In Episode 11 of Soccerscene’s Off the Pitch Podcast, Football Victoria Interim CEO Dan Birrell explores his previous roles in football operations, how the new media team will market the game better in this state and the next steps to ensure more stability in the organisation.
Dan Birrell spoke about his vision to improve how the game is marketed and consumed across the state, stressing the importance of smarter scheduling and stronger engagement with fans.
“I was listening to SEN and obviously the AFL has games all across the weekend from Thursday to Sunday. I think we need to be smarter in our fixturing,” Birrell said.
“So in terms of our product, men’s and women’s, making sure we don’t bottleneck it certain days. There’s been a lot of instances in the last few months where we’ve had Friday nights, we’ve got 5 or 6 NPL men’s games then Saturday afternoon we’ve got 5 or 6 NPL women’s games.
“So all of our content is on at the same level one, we’re actually spreading ourselves quite thin.”
Birrell continued to speak on the importance of the games accessibility for players, coaches and fans to ensure there is no confusion around fixtures and to maximise the audience.
“I think from our perspective if we talk about engagement with the product, as Football Victoria member feds we need to market our product and make sure it’s spread out in a fashion where it’s consumable,” Birrell said.
“I think we need to make it accessible in terms of our fixtures, ladders and results. It is something I’m really adamant we need to fix through program.
“There’s a number of great competition management programs that will hopefully market our product really well so people will actively know when, where and what time games are at.”
Football Victoria are hinting at a change in schedule for the NPL where the games are more spread out throughout the weekend so it doesn’t clash every week.
Click hear the full interview with Dan Birrell, on Episode 11 of Soccerscene’s Off the Pitch Podcast – available on all major podcasting platforms.
