Sam Kerr and Buddy Franklin had it, Israel Folau didn’t: The acquisition X-factor

A simple Google test can occasionally be a decent indicator of relevance. Type in “Buddy”, for example, and the text predictor will sometimes throw up the surname “Franklin” before “Holly”. That a just-retired AFL player could be the subject of more substantial search engine optimisation than one of the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll pioneers is saying something. Of course, that statement comes with a pretty significant geolocation caveat. But one does have to be a pretty big Buddy to get a start.

“Israel Folau”, for instance, brings up very different results – suffice to say none of the top 10 related keywords have anything to do with the Greater Western Sydney Giants. And if we are comparing Folau’s brief and expensive stint at GWS to Franklin’s long and expensive stint with the Sydney Swans, it isn’t difficult to deduce which might be deemed the more successful.

Lance Franklin celebrates kicking his 1000th goal against Geelong in round two.Credit: Getty Images

The contrast is a little cruel, given one was an AFL player by trade and the other a code hopper basically giving the whole Australian rules caper a go. Yet the topic is still worthy of analysis. That is: which high-profile sporting experiments have been the most successful, and which have been the least? And when a club or league spends money to capture an athlete in the hope he or she will offer that club or league – or both – a boost, how does one best measure if that has occurred?

Franklin, who retired this week, is a timely reminder of what works. An uncommonly gifted player who is also well liked maketh a marketer’s dream. He is, as Swans chairman Andrew Pridham told the AFR on Friday, “larger than life”. He is “the Michael Jordan of Australian rules football”.

Since the two-time Hawthorn premiership winner joined in 2013, John Longmire’s side have appeared in three grand finals and made the finals in all but two seasons. Sydney’s membership has risen from about 36,000 to about 62,000. Every one of those members remembers exactly where they were when Buddy kicked his 1000th career goal. A lot of them were on the pitch, having swarmed the centre of the SCG. A few even managed to grab him in the flesh. Many more have photos saved to their phones, portraits of a cultural icon – and that’s just his flexed biceps.

Cameo: Israel Folau's big-money AFL stint landed just two goals for the fledgling Giants.Credit: Simon Alekna

GWS had chased him, too, in desperate need of some magic dust after their miserable two-season dalliance with Folau. The expansion franchise paid approximately $6 million for a four-year deal to lure the NRL’s hottest young thing from the Brisbane Broncos. The idea was that the then 21-year-old would inject AFL blood into rugby league heartland. Except that Folau was not very good with a Sherrin and the whole exercise became not only an obscene waste of time and money but also an embarrassment for the league shamelessly attempting to manipulate the market.

The Folau experiment did not kill the Giants. They have had a cast of superb players, including Jeremy Cameron, and made the 2019 grand final. In a perverse way, Franklin’s big-money acquisition actually helped GWS because premiership ruckman Shane Mumford was squeezed out of Sydney’s bulging list and hopped across town just as Leon Cameron was taking over as coach from Kevin Sheedy.

That does not mean recruiting Folau was not a failure of epic proportions. As it turned out, he also had a well-tuned rugby string to his bow. Other parts of his story, which have been well documented since, have dampened that dream too. But in the “who wants to be a marquee?” department he isn’t alone. The concept of marquee players is also not new.

Sporting entities have been chasing megastars for decades. Well before Buddy, the Swans had another icon in Tony Lockett. “Plugger and Buddy are clearly great footballers brought in to boost the game in NSW and Sydney, and were both outstanding successes,” says sports economics expert Tim Harcourt, industry professor and chief economist at the University of Technology, Sydney. “Whilst Izzy and [brief Central Coast Mariners ‘footballer’] Usain Bolt were a little bit of novelty.”

Tony Lockett, straight after sending the Swans into the 1996 AFL grand final, was an undisputed hit in Sydney.Credit: Jason South

In an increasingly saturated sport marketplace, codes have long been in competition for commercial cut-through. A rare gem to raise their profile above the rest. Somebody who sells merchandise and raises TV revenue.

Alessandro Del Piero delivered both and then some. The very concept of the Italian great leaving Juventus directly for Sydney FC seemed fantastical, even absurd. Except for one Australia’s leading agents, Lou Sticca, who doggedly pursued the then 37-year-old until the offer of a sunny family life Down Under became too tempting to resist. “The pitch was simple,” Tony Pignata, the Sky Blues’ chief executive at the time, told this masthead of the 2012 coup. “We want you to do what David Beckham did for Major League Soccer – and he did.”

Commanding $3.5 million for each of his first two seasons, he was the highest-paid footballer to ever play in Australia. Nobody in their right mind would argue Del Piero was not worth every penny. Hundreds of fans packed into the Sydney airport arrivals hall to greet him straight off the plane. In matches, he regularly earned standing ovations. Kids on grassroots fields around the country wore his No.10. Italian women, from teenagers to nonnas, swooned.

The A-League, which had struggled with crowds and really struggled with expansion, almost immediately rediscovered its lost lustre among both football lovers and those with only a peripheral interest. Sydney’s crosstown rivals Western Sydney, flying in their inaugural season, signed former Japan international Shinji Ono and the Newcastle Jets got England’s Emile Heskey. The competition’s entire bottom line shot up.

Del Piero’s arrival in Sydney took to the A-League to new heights on all fronts.Credit: James Alcock

All this despite that, on the pitch, Sydney FC was not exactly setting the world alight. The club finished seventh in a 10-team league that season, with a slightly improved fifth in 2013-14 (the latter was enough to squeeze into the finals). That it did not really matter perhaps spoke to the strength of Del Piero’s personal brand.

And perhaps personal brand is the key to the successful megastar deal. There are means of measuring it, such as the authenticity of the athlete, their performance and whether they are likely to attract controversy. Audience and reach also play a big part – the old Google search chestnut and social media – as do existing, or prospective, corporate partnerships and sponsorship deals.

The clubs able to afford such luxury brands are, of course, the latte-sipping variety. Sydney FC is traditionally known as Bling FC, and that is the general flavour of the city’s inner city. No more so than in the eastern suburbs, where a walk through the old, pre-demolished Allianz Stadium cafe, Azure, would more than likely mean a sighting of Franklin, Sonny Bill Williams, Folau, Del Piero or Joseph Suaalii.

The frenzy around teen rugby sensation Suaalii’s capture by the NRL had all the traits of marquee madness. He was still a minor and already had a travelling circus following his every step. The growth potential – another metric – was and remains huge, though rugby league will not benefit.

Rugby-bound Roosters star Joseph Suaalii.Credit: Getty

That calculated risk has been taken by Rugby Australia and the Waratahs, who have lured the 20-year-old back to his schoolboy code for a reported $5 million. Whether Suaalii is “the Tom Brady of rugby”, as RA chair Hamish McLennan told this masthead in June, and, is still in question. What is certain is that this marquee move has angered the NRL, and thus increased rugby’s relevance.

In football, the other standout is home-grown and goes by the name of Sam Kerr. Before the Matildas captain and striker moved to Chelsea, the A-League Women (then the W-League) managed to keep her at Perth Glory for one more season on a marquee contract worth a reported $400,000. She won the golden boot for a second year running with 17 goals that steered the Glory to the grand final.

The other obvious success is Dwight Yorke, who helped Sydney FC to the championship in the A-League’s inaugural season and more recently coached expansion side Macarthur. Less so Terry Butcher, the England international turned club manager who lasted all of nine months coaching Sydney before being sacked. A couple of years later he told The Times “it was a total nightmare”.

Sam Kerr (right) playing for Perth Glory in 2018. Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong

“Sydney had won the league title the year before [under German Pierre Littbarski] but I couldn’t sign anyone,” he told the British newspaper in 2009. “There were political problems at the club and everything went wrong. I received a hell of a lot of resentment as well. I was absolutely hammered by the press.

“They even called me a hobo,” he added in reference to a comment about his dress sense by the late SBS commentator Les Murray.

Bolt’s brief jaunt at the Mariners can be best described as the most intense of many A-League sugar hits that started sweet (when news broke the world’s greatest sprinter would live in a NSW beachside suburb) and crashed soon thereafter (when it became clear the Jamaican Manchester United supporter had a first touch like “a trampoline”).

Andrew Bogut to the Sydney Kings did not work out for any party. In 2018, when the NBA champion and Boomers star joined the NBL it was a big deal, and he was named the league’s MVP that season. But, while he helped attract record crowds, injury issues hampered his homecoming and he ultimately retired in 2020. Bad blood and a clash of egos with National Basketball League owner Larry Kestelman has since rubbed off much of the shine, as has his very public descent down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole.

Andrew Bogut playing for the Sydney Kings in 2019.Credit: Getty Images

The less tangible ingredient that plays into the success or otherwise of a high-profile acquisition is an athlete’s X-factor. His or hers capacity to capture the public’s imagination, while also fitting with the culture of the team. Del Piero had it. So did Franklin.

“It’s got to be crowds and TV ratings,” says Harcourt. “And, with Buddy, he fit the Swans’, for want of a better word, no-dickheads culture really well. They have a really strong Bloods culture. He was a superstar, but he seems quite loved by his team, so I would’ve thought that’s a factor.

“I don’t know how you measure that one, but there’s an X-factor in how someone gels with a team. Lockett did as well.”

Steve Johnson to the Giants came a bit past his prime, though Harcourt believed there was value in “imparting Stevie J’s knowledge onto the younger guys in that team”.

And, anyway, GWS – despite having missed out on Franklin – were content to be buoyed by his role in raising AFL’s profile across the whole state. “We’re in the entertainment business and marketing is important as is media coverage,” Giants president Tony Shepherd told the AFR. “It’s all part of the pitch, so him coming to Sydney definitely raised the profile of AFL in NSW.”

If in doubt, turn to Google. And for the record, “Lance Franklin” comes second only to “Lance Armstrong”.

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