

Anyway, so with my status within the club confirmed as “influential” - never let it be doubted again - I scan the room. Bongo is influential, it seems. Henry’s Dream, too. I’m thinking that’s not going to go down well with the King of 1Eyed Eel. There’s a posse from League Unlimited including Hollywood Jesus. And PESC is here too. If you spend much time at the after-game functions and similar such functions you’d recognise most of the faces. Maybe 20 all up.

The night is positioned as a chance to get feedback from some of “our most passionate supporters”. Let’s cut to the chase. The club is doing some proactive grassroots communication because it is concerned about the impact that reducing the number of Parramatta Stadium games to eight is going to have on its Big Hairy Audacious Goal (that’s known in business circles as a BHAG in case you were wondering) of achieving 20,000 members for 2013. Now, I don’t know about you but when I heard the 20,000 aspiration I figured they were talking sometime off into the nefarious future. No, we’re talking next year. The Ken actually wants 20,000 ticketed but marketing guy Steve McGee will settle for that as a total.

So here’s the pitch. There was a choice, says the club. To do a crappy deal with Parramatta Stadium where we make no money or take the cash from ANZ and the NRL so that we can invest in facilities like the Centre of Excellence and growing the club. Well they took the latter. We’ve got a three-year contract now locked in, with a two-year option. Whether you like it or not, that’s done and dusted. Bongo argued the vehemently that the club really needed to have been more consultative with the fans on the issue, but the club painted it as the Stadium and government basically giving them no other option.

Seems to me if The Ken and The Steve are successful in signing on-board 20,000 members as planned, then they’re going to stand a decent chance of defending these decisions.. If we’re worried about capacity in 2014 then they’ll have a much easier time saying the right chord was pulled. If we’re still playing to half-empty Stadiums at most home matches, to me at least, it will be a bitter pill I’ve been made to swallow. Yes, we’re taking home a bag of cash, but The Ken’s on the big bucks and I can’t help but think a man of his talents should surely be able to turn a few bucks for the place so as I didn’t have to lose two more of my annual precious Stadium experiences.

After all, what was confirmed was just how godawful this club has operated previously. I asked The Ken to fess up on churn figures because I was stunned when I found out as part of the election process that of our supposed 12,000 members only around 3,500 of those were eligible to vote in the forthcoming election; ie they have been ticketed members for the last 3 years. The Ken said that best-practice churn expectations would be 12 to 13 per cent, while we’ve been churning members at 22 per cent. Yes, that’s right. Every year, more than one in five members decide they’re not satisfied with their experience as a Parramatta member and don’t renew and that’s close to double what the best football clubs in Australia do.

Thankfully, we’re finally getting our act together. We’ve invested in IT, we’re going to start doing better customer profiling and segmented marketing. You know those little things you learn in Business and Marketing 101. Mind you, considering this is our first CEO who has likely completed a course like that, I don’t know why I’m surprised. I asked The Steve why it’s taken this long to introduce some of the membership initiatives we’re seeing this year, like recurring memberships and loyalty programs. His answer: Leadership. Take from that, what you will.

We’ve also had a consultant come in and do competitive benchmarking on the membership package front. That means we’ve paid someone a bunch of money to surf around all the other club’s membership websites and steal all their best ideas. After what we’ve been dished up previously, I’ll take it, but I still cannot fathom how its been so difficult to match what other clubs have been doing.

Now, all of this is great. Hoorah. Pass the poms poms. However, we need the club to kick on now. Edwards talked about bringing in the best membership person in the country, and also the best communications manager in the country and that he’s got the head-hunters doing the rounds now. I’m sure when you work at Stadium Australia preparing for an Olympics or your helping Big Boy Tinkle conquer the Hunter, you’re used to such largesse as being able to call on consultants, head-hunters and other such expensive guns for hire at will. At Parramatta, on the other hand, we’ve had years of being told how awfully poor we are and that’s why our poor office staff have been so under-manned and managed and why everything keeps going wrong.

Now, yes, the NRL is going to be putting into the donation chest and yes, we’re going to bank extra bucks out of the re-negotiated stadium deals, but The Ken’s new A-List team is going to have to deliver on those BHAGs because this club has sold off much of its property assets over the past couple of years and we need to transition to sustainable business models at the football and Leagues club level pretty quickly. I can’t help think that the 20,000 goal is hugely ambitious and while I applaud that big-thinking I do hope that there’s some circumspect financial modelling going on in the background in case things don’t quite go to plan. Because the Titans were very good at talking up their BHAGs as well.

I’ve no doubt the club’s motivation for the event was somewhat self-serving, however I got enough from the club to think we’re going to see Parramatta engage a lot of better with the supporter base moving forward under Edwards’s leadership. I like the fact that Edwards has come out and stated a big, ambitious goal because it gives us - the stakeholder’s of this proud club - not only a bit of transparency but also a lever to apply accountability and god know’s that is something that has been missing in action for years at this place (unless you’re a coach of course).

Ultimately to ask the club’s big question of the moment - yes, I’m in. I hate ANZ Stadium and I’ll continue to pass on those matches. I’ll still cough up for my Swarm family ticket, though, because ultimately I treasure my fortnightly - no strike-that, once every three week - trip to Parramatta Stadium. And I encourage you to do likewise. Memberships are the financial backbone of any football club and even if you don’t take a ticketed membership, ensure your right to vote and join both the football and Leagues clubs.

P.S. Thank you to Ken Edwards, Ricky Stuart and Steve McGee for the hospitality. The prawn claws and spring rolls were lovely.
P.P.S. Yes, Ricky was there too, but I wrote about that in this blog.

Disclosure: I’m running for the Parramatta Eels board. As of Friday, that should be official and I go all politician on you all.