There is a very important story in the Daily Telegraph today for all Eels supporters. But it’s not on the back pages. It’s not even in the sports pages. Rather, it’s the front page report describing the “$8 billion boom that could catapult [Parramatta] to the fifth ranked city in Australia”.
To cut a long story short, the Parramatta region and more broadly the entire western-Sydney corridor that basically makes up the entire Parramatta football district will be, far and away, Australia’s biggest growth region for the next decade, overtaking WA’s mining precinct as the new capital investment epicentre of Australia.
We’ve often talked on 1Eyed Eel, about Parramatta’s potential to be a super-club - a benchmark for sporting clubs in Australia. What this story shows is that, such visions are not a pipedream.
I live out in the Rouse Hill area, where thousands of news houses are seemingly popping up on a daily basis. Similar growth is being seen in South-West Sydney where Parramatta’s boundaries stretch down to areas like Fairfield. And then you have the very significant growth in the Parramatta CBD that will come from the ambitious residential developments discussed in the story.
This is going to create opportunities on any number of fronts for the club. The most obvious is the opportunity to significantly grow the club’s membership - based on the size of our catchment area, I’d suggest we should have the largest membership in Sydney. This comes at a time, where membership numbers are more critical than ever because of the opportunity to better monetise those memberships through digital marketing programs (not just directly for the club’s benefits but for is partners as well). The greater the population, the bigger our junior base. And finally money will follow money, and the club has massive potential to very significantly increase its sponsorship and corporate partnerships. An on a related matter, Parramatta’s growth should also benefit the Leagues Club which has the flow-on effect of allowing it to better fund our footballing operations.
Right now, the club is rightly focused on getting its football team back to where it should be, in terms of on-field success, but once it has addressed some of the glaring issues that have been allowed to fester for too long - and as a club we can start focusing on opportunities and growth, there really is nothing to stop the Eels becoming one of the code and nation’s premier clubs.
Replies
Please email this...to Pus gould.....
Gus's biggest flaw was that he automatically assumed that the entire Penrith region would embrace the Panthers as their no.1 sporting club. He hasn't realised that there are an awful lot of Tigers and Parra supporters out Penrith way.
Noticed this too. The potential is there, but the Eels will only grow into a super club if those in charge have the vision to make it happen.
But the growing area is juicy
Super Club with a stadium that only holds 24k people.
We'll need a red light district.
And we'll need a Chinatown, and we can have our own Opera House in the shape of eels.
We have Cabramatta.
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