Or we could have a marketing department that markets to the true believers, and doesn't try and get people with no interest in footy along to the games. I won't forgive them for changing the jumper and the song. Yes, I know the change to the song was small, but it was really the only good part of the song, the only bit that was different.
Freo had a marketing strategy. You could sum it up in two words, "We're different". And most of us fell in love with that Freo. But that wasn't good enough, we had to be more generic, like breakfast cereal. Focus groups no doubt didn't like our quirkiness.
If you want an analogy as to where we are, we are Apple in the mid 90's. When they had got rid of Jobs. When they had abandoned style and flair and were selling beige boxes that were rubbish. They still thought they were good, and they still tried to market themselves as though they were good, but they were so bad. The only thing that saved them was that Microsoft were pretty bad themselves, and Microsoft needed competition so that it wasn't seen as a monopoly.
Apple came back from there. New colourful one piece computers. New operating system. I'd like to think we can too. But unlike most here I don't think that our players and coaching staff are the problem. It is the suits.
And its the AFL. They have had the luxury of being able to take some teams for granted. No matter how they treat us, we get lots of members and make them money. And if we don't, it won't be the AFL going broke, because they are rolling in TV money. No, it will be Freo itself that pays the price of AFL neglect. The continuing slight lack of respect from the umpires. The 1 or 2 games at the MCG each year. The regular trips to Tasmania. The lack of the freebies that "important" clubs like Sydney get. And of course we don't know what the club says to the AFL behind closed doors, but we do know that they say bugger all in public. The AFL egos are all about stealing market share from Rugby League, and trying to keep the "base" in Victoria happy.
