The Bombers are heading to regional Victoria, with the club announcing today that they will be travelling to Bendigo for the 2023 AFL Community Camp.
Bendigo will host the Bombers on February 9-10, with various activities planned for the wider region.
To kick off the camp on Thursday, the players will visit schools and community centres throughout Castlemaine and Bendigo.
On Friday, fans will have the opportunity to see the Bombers hit the track with an open training session at Queen Elizabeth Oval from 10am on Friday, February 10.
Following training, the Bombers will have a snap and sign session, where fans can get a photo or signature with their favourite players and coaches.
Essendon Executive GM of Community, Indigenous Affairs & The Long Walk Leanne Brooke said this was a fantastic opportunity for Essendon to get back into the community following a two-year interrupted by Covid.
“Football means so much to the people in regional and rural communities. It brings people together with great connection and is often the heartbeat of regional towns,” Brooke said.
“Unfortunately, over the past two years it has been challenging to connect with local communities across Australia, but we recognize that community football is the lifeblood of our game. We are delighted to be returning to local communities to enhance people’s connection to our great game and the Bombers.
“We are very much looking forward to seeing all the Bendigo and Castlemaine locals through our school visits and community clinics and encourage all Bomber fans to come out and see their heroes.”
Open training
When: Friday, February 10
Where: Queen Elizabeth Oval
Time: 10-12 with Snap and Sign to follow until 12:30
but my point remains, you can’t have the 3rd best/rated product and then say it needs to grow and add value (beyond winning), for it to continue to get the money it has, and it’s the clubs job to follow you 2’s pov, about adding value.
we literally had a report 4 odd months ago that blasted how poor the club was. this thread was created cos they hadn’t done much if anything on this front (still doesn’t seem like much has happened) and i can guarantee they will still racking in membership numbers and dollars.
and if they look decent pre season and the first few rounds, people wll sign up like they always do.
not cos of fan engagement, but perceived turning of a corner on field.
The people signing up will be supporters who were members in the past. That focus is a short term perspective. There is nothing wrong with that.
But I’m talking about long term…… community & fan engagement is a 10-20 year plan to turn non-football followers to become Essendon supporters, and turning Essendon supporters (who have never been members) to become members.
And yeah, some older members don’t care about our long term future…. And prefer the club to only focus on winning. But the bleak view is that over the next 10-20 years a large portion of our (loyal) membership base will be dying off…… and younger generations have a lot more membership options than just AFL to choose from.
Yet they hold nearly no cash with significant investment across the club required.
If they can’t fix ‘fan engagement’ in the next 6-12 months, eventually it’s competitors will surpass them on many off field ‘engagement’ metrics which beyond will then eventually mean the Essendon brand is further weakened. Once the brands weakened, then it becomes much more difficult to retain sponsors and hold among the most lucrative guernseys. It’s chicken and the egg.
Moreover, yes, winning games helps enormously. However, notwithstanding this members will still want to sit on a seat at training. Wins or no wins. So fan engagement isn’t simply solved by wins / losses.
The point is that you need to build a large membership base, that regardless of whether the club is winning or losing…. There is still a loyal core of supporters who sign up regardless of how good or bad things are.
This large group of members are getting older…. And will start getting smaller in numbers over time.
But how do you build that loyalty amongst supporters? The answer is Fan engagement.
Richmond have been very successful in this area. They really successfully took their base on the journey with them, well before their flags. They clearly set a benchmark which they delivered. However key thing was bringing their fans on the journey with them.
I think Essendon was doing a good job in this respect between 2016-2018. Emerging from the saga years, they succeeded in getting everyone behind the club. They worked with fan groups to arrange iconic fan marches to the G, had iconic legends of the past inspiring fans to reenergise (Sheeds back in), we’re getting big crowds at games again and this was franked with membership surpassing Hawthorn and drawing level with Colllingwood in 2019. Despite less success.
However, as 2018 then 2019 delivered disappointment, followed by a footy collapse in 2020, the fans ultimately lost trust in the direction of the club… And after hitting rock bottom in 2022, this is where we find ourselves.
Challenge from here is do we have a strong commercial team in place to leverage a hopeful return to firm of the footy team to bring fans back to the club.
With membership now flagging at just 56,700 (59,000 this time last year), time will tell.
No not necessarily. Carlton on track for 95,000 and growing strongly. Collingwood growing again after hitting 100,000 last season… Hawthorn slightly ahead as well. Geelong will obviously grow you’d suspect.
I suspect clubs not delivering for fans will find it harder to grow.
We haven’t really been engaged with our new senior coach. And we haven’t heard from our CEO. Yet Collingwood, whose media and communications machine had long been among the more proactive, are already out introducing their CEO to the masses. Their Oresidebt has also been very clear about their vision and plans. Their supporters have been taken on their journey by their entire Club.
Essendon by comparison is operating in a ‘bubble, reluctant to let the outside, or it’s members and fans in.x
I prefer us to stay out of the bullshit puff pieces during pre-season.
Just do the work quietly and let the footy do the talking once games start.
The off field issues (which have been raised here) needs to be addressed privately with members. The media couldn’t give two ■■■■■ about the stuff we have issues with.
Great clubs can do both. Essendon once did both well. Richmond do both well. I don’t accept we should prioritise footy and over correct by neglecting fan engagement. Membership is flagging, the Club needs to come out from its self imposed cave and start talking to its fans and members again…
Most fans want to be leaders on and off field. That should be our ambition.
they hold no cash reserves cos they put it into building the hanger (ironically the joint people want to move away from now).
and members will want to sit on a seat at training, yet they’ve continually got bigger membership numbers year after year since moving to the hanger (minus 2016), without it.
the rest, it’s just the same rhetoric on regurgitate … fan engagement will cos them in the future.
again you may want engagement (and granted a portion of the base may want it too) but when it comes around to membership time, do you want to waste money on “fan engagement” from a football organisation, or waste it on a club that is going to potentially be winning games ?
you don’t have to buy a membership to go sit on a seat at training, you don’t have to have a membership to enjoy the fan engagement.
you do need a membership to get into games esp at marvel, and you do have to buy a ticket to enter games.
So winning will entrench a growing membership base above all else.
again i’ll use the example of hawthorn. they from memory had larger supporter numbers than us when successful, we averaged more people turning up to games. now they are on the decline again into perceived wilderness we are still averaging 10 k more supporters a game than them.
do you think the members not signing up give a ■■■■ about how much the are engaging with them ? or that there aren’t enough seats at training ?
In answering your question. As I’ve said previously, I want and expect both done very well. Fan engagement and football delivery.
Investment in fan engagement. That is, I want to hear from Club stakeholders regularly across all platforms. On Essendon socials, in the media, in newspapers. I want content from training on digital. I want to go back inside the players theatre for speeches from Scott etc. I want Essendon’s senior coach tweets from press conferences post game to return so I don’t have to go to the AFL site for the full presser 2 hours later!!
And I want a high performing elite footy program that delivers us on field success.
So it’s both. Just as Richmond do. Just as Collingwood have done reasonably well the last 15 years. Just as Carlton are finally doing now.
And on Hawthorn, they built their membership and support using Essendon as their model from the 1990’s. Ian Dicker moved them to the MCG, build a large broad following by opening themselves up as The Family Club. He put great focus on growing its membership on back of its merger fight. Hawthorn wanted to be the 1990’s Essendon. The Essendon national supporter base national brand model playing out of the MCG was the model Dicker wanted for Hawthorn. And, it has only been the Kennett era which has undid that great work, allowing Collingwood to capitalise on Essendon then Hawthorns poor choices of moving games away from the G. Collingwood say “thank you”!. Moving them to Tasmania has hurt their support despite all its success. However, overall Hawthorns membership and supporter growth were set up in the Dicker era where thereafter on field success delivered them growth above what we’d have expected from a middle sized club.
and that’s the point, despite all that, we averaged and still average more attendances at games despite all the stuff you want and say that hawthorn did, and they had an 8 odd year successful period.
do you think their fans this year care about “fan engagement” ? is that going to sell them memberships ?
(granted the clarkson stuff is an outlining variable that distorts stuff moving forward).
do you think if they were a top 4 change they’d get more memberships ?
collingwood and richmond have done well again due to success, and perceived future success.
again the main point will always lead back to successful clubs will have more support because they are successful.
if your goal is to sway new people into supporting essendon, they aren’t looking for warm fuzzy feels of training reports and hearing from the high brass. they want results, on field.
they aren’t sitting there saying, well ■■■■ that club they don’t have seats at training, that’s it i’m following soccer.
Which they basically have by moving games to Tassie. Victorian members downgraded. Some supporters don’t care which is fine. More supporters do.
For instance. I’m still dirty the Club stopped providing live coaches tweets from the post match presser. Now I have to wait an hour for the full presser on, you guessed it, the AFL website. Not Essendon’s website… And this is the sort of ‘fan engagement’ stuff I’m referring to and how things have dropped away.
I want real content in real time. However, about the time covid got, they decided to bin the live coaches tweets. And it never came back. We’re now left to find other ways to get our content, from alternative sources.
And for those that don’t care about that stuff, good. To majority of those that do, it’s time the Club lifted its game!
