On September 9, 2025, the Australian Football League announced 1,363,437 members.
14 AFL clubs broke membership records.
The Melbourne Demons…not one of them.
Four years after winning the 2021 premiership, the Demons were 15th in membership with 58,500 members.
Collingwood: 112,491. Carlton: 100,743. Richmond: 92,531. Geelong: 92,379. Hawthorn: 87,204.
Same stadium.
58,500 is nearly 7,000 fewer members than in 2024.
The Demons received $22.5 million from the AFL: the fourth-most among Victorian clubs.
This is not just a bad year.
This is a strategy problem.
Change…begins at the base.
Start with the memberships.
How will the Demons fix their membership slide?
Members are the club’s base. Membership is the first active step a fan takes to become a part of the team’s community.
Watching is passive. Owning a T-shirt is passive. Calling yourself a supporter is passive.
Membership…that’s belonging.
When you are losing 7,000 members a year, stopping the losses is job one.
The club has shared plans: LED signage, goal songs, pregame activations, attracting a new audience, and a mantra of “entertain, engage, and educate.”
A lot of this focuses on gameday.
A little on new members.
The members who didn’t renew.
Not mentioned.
This is a strategy problem.
Attracting new members…great.
Attracting new members without dealing with the membership decline gives the impression that the membership issue is an experience issue.
I don’t buy that.
The club has data. The club has a rich history. The club has fans around the world.
And they’ve built a plan that focuses on gameday and new audiences.
The question isn’t whether the new ideas will work.
The question is whether anyone can tell us why 7,000 fans didn’t renew their memberships.
Without that answer…
Data vs. Research
Everyone touts data. Everyone.
Data is not the issue.
From my POV, the telling sign is in the slogan: “entertain, engage, and educate.”
Why?
Because when I hear someone talk about “educating” fans, that’s a warning sign to me.
I see the mark of decisions being made based on the past, not the future.
Assumptions, not insights.
That’s a trap.
Data is great. It already happened. You can ask it any question, and you’ll get a precise answer.
Irrefutable. Because it already happened.
This is the trap.
Looking at data can help. But it can steer you wrong.
Data makes assumptions easy. Data allows you to lead with justifications. Data lets you confirm the answers you want.
Research makes assumptions messy. Research forces you to test your assumptions. Research demands you ask smarter questions.
Most people fail to ask an essential question when looking at the data: What would have to be true?
“What would have to be true for us to stop losing members?
“What would have to be true for our fans to visit the stadium instead of staying on the couch?”
“What would have to be true for our attendance to grow?”
These are things that research can answer.
Because research is proactive.
Research gets you into the fan’s head. Research will tell you why 7,000 members didn’t renew.
Then, it can help you understand what you need to do to get them back.
Maybe…they’ll even bring some friends.
Data tells you what happened.
The first action we need is for members to renew. Everything is window dressing when more than 10% of your members don’t renew.
New LED screens may make a difference. But what does the fan need to feel for the LED screen to matter?
New audiences are a great idea. But what can you offer that connects them to the club, so they become members…who renew?
Emotions drive actions. Sports are built on emotion. Emotions are at the heart of strong relationships.
Who is measuring the relationship?
Protect Your Base
Either/or isn’t the choice.
Two examples stand out to me.
The first is Collingwood.
Same MCG home.
The difference is that Collingwood has 112,491 members, league-leading revenue and attendance.
And a $420 general admission membership.
Same stadium. Very different results.
The second is Port Adelaide.
Club officials have reported over 78,000 members…a new record.
On top of record memberships, Port has the AFL’s most expensive premium membership at $5,990.
Premium isn’t the problem. Premium alone isn’t the solution.
Collingwood shows us that the base can grow while the business grows. Port Adelaide’s example confirms that a strong base will support premium products.
When you look at the numbers, do you see the mass being protected before premium offerings are added? Or are you only looking at total members and total revenue?
You can do both: mass and premium.
You can’t do both when the base is crumbling.
When was the last time the membership base drove a commercial decision?
Do you know the answer?
Yes. Great.
Test yourself. Reply SCORECARD, and I will share a one-page Fan Base Leak Scorecard with you.
Someone forwarded this post to you? Email me: Dave@DaveWakeman.com.