Speaking to the membership department last year I was trying to add a seat at LO and the guy was saying it is difficult there as many members are just LO members and have kept seats since inception and don't even attend games due to living interstate. The club would have the data and would know doubt analyse those sort of info.
We also have the COE at Concord so that woykd say you don't abandon the inner west for CSS you woukd need SFS or Accor in its place.
I think the fan forum was a great idea but for some perspective it was at campbletown and likely plenty of fans going where either CSS members or potential dual members with LO. If you did the same forum at Balmain Bowlo you probably get a different response.
We are 20 plus years in we can't just discard one side of a fan base by moving all games to SFS or all to CSS we are too far down the rabbit hole for that now. A split is the only way to go, the club just needs to work out the right split, most fans are probably fine with an inner west and CSS split just not one and the other
Good point Jedi
Souffs is probably the game most likely to break 20K and as such would make most sense to play at Accor or SFs.
@tigertownsfs maybe one game a year at LO may work but the other 11 can't just be at CSS, seriously the club will fold. Didn't work for the Magpies out there in the past and won't work now. likewise LO wouldnt work with all games played there or all games at sfs or accor.
We need some presence in inner west otherwise we give that up to Dogs etc
you cant have just 1 game at LO. You have said previously that your rationale for keeping LO was the LO members. LO members arent going to wear 1 game at LO and of course you reduce their membership revenue accordingly.
Happy for SFS or Stadium Australia to be part of the mix. My point is the club & council have stated that LO will not be suitable for NRL after 2023. So we need to rip the band-aid off and have a LO exit strategy. I highly doubt one exists and the noise generated is just that, noise without any thought after that.@mike the club won't survive if it is just CSS though.
You would need to have Accor or SFS lined up to take LO place
Its noise to pressure for government money. I sat in Balmain meetings in the 90's where the exact same thing was said and games have been happily held at LO since. Inner West Council use LO for a many many events and it makes them money and they spend reasonable money on the place. I was personally involved in the resurfacing of LO and it was worth many millions, paid by council. LO is and will remain for the next 10 years viable for 10-18K crowds. Inner West Council make sure of it because they rent it out for exactly that. They dont care if its soccer or NRL.
The rest is spin.
Ive gotten in trouble for this before over at another forum, but I genuinely think its relevant. Please put your hand up if you have a membership for LO. Either as a LO membership or dual.
Jedi has already put his hand up and I know Garry does.
Mike?
Ronin?
SFS?
Celtic?
Dirty Reds?
I dont raise this to be combative or anything. I raise it because I keep hearing that LO isnt up to standard, but as a LO member, I genuinely think it is the best RL experience in Sydney. The Members seats are the best, Ive never had a problem getting a drink, never had to queue for the bathroom and the parking is as good as any other ground.
This is a thread for discussion about these points and its obviously completely valid to have the opposite opinion to me but Im interested if that is backed up by experience as a member at LO because I actually dont understand how it works.
@jedi-tiger I’d be pretty confident that we will go with:
2024 - 5x LO 5x CSS 1x Tamworth 1x Magic Round
2025 - Tamworth out and Homebush in for Easter Monday
@tiger5150 I have LO membership this year. Past several years I have had commbank membership.
membership experience at Commbank wasn’t particularly good despite the stadium being great. As a member, staring into the western sun was not fun and the stadium seemed to sell tickets around me to ordinary punters as every game we had different random away team people sitting around us.
LO I managed to get ok seats (eastern concourse on the 40m) but they are obviously not under cover which makes it not ideal for a member. Also there was not much choice signing up this year of seat location given the noted fact above that many people happy with LO have had claim over the best seats for decades so anyone new coming along cuts stuck with a very “general admission” experience.
I love LO and have been going there since I was a child but I don’t think it is particularly family friendly. It’s got a particular vibe on the hill that is pretty rowdy (particularly evening games) and that’s all good if I’m out with my mates but not really where I want to take young kids.
I have been a long standing SFS advocate but I have shifted towards trying to create more of a single identity rather than the split personality that we have now. Playing less than once a month anywhere is not enough to create genuine bonds with the community. Whilst many LO only members may not get ticketed memberships at CSS I would guess than a decent chunk will and the rest may get non ticketed memberships if the membership packages were more worthwhile.
what I am most passionate about is that we need to get rid of Tamworth and Magic round as we are already a club forced to spit our home games due to the merger issues. Splitting our home grounds even further for a cheap buck is contributing to the lack of identity issues that we have.
@tiger5150 I’m a full season member and my son has a Campbelltown/Commbank membership because I don’t think Leichhardt is a good venue for a 7 year old who has difficulty with crowds and sitting still.
@tiger5150 I have LO membership this year. Past several years I have had commbank membership.
membership experience at Commbank wasn’t particularly good despite the stadium being great. As a member, staring into the western sun was not fun and the stadium seemed to sell tickets around me to ordinary punters as every game we had different random away team people sitting around us.
LO I managed to get ok seats (eastern concourse on the 40m) but they are obviously not under cover which makes it not ideal for a member. Also there was not much choice signing up this year of seat location given the noted fact above that many people happy with LO have had claim over the best seats for decades so anyone new coming along cuts stuck with a very “general admission” experience.
I love LO and have been going there since I was a child but I don’t think it is particularly family friendly. It’s got a particular vibe on the hill that is pretty rowdy (particularly evening games) and that’s all good if I’m out with my mates but not really where I want to take young kids.
I have been a long standing SFS advocate but I have shifted towards trying to create more of a single identity rather than the split personality that we have now. Playing less than once a month anywhere is not enough to create genuine bonds with the community. Whilst many LO only members may not get ticketed memberships at CSS I would guess than a decent chunk will and the rest may get non ticketed memberships if the membership packages were more worthwhile.
what I am most passionate about is that we need to get rid of Tamworth and Magic round as we are already a club forced to spit our home games due to the merger issues. Splitting our home grounds even further for a cheap buck is contributing to the lack of identity issues that we have.
Great points and great response to my question SFS. Appreciated. FWIW I totally can see a massive difference between the member experience at LO to the general public experience at LO and I also wouldnt take my family to the hill at LO. I actually think the "hill experience" at LO is becoming its own thing, not necessarily a good or bad thing.
Being straight, I can acknowledge many flaws at LO, its a long way from ideal and many of the criticisms of LO such as capacity etc are unarguable. Ive only rasied this because many of the criticisms dont correlate to my members experience there.
BTW, 40m concourse north or south? Im probably 30m south (correct me if Im wrong Garry?).
@tiger5150 I’m a full season member and my son has a Campbelltown/Commbank membership because I don’t think Leichhardt is a good venue for a 7 year old who has difficulty with crowds and sitting still.
Thanks for the response Ronin and that aspect of your son is a telling point. Where do you guys sit at LO?
@tiger5150 we are 40m line south eastern side concourse. When I called up to book a new membership they didn’t really have anything other than eastern side, maybe around the 20m, mostly in the very front few rows. We were lucky someone didn’t renew and we were able to get better seats. The day experience at LO is pretty much ok for kids. Walking through the streets of lilyfield etc is still just like when I was a kid and it’s a great experience from a nostalgia perspective and one I’m glad my kids will be exposed to. But bottom line is that the facilities have had little more more than a lick of paint since the 1980s. The idea that every club in Sydney is going to be playing out of a modern or renovated stadium and we are not is something that is very disappointing. I agree that inner west needs an option to see the live game but I personally would prefer that was SFS to give the club the ability to service the maximum number of fans/sponsors etc and use the windfall gains from that to subsidise building a community engagement out at CSS because I am a believer that in 5y time we will have a conveyor belt of young talent coming through there that will rival Penrith.
@tiger5150 I’m on the Hill at Leichhardt mainly because the people I go with prefer the hill. However even if we wanted to shift to seats we’d end up on the hill side most likely anyway.
I’ve actually used all parts of Leichhardt over the years. The corporate facilities are poor compared to other grounds, the referee room is terrible and almost unusable, the away change rooms are very very poor. The Hill and Grandstand are what you’d expect.
I have a lot of great memories of Leichhardt as a fan (both child and adult), player and referee however knowing what other grounds offer I just don’t think it’s up to being a core/regular venue any more.
As I said earlier all noise from the club is they are returning to a CSS and LO split from next year. I’ll support them wherever they play but do worry we are not moving in a professional direction as a club.
I think the LO/CSS is more just a cop out from management. Rather than take the hard decision that might be difficult in the short run, just take the easy option that offends the least amount of people
@tigertownsfs 100% that is what it is and I think it reflects a lack of real leadership within the club that everyone is just going with the easy decision.
@tigertownsfs 100% that is what it is and I think it reflects a lack of real leadership within the club that everyone is just going with the easy decision.
At every turn.
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