Membership

[Scraggers]

"THE stunning on-field revival of the Western Bulldogs is failing to translate off the field.

With a week to go until the club membership deadline, the most exciting team in town finds itself at the bottom of the pile.

The second-placed Bulldogs have remarkably been passed by wooden-spoon favourite Melbourne on the membership table.

A lot of that is down to the surge by Demons fans following the appointment of favourite son Jim Stynes as club president.

The Bulldogs have 27,602 match-day members, which is down from 28,725 last year.

Melbourne set a club record on Friday with 28,302 signed up, 1000 of those coming after Stynes' appointment.

Bulldogs chief executive Campbell Rose yesterday called on supporters to rally before next Monday's membership cut-off.

"It's disappointing," Rose said.

"As a club that is performing on-field, I am left embarrassed.

"I would appeal to anybody who claims any interest in the red, white and blue that they should take action and join up.

"Get with the momentum that the club has got at the moment. From our point of view, there is no reason why we shouldn't be well past our members of last year."

Rose said maybe some supporters had waited to see if the Bulldogs were the real deal.

"While we've still got a long way to go and are by no means there, we've given it a pretty good shake-up," he said."

[DOG GOD]

This is an absolute farce. I dont care what anyone's reason is for not supporting this team through a membership, especially with the start we have had this year. We should be close to 32,000 not sitting at the bottom of the table.

This is quite embarrassing really.

The club has done everything it can re: monthly payments to help out us supporters, and it is very disappopinting to hear that supporters are not SUPPORTING this great club.

Rose would have to be deeply embarrassed by all this, and i for feel sorry for him.

I understand that the economy has made problems for certain families and supporters, but there is ALWAYS something that u can cut back on.

I for one dont pay parking when i go to work...i park my car 10 minutes from my work and walk. This saves me $20 each week, and therefore helps me pay for my membership each year.

The club and its players are doing everything it can to be sucessful. Are we?

[westdog54]

I'll go one step further than farce. I'll say disgrace.

Times may be tough but supporters of every other club, Essendon, Richmond, Melbourne included, have managed to put there money where our mouth is. What's our excuse?

"Oh, but the western suburbs isn't a wealthy area, and that's where most of the Dogs' supporters are...". Give me a break, what a cop out.

Every time a player is on TV or radio, they give the club a plug. The phone number couldn't be easier to remember. The website even more so.

No excuses.

[The Pie Man]

Agreed guys, it's really poor. Is it something that doesn't necessarily hurt the long term survival of the club financially though? If we could make the $5 mil annualy more out of our stadium deal (like Brisbane does even though they average fewer bums on seats than us) compared with the revenue clubs receive from membership, we'd be plenty better off.

If we dipped to low 20,000's or below in the next 5-10 years, regardless of the stadium and other financial deals/arrangements we have for revenue streams into the club, I imagine the AFL would be loathe to support such a low supported team. Is the membership issue more about the perception as opposed to the $?

But again, the real issue is ....and forgive me for the Lara Bingle quote, 'where the bloody hell are you?' (hey, that should give the club an idea, next ad campaign with her in a ....)

[aker39]

I think the lower membership number may be partially offset by the amount of people who have upgraded their membership in the last couple of weeks.

[G-Mo77]

I just bought a Pet Membership. I know it's not another membership number to the club but I hope it helps.

[Scraggers]

I know we are preaching to the choir here ... but we need to get our message out there to the non-converted!!

We have the most exciting brand of footy in the AFL now its time for us to excel off the field as well ...

I am sure we all know supporters who are not yet members, or have not re-newed their membership ... It's time to put the hard word on them; it is our responsibility as avid fans to help the club in its membership drive !!

If every member here got ONE non-member to sign up before next Monday it would be a great way to say 'We are behind you boys'

[Mantis]

I think the lower membership number may be partially offset by the amount of people who have upgraded their membership in the last couple of weeks.

I wouldn't be interested to see if this drop in membership (approx 1000) also equates to a drop in membership revenue.

As you have pointed out I would have thought that many Dogs member's would have upgraded there memberships to hopefully guarantee them a GF ticket if/ when we make it.

[bornadog]

there is an arguement to say that people of the West have suffered the most this year with interest rates, petrol prices and so on, but that should also translate to lower attendance figures. We have been averaging 35000 per game, however, if you look at the West Coast game (29,27, with very few West Coast supporters) and the Brisbane game (39,320) there are supporters attending that are paying general admittance prices.

I just don't get our supporters? I wonder if we had a lot of sympthy supporters and they have switched to North?

[Sockeye Salmon]

Perhap we simply don't have that many people who care?

[DOG GOD]

maybe the club needs to set up volunteers to stop every dog supporter coming thru the gates at our next melb game and ask to see their membership card. If they dont have one then get Rick Kennedy to go and give them a visit.

[craigsahibee]

While the drop in numbers is disappointing, it's the revenue that's important. If the upgrades are becoming popular it may help to offset the drop in numbers.

I wonder how much money the club would save each year if the hats and scarves and everything else included in the membership pack was optional. Does the lure of a free scarf actually make up your mind to buy a membership?

As for us having a lower membership than Melbourne. I wouldn't look to much into that. There is a bit of sympathy out there from supporters of other clubs for Melbourne and the MCC members only have to hand over another $40 to become a paid up member at the MFC.

[LostDoggy]

A couple of things I would like to throw into the mix. Firstly we upgraded to a premiership silver and the membership department struggled to find four seats together. Secondly I know Geelong had a slump in members last year despite going on to win the flag. Thirdly, success - the latest research from the AFL shows that new supporters gravitate to a successful team, if they enjoy the team enough they will stick it out through the tough times.

One thing that did worry me today, after listening to James Fantasia talking on SEN - was KB suggesting that we had saturated our market and there was no further growth.

[LostDoggy]

People don't think that much, or listen that much once their mind is made up -- we stunk up the end of last year, so people didn't sign up. If we win the premiership we'll go up to 35,000 next year.

The market KB is talking about is a growing one -- will take three to five years for the trickle to begin and up to ten years to truly see the full results coming in. Success on-field over a sustained period will cement that.

And yes, we have fickle supporters. But that's only because most of our supporters are busy with many other things in life. It's not a bad thing per se.

[DOG GOD]

And yes, we have fickle supporters. But that's only because most of our supporters are busy with many other things in life. It's not a bad thing per se.

But Lantern will these be the same people that would moan and groan IF the club folded due to poor membership, coz they would have NO RIGHT!!!

EVERYONE can cut back on something (and i'm not stereo typing anyone here or anywhere), but all it would take is maybe not go to the pub for a month and u'd have ur yearly membership.