The results are in!
Thank you to the almost 100 responses we had to the survey, there was a lot of questions that we covered and it was really interesting to see the overall sentiment to the NST.
Let’s go through the feedback!
Support
83% of respondents support a team in the NPL competition, 67% in the A-League and 43% in a division below NPL.
A lot of overlap in terms of support which seems to indicate that there is an appetite for football across all the tiers from fans, not just at their chosen level.
Unsurprisingly a majority of the responses were from supporters of NSW sides whilst 12% came from Victoria, reflecting the targeted audience of our page. However half of the respondents don’t support a team that will be competing in the NST. The most supported teams represented were Marconi and Olympic each with 9 followed by Wolves and APIA with 8 a piece. No responses were fans of Avondale.
When we asked people when they thought the NST will kick off, 33% said next year, 45% said later and 22% said never.
Foundation Clubs
In this section we asked people should the clubs have been included and how satisfied they were at their inclusion
APIA – 65% yes, 13% no. Overall people were satisfied with their inclusion
Avondale – 32% yes, 23% no, 45% don’t care. The results were pretty mixed, overall people seemed to not be too fussed with Avondale’s inclusion.
Marconi – 79% yes, 6% no, overwhelmingly people were satisfied with their inclusion.
Preston – 55% yes, 10% no, again the results indicated that people are happy with them being there. The lower yes rate may be due to their current position below NPL 1 compared to the other sides however we did not explore this further.
South Melbourne – 81% yes, only 1 person said no to them. Most people seem delighted they will be competing next year.
Sydney Olympic – 61% yes, 24% no, a mixed bag. A former NSL powerhouse but perhaps their recent struggles in the NPL this season reflect peoples apprehension towards their inclusion as the satisfaction was fairly spread across the board.
Sydney United – 65% yes, 21% no, people either seemed to want them there or didn’t care too much.
Wollongong Wolves – 83% yes, 3 people said no with the majority being satisfied with their inclusion.
Unsurprisingly when we asked which teams if any should go straight to the A-League, the majority was for Wolves followed by South Melbourne. Also to no ones shock, no one thought Avondale should be in the A-League, however only 5 people said Preston should.
The Next Teams
This section asked questions around should there be more sides, how many and where should they be from. The results were pretty mixed overall.
The majority of people responded that there should be more sides which is in line with what Football Australia is doing at the moment with the overall consensus that there should be 4 more sides added, and interestingly 42% of people said that there should be more sides added from NSW/VIC. This could be that their team didn’t get selected and they want them to be in the competition, but an interesting takeaway nonetheless.
If we look at which teams people said should be added the top responses were Blacktown City, Brisbane and Adelaide in some regard, as well as a range of the other big clubs such as Heidelberg, Knights, Gold Coast, etc.
Concerns
The most controversial section by far. We have copped a lot of criticism in the past over our well, criticisms of the NST. However this section seems to justify what we’ve been saying even if it is only a small sample size.
85% of people had some concerns around the NST. These were explored a little more in detail:
We asked how many seasons will it last and interestingly 20% said 1 season, 28% said 2, 17% said 3 and a 35% said 4 or more. 2/3rds of survey responders don’t think the competition will last more than 3 seasons.
75% said they think that any team will pull out before the second season, with 50% saying that at least one side will go bankrupt by playing in the NST. Sydney Olympic was the top pick for people to go bankrupt by the way.
When asked what concerns people have around the NST the top responses were travel costs, tv deal, crowds, player wages and sponsorships.
Looking at the team structures, the majority of people said 2-3 visa spots is the sweet spot with up to 4 at a stretch, and there shouldn’t be a minimum number of under 23s player on the whole, however 11% said 5 should be the minimum. As some responders pointed out it will be development league anyway and likely to be made up of mostly younger players. We will cover this in detail in a future piece.
In some admittedly poorly phrased questions, if a person supported say WSW (NPL) and Sydney Olympic and both games were on at the same time, 2/3rds said they would prefer to watch the NST match, and when it came to clashes with the A-League it was around an even split with 52% saying they’d watch NST. The takeaway from this is likely that people are more interested in watching a perceived higher quality game however their loyalty to their local club comes first.
When asked if there were other concerns we had a range of responses. From comments around poor planning and financial viability to lack of a womens competition to the lack of coverage of teams (i.e. most clubs concentrated in Western Sydney, but only 1 part of it). The TV deal again came up which will be interesting to see who offers money for it seeing as the A-League struggled to get P+/10 pay enough to broadcast.
Positives
To placate the naysayers, we asked about the positives of the NST and we definitely agree that there are a lot of positives and takeaways, and overall hope that we have a strong competition to develop players in Australia.
89% said they think the NST is overall good for Australian football with 86% agreeing that it will provide better pathways. 60% said there will be eventual promotion to the A-League with 33% disagreeing and the rest stating it’s not needed.
On the TV broadcaster, SBS was the top pick followed by Optus Sport, Fox Sports and P+/10. Youtube also got a mention along with the other free to air broadcasters.
We asked who will have the highest crowds and Preston and South Melbourne were split with 31% of the vote each. The top NSW side was Sydney United followed by APIA. However we probably wouldn’t be counting juniors to make up the numbers.
South Melbourne are the favourites already to take home the premiership followed by APIA then Marconi. 65% of people said there should be a finals series too.
Australia Cup automatic entry was another topic we wanted to explore, with people suggesting either the top couple of sides should get automatic entry into the round of 32 or that they should have to go through their state preliminary rounds.
Overall we’re happy with the results of the survey, it’s given us a lot to think about and no doubt we will publish more on the NST in the coming months, including exploring some of the comments people left at a deeper level. There seems to be a lot of work for Football Australia to make this competition a success with a lot of people having concerns in one form or another, however there is a high level of optimism and hope for the comp, which can only be good for football in this country.