Can Hearts Succeed

So Melbourne will have a second team in the 2010-11 season. A local derby will have many Victory fans excited but can a second team survive in the long term? I think so but it will be a bumpy ride.

Since the Peter Sidwell backed bid was officially confirmed as the 11th A-league licence there has been a lot of discussion in football circles around where their members will come from. Obviously Sidwell and the other backers of the new team would have conducted significant market research in terms of how viable a second team in Melbourne will be before they committed there funds to the venture. However on the surface it is hard to imagine that there is a significant supporter base of non-aligned Victory fans to capture.

Melbourne is not like Sydney, there is no great divide between West and East, North and South. And as there is already a successful team that plays out of a centrally located stadium that can be easily reached by the majority of the population there is no signficant portion of the popultion that cannot easily make the trip each week. This is beside the point though as the new team have indicated they also will play out of the new stadium currently being built in Richmond. So like Victory, Hearts (for want of a official name) will not target a specific geographical area of Melbourne or Victoria and will instead attempt to engage the community across all of the state.

There is no doubt that there is still a significant number of football followers in Victoria that haven’t jumped on board the Melbourne Victory bandwagon over the last five years. But if they haven’t been moved to support Victory what will this new team bring to the table that will convince them to buy a membership now.

There will be an element of existing supporters that will see this new club as an opportunity to support something new and I have no doubt that they will initially receive some crossover support from Victory fans who just want to go see a match each weekend. However any way you look at it Hearts are shaping up as the poorer cousin to Victory and will have a hard time attracting the degree of support that Victory enjoys.

With 5 years head start though Victory have built a strong following right across Melbourne and Victoria and they are not going to give up their existing members without a fight. You can be certain that Victory will do everything within their power to maintain and grow there membership base. We have already seen signs of this with the introduction of loyalty initiatives this year and it is not coincidence that a large portion of Victory members will reach the first reward level within the next two years, just as the new team will be looking to lure them away.

With the 2010 World Cup taking place during the lead up to Hearts entry to the A-league they should get a significant amount of initial support. The challenge for hearts will be to keep these bandwagoners and turn them into long term members. And of course in the longer term with good management there is no reason that hearts cannot compete with Victory for the affections of the kids coming through. Some success on field and a couple of highly marketable players will also help attract kids. The question is how long can hearts survive as they wait for these young fans to become revenue producing members. I wish them the best of luck as I suspect they will need it.

23 Days to Season V
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