Freo Way to Go
Oct. 6th, 2012 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
passionpopFremantle football club have a history of doing well one year, and failing remarkably the following year. Even though all the commentators are expecting Freo in the top 4 in 2013, history has given me reason to have my doubts. Freo have never been in two consecutive finals series, so before I book membership with high expectations for 2013, I want to make sure past mistakes will not be made.
There are two major mistakes that Freo made previously, one was trading players for market value and getting a poor return, the second was marketing.
The Dockers are famous for bad trades and often trading back in has been players who they had traded out as young up and comers. Looking at the squad we have now, it would be a shame to trade anyone off, unfortunately I can see the salary cap will be used as excuse again to let go of a few too many good players.
After the 2006 finals series, which remains Fremantle’s best ever result in a season, when we were knocked out in the preliminary final, expectations were very high, but in 2007 Fremantle failed to make the 8. Teams with a much lower expectation filled the void left by Freo’s performance.
So what happened between 2006 and 2007. Well as outsider looking in, the main difference was the media and marketing. Dockers players were everywhere on the TV doing ads and the membership drive was ramped up. The 23 odd people working for Fremantle combined in sales and marketing obviously needed something to do.
Now, I have to combine Sale and marketing for the sake of comparison to other teams. In a sales and marketing in other teams inn 2007, there was a range between 16 and 23 people. Hawthorn had about 16 that year, and Freo had the most. What I noticed in 2007 is based on where the ‘experts’ at the beginning of the season believed teams would finish at the end of the season, 18-19 staff in sales and marketing was gave teams the best result.
This is just anecdotal, but I noticed that teams with less than 18 people did slightly worse than expected in 2007, but teams with more than 19 did a lot worse. Was it the hype or the marketing a distraction? Perhaps a certain amount of people in marketing help the players ego’s, but too many cooks spoil the broth.
I noticed after this years success in the finals, our coach, Ross Lyon said "There is no guarantee we'll be back here next year.” I saw this line as a pre-emptive strike against the marketing. In the days after however, some players came out and said Freo would do better in 2013, but that’s the marketing for membership.
Whatever Fremantle’s past errors were, I hope we have learned from them. We have a quality team, a quality coach, what remains to be seen is if we have quality management. We will find out in 2013
There are two major mistakes that Freo made previously, one was trading players for market value and getting a poor return, the second was marketing.
The Dockers are famous for bad trades and often trading back in has been players who they had traded out as young up and comers. Looking at the squad we have now, it would be a shame to trade anyone off, unfortunately I can see the salary cap will be used as excuse again to let go of a few too many good players.
After the 2006 finals series, which remains Fremantle’s best ever result in a season, when we were knocked out in the preliminary final, expectations were very high, but in 2007 Fremantle failed to make the 8. Teams with a much lower expectation filled the void left by Freo’s performance.
So what happened between 2006 and 2007. Well as outsider looking in, the main difference was the media and marketing. Dockers players were everywhere on the TV doing ads and the membership drive was ramped up. The 23 odd people working for Fremantle combined in sales and marketing obviously needed something to do.
Now, I have to combine Sale and marketing for the sake of comparison to other teams. In a sales and marketing in other teams inn 2007, there was a range between 16 and 23 people. Hawthorn had about 16 that year, and Freo had the most. What I noticed in 2007 is based on where the ‘experts’ at the beginning of the season believed teams would finish at the end of the season, 18-19 staff in sales and marketing was gave teams the best result.
This is just anecdotal, but I noticed that teams with less than 18 people did slightly worse than expected in 2007, but teams with more than 19 did a lot worse. Was it the hype or the marketing a distraction? Perhaps a certain amount of people in marketing help the players ego’s, but too many cooks spoil the broth.
I noticed after this years success in the finals, our coach, Ross Lyon said "There is no guarantee we'll be back here next year.” I saw this line as a pre-emptive strike against the marketing. In the days after however, some players came out and said Freo would do better in 2013, but that’s the marketing for membership.
Whatever Fremantle’s past errors were, I hope we have learned from them. We have a quality team, a quality coach, what remains to be seen is if we have quality management. We will find out in 2013