A-League Promotion & Relegation
Paul Williams
If you're ever bored and wanting to start a bonfire within the Australian football community, just mention three little words: promotion and relegation. Then sit back and watch the inferno.
It's been the topic of conversation in the last month or two, particularly in light of the form of Central Coast, who seem quite content to lose so long as they're "entertaining". With no relegation there's no consequence for failure apart from wounded pride.
Fox Sports, who all but control football in Australia, have chimed in recently, running a poll and publishing the thoughts of prominent player and match agent Lou Sticca, all supporting the introduction of promotion and relegation.
But while the theory is nice, the reality is very different. Let's be perfectly honest, promotion and relegation is a pipe dream. It will not happen.
Australia is not a country predisposed to supporting second (or third) tier football. The A-League already struggles for credibility from some sections of the community because of its supposed poor quality when compared to the best leagues in the world, or even other Australian sports that contain, generally, the best players in the world in those sports.
It's for that reason the second tier in Australia often struggle for attention, because fans prefer to watch, attend and support teams in the major leagues - AFL, NRL, Super Rugby etc.
A young kid in Ballarat isn't going to grow up supporting the Ballarat Red Devils at the exclusion of all others, passed down from generations as is the norm in other parts of the world. Kids like what is popular, and what is popular in Australia is the top tier. They're far more likely to attach themselves to one of the two Melbourne sides - Victory or City. It's a simple reality.
It's the same argument used by those against FFA's plans for a third Sydney side in and around the Sutherland Shire. The Shire, they say, is already a Sydney FC stronghold, with a significant number of Sydney FC members residing in the area.
Expansion is, or should be a hot topic. The goal has to be to grow the A-League to a 16 team competition, therefore allowing for a home and away season of 30 matches. That requires an extra six teams to the 10 already in existence. In my view they should be - Wollongong, Canberra, Gold Coast, Townsville, Geelong and Tasmania. In reality it'll take another 10-15 years to get to that point.
That gives the A-League a good geographic spread with teams in all capital cities, bar Darwin, and the key regional areas - Central Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong, Geelong, Gold Coast, and North Queensland.
An ambitious league, in 20-30 years, could look to expand to 18 teams and include Darwin and perhaps even the Sunshine Coast, a region predicted to have as many as 750,000 residents by 2050, or Cairns, predicted to overtake Townsville as the biggest city in northern Australia and have a population close to 500,000.
It would make it a truly national competition. While people will have differing views on where expansion should take place, the important part is that growth is strategic, ensuring the A-League has a presence in each significant region in Australia to maximise eyeballs and bums on seats, in turn maximising revenue.
In the world of modern sport, money rules all. It goes against the pure ideals of sport we all hold so dear, but it's the cold reality that exists in 2016. For the most part that money comes from one source - television.
Television companies play an increasingly large role in modern sports, whether it's dictating kick off times, schedules, or as is likely the case with FFA's planned third Sydney team, even dictating where teams should be placed.
It's the same reason the AFL expanded to Western Sydney, the AFL's version of Mars, rather than the more AFL-dominated Tasmania. It's pure economics. What will allow "us" to generate the maximum revenue to drive the growth of the sport? It's the question the FFA, and every sport, ask themselves every time they're faced with a decision.
While in most parts of the world, football has free reign as the dominant sport, in Australia it does not. Not only does it compete with the other football codes it also directly competes with what is regarded as the national pastime - cricket, as we're finding out this summer with the rampaging success that is the Big Bash.
The AFL and NRL dominate when it comes to TV deals, with both having deals worth $2bn or more. Cricket comes in third, with football and rugby union battling for fourth. In a small TV market, and in an ever-changing media landscape, there is only so much money to go around.
Before handing over their ever-more-precious green bills, TV executives want to be guaranteed of a certain number of eyeballs. They want teams in each major market, preferably two or sometimes even three, to maximise the amount of advertising revenue they can generate in order to make back some of the money they outlay.
How kindly will they take to a concept that could, potentially, see a giant like Western Sydney relegated to a second division to be replaced by, let's say, the Ballarat Red Devils?
Promotion and relegation works well in Europe and South America, because that sense of community and support for your local club is strong and has been passed down through generations, built up over decades, even centuries in some cases. While football has a long and strong history in Australia, it has nothing on that scale.
While we all watch videos of Carpi in Serie A or Eibar in La Liga and opine about how wonderful it would be for such stories to exist in Australia, the simple fact is they don't. Even Eibar almost didn't make it to La Liga because of strict capital requirements that saw the club have to undertake a worldwide crowd funding campaign.
Just where clubs would find the capital required to fund an A-League campaign, with no guarantee of a place at the big table year in year out, remains a mystery. The FFA will have a tough enough time finding the money for expansion to 12, 14 and eventually 16 teams.
The elongated sale of the Newcastle Jets shows just how hard it is to find investors willing to pump their money in, and that's with a licence guaranteed for the next 20 years.
Australia is one of the most unique sporting markets in the world. What works in other parts of the world won't necessarily work here. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. It depends on your view.
Promotion and relegation is one of those things.
In theory I love the concept, I need no convincing of that, there's no doubt it would add a level of intrigue to the season. But in Australia, the cold hard reality is this - it's just not possible.
Copyright © Paul Williams and Soccerphile.com
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