Port Adelaide taps into the essence of its club, its community and its fans with new membership campaign
PORT Adelaide will quickly learn just how its members still feel about the disappointing end to the Power’s season as a new campaign to keep them on board is launched on Tuesday.
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THIS morning (Tuesday), almost 62,000 Port Adelaide fans will be sent their renewal notices for their membership - and more.
There will be a two-minute video reinforcing being part of the Port Adelaide Football Club - or the “Port Adelaide family” - is more than just football. “It is a way of life,” says Matthew Richardson, the club’s executive general manager.
The two-minute video was designed at Alberton to “define Port Adelaide”.
It carries the club’s theme for today and beyond - “We Are Port Adelaide - Always have been, always will be.”
Now the question - that is sharper after this year’s on-field collapse in the last seven weeks of the home-and-away season had the Power tumble from a top-four hope to 10th and no joy for the Magpies in the SANFL - is how many Port Adelaide fans who have been part of the club will declare they want to always be part of the journey?
Since 2014, when Port Adelaide returned to Adelaide Oval, the membership renewal rate has not fallen to less than 90 per cent. This year - after all the gains made in the trade market built up hopes for that top-four challenge - the Power had the second-best renewal rate across the 18-club AFL. Only Richmond, naturally enough after ending a long premiership drought, had more of its 2017 members stay on for 2018.
The video emphasises Port Adelaide is more than a long-standing football club (since 1870), more than a location and much more than “an AFL brand” in the era of sporting franchises. It is also a community and it is an ambition that has taken Port Adelaide from the suburban SANFL to the national AFL and now the international adventure in China, in particular Shanghai.
Richardson wants the club’s 2019 membership campaign to emphasise what it means to “be Port Adelaide ... to be a Port Adelaide person”.
Today, Richardson and his staff are not only sure of who that Port Adelaide fan is but what the Power supporter expects. The message has resonated at Alberton in the membership services offices very loudly - and often - in the past month.
“Our members have a voice - and they also know they will be heard,” Richardson said.
“They keep us honest. They demand results. But they also are incredibly loyal because they know their football club is listening to them.”
It will be an interesting summer at Port Adelaide. There is no likelihood of October 2017 being repeated with the Power being billed as “the destination club” as list manager Jason Cripps loaded up the list with seven experienced recruits, the most notable being former Brisbane captain Tom Rockliff, midfielder-forward Steven Motlop from Geelong and Melbourne’s No. 1 draftee Jack Watts.
So new hope has to be built on faith. How much of this was dented - or damaged - by the 1-6 win-loss record in the last seven weeks of the AFL home-and-away series will be told by the sales rate of the membership.
The two-minute video does indeed recall (if not remind all) that it is never a smooth ride at Alberton. Those last-minute heart-break moments against West Coast make it on the video. “It is a roller-coaster,” said Richardson. “We don’t shy away from the disappointments. But we also know how to move on to greater things ... as we have always done and always will do.”
Again, this is the Port Adelaide way. The scars, the batterings, the constant hits from those who are not Port Adelaide make the success far more sweeter when it comes ... as it did in 1994 when the AFL licence was confirmed for the Port Adelaide Football Club, in 1997 with the first Showdown win, 2004 with the first AFL premiership and last year with the first match played for premiership points outside Australia-New Zealand.
Port Adelaide celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2020. Then it certainly will reflect on what the Port Adelaide Football Club has been since 1870. In the meantime, Season 2019 will be about what it means to be Port Adelaide today, as a football club, a community and a family.
“We are Port Adelaide ... always have been, always will be.”
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au