Melbourne Heart on Life Support

The Melbourne Heart is Australian football’s (soccer) newest franchise who kicked off their first ever game on Thursday night with a 1-0 home loss to the Central Coast Mariners. While not a great first-up on-field performance for a team that looks like a babershop quartet reunion, it’s their off-field performance that will require regular check-ups if it’s to grow up into a successful sporting team.

Pic via backpagelead.com.au

The Heart franchise have a massive challenge ahead of them but they have already started well. They’re recruited a coach from The Netherlands in an effort to play a very technical, and by extrapolation, successful European style of play while the squad features a number of Socceroos, though even if some of them are past their best. Furthermore, according to reports they have around 4000 members and even have Jon Bon Jovi as their international no. 1 ticket holder. They also will play out of the brand new 30,000 seat AAMI Park, custom built for rectangular sports in Melbourne.

However, the biggest challenge the Heart will face both on and off the pitch will be big brother - the Melbourne Victory. The Victory have a 5 year head start on the Heart and are probably the A-League’s most successful club on and of the pitch. Two time grand final winners, three-time grand finalists, twice top of the league at the end of the home-and-away season and biggest average attendance for the last 4 years is just a glimpse at what the Victory has achieved. They have a very strong and passionate supporter base that saw over 55,000 people turn up to the 2007 grand final played at Etihad Stadium where they beat Adelaide 6-0.

Because the Victory are so successful and have this large and loyal following, it’s going to be very hard for the Heart to break into this market for a number of reasons:

1. Most sports fans are ferociously loyal to their team. They’ll wear the colours, fork out money for season tickets and merchandise, they’ll sing the songs and bag the opposition to align themselves with a club that means so much to them and which they can identify with. Melbourne football fans are no different so I can’t see many Victory fans jumping ship to follow the Melbourne Heart. In fact, Victory fans will see the Heart as an intruder playing in their own backyard and they will already harbour feelings of resent towards them. Assuming all the football fans in Melbourne have aligned themselves with the Victory, where is the Heart going to draw their supporter base from? They are both named Melbourne and they will both play out of the same stadium. They are in essence selling the same product as the Victory is to the same people that have already invested their time, effort, money and lives to for the past 5 years.

2. While Melbourne is regarded as the sports capital of the world, that doesn’t mean it’s population has an unlimited amount of money to support every single sporting team within and around the city. It already has 9 AFL clubs which is passionately and religiously supported as it is the home of AFL. It also has the Melbourne Storm in the NRL which has found difficulties trying to break into the Melbourne market selling a ‘foreign’ game. Along with Melbourne’s two football teams it will have the Melbourne Rebels rugby union team which will play in the Super 15 competition in 2011. The city also has the Vixens in the ANZ Championship and the Tigers in the NBL. Melbourne also hosts a number of grand once-a-year events such as the Australian Open, Australian Formula 1 grand prix, AFL Grand Final, Melbourne Cup and the Boxing Day cricket test match. With so much sport in one city, mortgage paying Mum’s and Dad’s can’t afford to prop up and support every team and every league in the city.

3. The quality of the product that the Heart will attempt to sell to the public will need to be of the highest-order to attract new fans if it is any chance of staying a float. Even before it was revealed that the Melbourne Storm were extravagantly rorting the salary cap, News Ltd who owns the team still made a financial loss each year to prop the club up even though the Storm was the most successful team of the past 10 years. Some of the best and most exciting players in the world of rugby league were playing for the Storm each week but the TV ratings, sponsors and fans have not been there to assure the future of the Storm. While football is a much more attractive sport to Melbournians than rugby league, the Heart will need to produce a high quality product that is better than the Victory if it wants to entice new fans, and sponsors, to the game. Just being something new will not guarantee long-term survival.

4. The quality of the product could be affected by the lack of quality footballers that either play in the A-League or in the developmental or second-tier leagues around the country. Most, if not all young Australian footballers quickly go overseas to hone their skills in better leagues with better coaches with the influence of a pro-football culture. The players playing in the A-League are obviously second, third or fourth rate. There are not enough really good young footballers to have some leave and still have the rest be of good quality that provides an exciting game to watch. Most teams are scrapping the barrel with the Australian players - there’s not enough to go around the 11 teams (and soon to be 12 next year). The Heart will hope it finds a few gems that have yet to leave our shores and that it’s Dutch coach can play a stylish and successful type of football with the players at his disposal.

5. The A-League is still a very new league to the Australian public. While the ALF and NRL have been around in various forms for over 100 years, the A-League is only 5 years in and is still trying to find it’s feet in every city in which it has a team. While the early signs were encouraging, a numbers of teams have needed the Football Federation Australia to help prop them up with financial support, average crowd numbers have dropped and matches can only be watched on TV with a foxtel subscription. The A-League is still struggling to  become financial sound and to have a very marketable product. The Heart couldn’t have asked for a much tougher league to join (apart from the NBL...).

These are the some of the major issues facing the Heart as it’s struggles for survival. The A-League’s newest addition to the family will be on life-support from the moment it begins it’s life. Football fans around Australia (possibly sans Victory fans) would love to see the Heart be successful and stick around for the long haul. However, the other sporting codes will do it’s upmost to stop the Heart’s beat ticking. Nurse - get the crash cart ready.