Since coming on board, Ken Edwards has been telling us that we have 12,000 members. I've found this surprising based on a couple of notes. Firstly, since our 2010 season, it has been pretty obvious that there have been decreasing membership figures as I know a lot of people over the past two years who have been able to improve their seats significantly. In this 2011 corporate sales brochure it states that in 2010 we had 11,133 of which just under 7000 were ticketed.
Last year, when membership figures were being public I seem to remember it saying in the papers we were more around the 10,000 mark.
Today the club released it Parramatta District Rugby League Annual Report. When you become a Blue and Gold Army member (ticketed or non-ticketed) you automatically become a member of the PDRLC.
In the annual report it states that revenue for members in 2012 was $185,731 down from $206,755. Each membership is worth $25 which suggests that member numbers dropped from 8270 to 7430 members (8500 in 2010). This doesn't count members under the age of 16. Working off 2010 member splits we're looking at membership well under 10,000 and given the expected drop-off you would have from Under 16s compared to the season after the grandfinal (especially given that the membership packs since then have significantly reduced the amount of gumpf) you'd have to estimate it would be closer to 9000.
Interestingly, that corresponds to numbers that were given on 1Eyed Eel by Jodeci - who many members would know from here and LU and who has proven himself to very well connected and provides notoriously reliable information. I wrote this post about the importance of growing membership numbers and Jodeci stated we had 9000 members of which 6000 were ticketed. Given that the club also stated at the recent 'influential members forum' that the club had suffered 21% churn year on year, it does seem highly unlikely that we actually grew our membership to 12,000 during the last two years when our results were so bad.
So where is this 12,000 figure coming from? I've asked a number of people in the last week or so what was the actual figure and I keep getting the same answer "around 12000".
Surely these figures should be absolutely transparent. There should be no "around 12000", we should have a precise number and breakdown of memberships. And unless there is something going on, that we can't see and the numbers are indeed less than what is being stated, why are we inflating them?
Replies
good question.
I bet he have a high % of junior members.
Some parents maybe members and have 3 kids as members as well.
I'd say the split would be close to 50/50.
In 2010 less it was around 37 per cent were Under 16 (7000 ticketed and 4150) it appears. I honestly believe that number would have gone down based on the two factors I mentioned - lack of success and the decrease in the attractiveness of the member packages to kids.
Perhaps they will sell a Parra stadium membership and an ANZ membership to boost the numbers. That's what St George do, by having a membership for Wollongong and a membership for Kogarah games, so that anyone that wants to go to all is counted twice....devious little #@!&*
It counts as four but only everyone over 16 counts as a PDRLC member.
Regardless of how these numbers are "calculated" I think the 20000 target is ridiculously optimistic.
We are currently at just under 2000 and even with izzy signing ur not going to get 10 times that over the next couple of months. Even the dogs who finished 1st and signed T. rex and gave away a prize a day from their corporate sponsors to a random member who signs up only have 6000. This club had a lot of damage done over the past 2 or so years and was brought to its knees and whilst we have to be positive we have to be responsible and realistic and crawl then walk before we can run.
Jimmy's post about members priveledges coming up is a great start and is tempting me and my mates and families to part with our hard earned.
Yeh, I said same to both Ken Edwards and Steve McGee that I thought they were being ambitious. I did say to The Ken that I was impressed that he actually went on record as even having a goal, because there haven't been any publicly set goals at this club for as long as I can remember - and you can't hold people accountable to achieving objectives if you don't know what the objectives are.
We could actually be in a position to be a profitable business next year. The Leagues Club grant is only $3 million and the increase in the club's grant from the ARL is over that figure. The Ken said the business plan assumed that the $3 million would hold solid which means we're pretty much spending an extra $3 million on our Rugby League operations.
That's a lot of money. If we are at 12,000 and we reach 20,000 that's an increase in membership numbers of 8000. Given we're doing things like giving away kids memberships and cheap promotions out into the Central West to coincide with the Mudgee game, I would say you're probably looking at an Average Revenue per Member on the net membership gain of $150. So even with what most of us consider a totally ambitious goals we're talking about you're looking at a only around a $1.2 million increase in revenue.
When you look at these kinds of numbers, I can't help but go back to the decision to move games away from Parramatta Stadium. I was told by one of the directors that the difference between a Parra game and an ANZ game is $150k. So those extra two games that are moved away may improve our bottom line by $300k. That's a relatively insignificant amount of money compared to what is now being spent around the club to get us back to a position that we I believe we should already be in, had we done a better job of running the business for the past few years. And I don't even think the Parramatta Stadium decision should be a financial one. You look at our record at our dismal record at ANZ and its pretty clear that you're jeopardising competition points as well. If we happen to miss finals by two points after losing key games at ANZ it's going to look like a pretty poor investment.
Just let it go and move along..............
100% right.
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