Football Marketing in Australia - Case Study Example

Download file to see previous pages The paper 'Football Marketing in Australia" is a great example of a marketing case study. Soccer is among the popular sports in Australian (Lynch, 2013). Australians engage in soccer as both a recreation and professional activity. The activity, however, was not popular in its initial stages of introduction in the country. The sport was however popular with immigrants such as the British and southern Europeans (Migration Heritage Centre, 2006). In 1882, an administrative body was formed in Australia to govern the activities of the national soccer team that had been formed in 1880 (Migration Heritage Centre, 2006). The administrators engaged in various promotional activities for soccer so that it would gain popularity. This finally paid off in the 1960s when Australian soccer started to expand its realm across the continent of Australia. This paper seeks to analyse the changing marketing mix of soccer in Australia since its inception to date.

• 2.0 Brief History of Soccer Promotion in Australia

Soccer is among the Australian popular sport. The sport contains a high participation level in the country both professionally and recreationally. The country has a national body that governs the sport. This body is referred to as Football Federation Australia (FFA). The body organizes FFA Cup, W-League, A-League as well as the country’s national teams among other obligations. Modern football was introduced in the country at the end of the 19th century by British immigrants. Since then football turned out to be the most popular sports in Australia. The initial club to be established in the country was wanderers that were established on the 3rd of August in 1880 (Syson, 2011). Moreover, Wanderers was as well the first term to employ the game’s law. However, the oldest club which is still operational in Australia is Balgownie Rangers which was established in 1883. Australia initially Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) founding member but later shifted in 2006 to Asian football confederation (AFC) (Humpherys, n.d.).

The development of soccer in Australia did not have any media coverage. However, as time went by the leaders of the national team saw it necessary to record games to be kept in the archives of the team. As time went by other regions saw the need to form their own soccer teams. This saw the emergence of soccer teams such as Queensland and East Melbourne soccer clubs. (Migration Emergency Centre, 2006) With the formation of these teams, competitions were arranged among these teams. There was a lot of hype going on around such competitions since the wealthy people in the society offered to sponsor the various teams and there were great rewards for people who won in the competitions. This had simply started as bets but with time the sponsorship was taken seriously and encouraged many players to play the sport professionally as they would earn a living from it (Wilson and Pomfret, 2014, p36).

The noise that surrounded these soccer competitions attracted the media. People across the continent were interested in the game, but unfortunately, not all would make it to the venue where the matches were taking place. The media, therefore, came in handy. It was during the golden age of radio. Matches were transmitted through the radio with listeners being able to understand the happenings of the match through the help of a commentator. According to Hutchins and David (2013), radio attracted a lot of listeners.

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