How to make the A-League grand final grander
How are you preparing for grand final day?
Are you the host this year? Or are you taking a few drinks to your friends’ house so you can watch the game on the 65-inch TV they just splashed out on?
Will there be decorations? Maybe balloons in the colours of the competing teams?
Is someone organising a sweep? Perhaps just a sheet of paper for everyone to write their predictions on?
Of course not. Because we’re talking about this Sunday’s A-League grand final, not the AFL’s.
Even I haven’t planned to do any of the above.
It’s not that I don’t care – nothing could be further from the truth.
And it’s not because Adelaide United won’t be playing. Since Saturday night’s loss confirmed that Sydney FC will meet Melbourne Victory next weekend, we’ve been reminded that it’s The Grand Final Everyone Wanted.
[By the way, a big thank you to the media in Melbourne and Sydney. Without them I would have forgotten that seeing those two teams in our competition’s showpiece was my deepest desire.]
No, the problem is the A-League grand final simply hasn’t established itself on the sporting calendar.
Do you know when next year’s will be? Will it be on a Saturday or a Sunday? Will it be in the afternoon or evening?
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This year’s Melbourne Cup will be run mid-afternoon on the first Tuesday in November. It always is.
You can usually rely on the AFL grand final being played in the afternoon of the last Saturday in September.
Yes, that will change occasionally. This year the Cricket World Cup forced the AFL season to start late so that One Day In September will be in October. But you’ve had plenty of notice thanks to a rainforest of fixture cards, newspaper saturation and dedicated websites.
In stark contrast, this season’s A-League decider was planned for yesterday before being pushed back a week to ensure there was no chance of one of the competing teams playing an Asian Champions League match just days before the grand final.
This shouldn’t be a problem next year. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has already published its 2016 calendar of competitions. We now know there are Champions League rounds scheduled for April 19-20, May 3-4 and May 17-18.
Nevertheless, grand final date randomness has been a feature of the A-League’s first decade and, until recent times, the date wouldn’t even be known at the beginning of the season.
Years ago, if you went to the A-League’s website in October, it would be easy to see the home-and-away fixtures but the possible dates for finals would either be absent or hard to find. Sure, you could count the weekends after the last round but even then you’d have no idea whether the grand final would be on Friday night, Saturday or Sunday.
The last three grand final dates have been April 22, April 21 and May 4. This year’s late decider isn’t likely to be repeated; a by-product of Australia hosting the Asian Cup was the A-League having a break in January.
Late April or early May is a logical time for the grand final. It can’t be much later and that’s not just because of increasing overlap with the AFL and NRL seasons.
The A-League also has to compete for airspace with soccer from other parts of the world. May is the biggest month for the world’s top club competitions. The leagues in England, Germany, Italy and Spain are being decided; a lot of cup finals, including the FA Cup final, are played; and the glitzy European Champions League is reaching its zenith.
These things have an increasing presence in Australian fans’ newsfeeds in May. No matter how passionate we are about our competition, we’re all following overseas action to some extent.
But the A-League can’t finish much earlier than late April or May either.
Firstly, it begins in October and needs more than six months to get through its fixtures (unless there are several midweek rounds but that would throw up another set of problems).
Perhaps more importantly, international matches are held in June; competitive matches – qualifiers or tournaments – not just friendlies.
If the A-League season finishes too early, its players who are selected for the Socceroos (or other national teams) will be out of match practice for too long. Even with a grand final around the beginning of May, players at clubs that miss the finals will play their last domestic game three weeks earlier.
Now, because I’m a nice guy, I’m going to give Football Federation Australia some free advice about how to elevate the standing of the A-League grand final and make it one of the great fixtures of sport in this country.
Stay informed, daily
Start by scheduling next year’s on Sunday, May 1. Decide the kick-off time as well: say 5.00pm eastern time, irrespective of where it’s played.
Secure all the possible venues now. The MCG if the match is in Melbourne, Stadium Australia if it’s in Sydney, Lang Park in Brisbane, Adelaide Oval, Subiaco in Perth and The Cake Tin in Wellington.
That’s right. Forget the recent nonsense about who did or didn’t book Docklands next Sunday. Go for the highest capacity venue in each state.
What’s that? It might not sell out?
So what. If it’s in Melbourne or Sydney, a crowd of 60,000 still fills most of the stadium and would be a new attendance record for a domestic match in Australia.
You could help boost that too. How about not inflating ticket prices by as much as you have this week?
Adult tickets for Sunday’s game range from $70 to $195. It’ll be a full house but the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium barely fits 30,000 people.
In the future, cop a smaller margin on tickets to lift the attendance. The league – and the sport – will benefit in the long run.
Use those lower prices in your branding. The A-league grand final can be the one you can afford to take your family to. And contrast it to other grand finals which deny thousands of genuine fans by showering tickets on the once-a-year prawn sandwich brigade.
Have polite conversations with the AFL and the NRL about your plans. Perhaps hint to the AFL that on the A-League’s big day they might be better off just playing a couple of early matches with teams no one cares about: Gold Coast, Brisbane, GWS… Carlton.
Decide that future grand finals will be on the first Sunday of May. In years where an Asian Champions League round falls in the week leading up to that date, move to the second Sunday.
Which also means keeping in regular touch with the AFC. It’s handy that we already know its competition dates for 2016 but if we don’t always get that much notice we’ll need to gently remind the AFC how we’re relying on that information for our scheduling.
Then fill grand final week with events that will build excitement. I see you’ve made a reasonable start on that as the A-League and W-League awards will be televised tonight (albeit on pay TV).
While we’re on that subject, whatever broadcasting deals you strike in the future must ensure the match will be live on free-to-air TV, even if some other big games can’t be.
Do all that and when the A-League has its 20th anniversary a decade from now, even Australians who only have a passing interest in sport will know that early May means the A-League grand final.
And no matter who is playing, if I can’t go to the game, I’ll invite people to bring some drinks to my place where we can watch the match together. I’ll decorate the house with balloons in the colours of the competing teams and I’ll run a sweep.
And I won’t be the only one.
Paul Marcuccitti’s soccer column is published in InDaily on Mondays. He is a co-presenter of 5RTI’s Soccer on 531 program which can be heard from 11am on Saturdays.
