I think the club lost Focus during covid. It had to let lots of staff in these areas go due to cuts, then it became distracted by its failing footy department and spent considerable time and available resources trying to prop up footy. I think communications and fan engagement lost focus at this point and never recovered, even to this day. And hence recognition in the external review the Club needed to refocus and improve. The Club recognise it needs to do more, that’s unarguable.
Membership is flagging, it’s down 2,000+ same time last year and now 6th highest in Victoria, currently behind Geelong and I think Hawthorn too. Now Essendon is still on track for around 82-85,000 so it will improve. However its rivals, Richmond, Carlton & Collingwood will be between 95,000-105,000. So Essendon has really fallen behind the last two years and this is in part due to a ‘fan connection’ challenge and mostly due to poor on field results and members loosing trust and belief in the club and how it has / was managed.
So we’re not performing as well as we once were in connecting and communicating with fans and this is being seen in the membership figures as well as a lack of content across media platforms. In line with the review, we need to get things back on track across our Club and hopefully we get there asap on and off field… I’m hoping for great progress under our new leadership team. Fingers crossed.
Just on instagram, you can’t really compare total posts as a meaningful way of engagement. The club uses stories for the bulk of their instagram content.
I don’t follow any other clubs on there to know how they stack up but they’re fairly active with stories.
Basically I think the decline reflects the events throughout 2022 and accumulated frustration in the years leading up to it.
However I also think there’s a general dissatisfaction with the levels of quality with the packages and the disconnect between the fans / members and the club.
The 2022 annual members survey would’ve been sobering reading.
Overall membership sales are growing across the league in 2023 so we’re losing ground to the field.
Most would argue turning membership around is achieved by winning games and this is true to a significant extent. Having said this, addressing the underlying dissatisfaction with the quality and content in the packages, improving connection with the broader fanbase at a macro level AND winning games will see membership grow to be alongside or ahead of Carlton, Richmond and Collingwood.
One week from Round 1 and the fixture page on our website still defaults to the 2022 fixture. Not the case for any other club I have checked. Come on guys, do you want to engage fans or not?
FWIW we dropped two mini memberships for 2023. We have 3 Bombers in the family and 2 “others”. So we have 3 “full” memberships and had another 2 three gamers for when they want to come to games like Anzac Day (though I’m not sure they really need this).
One day we just got a big slice taken out of the credit card and realised it was for the memberships. I don’t remember approving this so felt a little perturbed. But the Thorburn thing was handled so badly (first the appointment but more particularly the sacking) that it seemed like time to drop a couple of memberships anyway. The kid on the 'phone was most understanding and handled the refund well.
So for me it was really recent events, and a little bit on the credit card procedures. I wouldn’t cancel memberships just because we were losing. Though I understand the Rutten Campbell cleanout, we probably would have kept the 5 memberships if they remained.
I don’t agree. We can and should be doing both. The external review recognises this too.
And why bother with engagement? If our fans are more engaged and connected, on balance they support the Club more financially. And why does that matter to Essendon now? Because we don’t have cash reserves presently, are unable with government help to fix Windy Hill and within 5 years will need to spend a heap of money making upgrades to the footy facilities at The Hangar.
As I said, contrary to popular belief, Essendon has negligible cash however thankfully has paid down its debt which is a positive thing.
And everyone’s circumstances are different. Your views and actions in relation to how members reacted to the departure of Thorburn were not alone. There were considerable numbers of our Christian (no, not far right religious) community offended by what happened and took action too.
Hopefully in time everyone in the Essendon community come together again as one and are proud to support our Club in a way we once did, enjoying success on field and a behind a club once again operating professionally whilst being highly respected in the industry.
I’m hoping our latest regime and leaders are the group that return us to happier times on and off field.
North have been fantastic and really ramped up their fan engagement last two years. This sort of stuff is the stuff we need more of. This is what I’ve been on about regarding more creative and innovative content on our socials… This is the type of things fans want to see, the Club taking us behind the scenes. Taking us on the journey. Not just telling us to buy a membership to signify we’re on the journey…
They also ran a great initiative aimed at young supporters, this is the type of innovative thinking re membership packages. Adding value at all supporter demographics. Reframing membership packages is one thing, supporting broader engagement and connection to facilitate membership growth the example with this ‘Inner North’ digital execution.
