A number of associations are looking to split from FNSW. Apart from the usual “what do I get for my substantial fees in return” arguments there are some new sticking points:
a doubling of the FNSW component of player registration fees
FNSW to be the central bank for all player registration fees. They will then dole out the association and club component of these fees to the association whenever they choose to
All player registration fees to be paid in full at the time of online registration. Some clubs currently have payment plans for those can’t do all their rego fees at once.
All registration fees to be paid by credit card only.
No refunds on registration for any reason
No scope for discounts on registration. Currently some clubs have early bird discounts, discounts for life members, family discounts etc.
So instead of making it more affordable for people to play they’re making it even less affordable. Surely such drastic changes would have to be put to a vote.
Football registrations are already ridiculously expensive. Mine is about $400 per season. For a lot of people, that’s just too much. That $400 is after a $75 discount, and the FNSW component is about $80, so doubling that and scrapping the discount would make my total fees $555.
I play park football twice a week at lunchtimes for free, and it’s lots of fun. I like playing on the weekend for the competition aspect, but seriously, I’d have to think about whether I’d want to keep playing weekends at that rate.
I love playing, plus we play most of our games on a Monday night, which frees up weekends. Will probably still continue to play, even with the increased fee, but poor form from FNSW…
Ridiculous. I pay $500+ already and am amazed our team gets 16 or so players constantly, but thinking about it, it’s generally all guys with no dependants etc. But even these greater price rises are just going to have people second guess that, at all ages within the community, and just do something else.
Other Sports fees are crazy lower as well.
My wife paid $150 for a whole season of netball.
I know of other football codes that cost about the same, even with much lower participants
In financial terms, our football pyramid has a huge base (local players of all ages, gender) which produces and a tiny tip (the HAL, W League, Socceroos and Matildas) which produces very little surplus money, even in good times, that it can share down the pyramid. When you pay Gallop $1m plus, things got even tighter. So the base subsidies the tip. Somewhere in there there also the state federations who don’t really create revenue (it seems - I might be wrong) but need to spend it.
AFL, cricket and NRL have access to huge money at their tip via TV rights and sponsorships as well as licensed clubs etc but, particularly for NRL, vastly fewer players at the base. So NRL in particular (and probably cricket too), have been able to use their vast finances from the professional game to make a real difference to cutting registration fees for the relatively few kids and teens playing their game. (As Keating might say, they are all tip and no iceberg) RU gets much less money at the top but also has very few at the bottom.