How to lose fans and confuse people – The state of AFL websites
One of the most frustrating things about being a football fan, other than losing and the habit stars have of going off the rails, is trying to use any AFL club website to keep up to date.
A quick glance at the AFL’s own website is all you need to see the problem. It’s confusing, cluttered, ugly, hard to navigate and full of dead links and tacky advertising. Worst of all is that it’s a template that all bar three of the AFL clubs use for their own websites. Websites like these will limit the AFL’s growth in the future.
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The AFL needs to find out what fans use club websites for. Personally I think a good website integrates the membership and gives supporters the feeling of club ownership and involvement. I would think supporters mainly want the websites to contain up to date news, membership information, tickets and merchandise. The same main areas that the clubs would want to promote, areas that generate revenue. So what is the problem?
A recent article by Carbon Graffiti about Premier League websites in the UK raised issues that the AFL clubs should be thinking about. Issues such as team identity, external advertisers and clunky navigation need to be addressed. Each team is different and has a proud history of its own and each team represents different things to its supporters. Shouldn’t the websites reflect these proud heritages?
Out of the 18 teams in the AFL (including in this case the two soon to be AFL clubs Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney) only three have websites that are external to the Bigpond/AFL template and hosting.
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The three hosted away from the AFL are actually half decent. The best being Gold Coasts new website which was designed by tusk design agency on the Gold Coast. It’s simple and clear. A quick glance and I can see the latest news, see when the next game is on and buy a membership. Best of all it has no flashing ads. It’s quite similar to the new Manchester City website that has been gaining praise.
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The GWS and Essendon websites are harder to use but are such a step up from the rest that they look good in comparison. I think it’s worth noting that the Gold Coast and GWS are the easiest to navigate and neither have external advertising banners on the site.
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To win new fans and get current supporters more involved clubs need to take control of their websites. In my opinion the five most important things clubs need on their websites are:
- Individuality: Each club is different, their websites should be different too.
- Ease of use: Supporters should be able to navigate around the site and find what they are looking for easily.
- Clean design: Clubs need to find out what their website is used for and strip back the unused clutter. Just because it’s a football team’s website doesn’t mean it has to be ugly.
- Up to date information: Supporters won’t use the website if the club doesn’t. During the season there is plenty of news and stories, they should be available to supporters.
- Supporter involvement: Clubs shouldn’t be scared of supporters. They love the club so let them interact and have some ownership.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Alexander White, Atosha McCaw. Atosha McCaw said: New blog post: How to lose fans and confuse people – The state of AFL websites http://bit.ly/6zKnjd [...]
Thanks for the mention Atosha, and interesting that even on the other side of the pond, sports franchises are completely missing a trick when it comes to their supporters. Sports club websites can’t be overlooked, each club owes their fans something unique and engaging – neither of which can be achieved by using pre-made site templates!
Interesting too that many of the screengrabs you have here might as well be Prem League clubs, which only underlines how ‘stale’ the designs have become if they can’t be differentiated between completely different sports and countries!
I recommend your readers check out http://mcfc.co.uk, Manchester City’s newly redesigned website, which was the catalyst for my original post. They’ve gone completely outside of the box and they’re reaping the rewards of putting their supporters first with huge social media traction and presumably traffic.
Great post, and like you I can’t wait until each sports club, regardless of sport, treats their sites as they should be treated.. and not create them from a large cookie-cutter machine!
Cheers
Thanks Jon. The Manchester City website is great and the best part for me is that they have really handed it over to the fans. The flickr is from the fan group and the spot for fan comments on the front page is an excellent idea. It’s funny sports team websites the world over seem to be quite similar. The NBA http://www.nba.com has the same issues (all the teams use the same template). There’s another article in that!
Interesting article.
I too lament the lack of innovation by the AFL and club websites. But the issue is fairly complex. Telstra Bigpond purchased the rights to all AFL/club websites for about $12m a year (expiring in 2011) – this is expected to double (at least) when the next deal is made (see here: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/stuntman-lifts-lid-on-esky-jump-20091219-l6wl.html). The only club that refused their share of the money and go it alone was Essendon. Presumably they recoup some, if not more money via advertising and a subscription-based service to access their television content. This creates another dilemma for clubs looking at going it alone – do they create a paywall to recuperate some of the costs and potentially alienate fans? Some of the smaller clubs (like my beloved North Melbourne) may not be able to recuperate the same money as the Bigpond contract provides either.
But one things for sure, things will only get more interesting when a National Broadband Network gets up. The possibilities re: direct user access to live broadcasts via IPTV technology are enormous. Potentially, the AFL TV broadcast deal, worth around $150m pa at the moment, will be near worthless in comparison. Whether clubs want to lock themselves into incredibly restrictive contracts like Bigpond’s in such an environment will only become increasingly complex.
Thanks Mr Shinboner. I must admit I hadn’t looked into what kind of deal Bigpond was getting and what it meant for the clubs. It seems like the AFL should be taking the majority of the blame here from what you are saying. I also would have thought that it doesn’t benefit Bigpond to have the club websites turn away fans from using them….
As for the paywall I must admit as an Essendon supporter I haven’t subscribed to the tv part of the website (nor have I with Liverpool FC, the majority of Premier League clubs have a similar thing) but I have subscribed to NBA.tv. But only because you get whole games and every game. Until the AFL gets that happening like you were saying I can’t see paywalls being that successful. And from your figures clubs would need to sell alot of extra memberships/paywall subs/advertising to recoop the Bigpond money.
Good work Atosha, yeah same problems teams like Knicks & Mavs have with NBA. I think the AFL deal came in at a time when the teams preferred the cash over creative control, not so much now.
Here’s my take on what I heard on Sports Geek trip in the US.
http://www.sportsgeek.com.au/index.php/2010/02/08/working-with-league-brands/