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It’s been more than ten years in and so far, the Giants are standing small.
The Orange Tsunami has barely made a ripple in the fabric of Western Sydney and what was first defined as a 20-year project now looks double that at the very least.
The AFL’s desire to ‘win over’ Western Sydney to its game is becoming a lot harder than most ever imagined.
There are a few reasons; some obvious some not so – so let’s go through them.
The most obvious and glaring mistake was that the AFL didn’t read the room – or in this case the region.
They made several blunders when establishing and building the club. The first one was that demand wasn’t there.
No one in the west was crying out for a professional AFL team to follow.
Yes you fish where the fish are, but you also fish where the fish are biting… and that wasn’t Western Sydney.
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They then decided to appoint the worst possible figurehead to lead this fledgling team – Kevin Sheedy.
Sheed’s schtick works in Melbourne but in Sydney, he had a tin ear in regards to the culture he was in.
Insulting soccer fans when most in that region are multi-sport followers, compared to the very AFL-centric sporting culture of Melbourne. It was a slight people didn’t forgive him for and stopped any potential goodwill the club could have garnered.
Getting a mumbling Queensland rugby league player in Israel Folau as a ‘star’ recruit shows a total lack of foresight.
He went to the team simply for the money – and even admitted as such in future interviews he gave – as he felt pressure from his family, not for any love of the game.
Toby Greene and Giants teammates look dejected. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
The AFL to this day misunderstand the market they are trying to win over.
They look at the Swans and think ‘well it worked in one part of Sydney’ why not the other?
What they fail to realise is that the AFL in Sydney has become a middle to upper-class sport.
The majority of the Swans fans are in the east and south of the city and have largely replaced the fans rugby union used to have and AFL is thriving in Private schools up there.
The working class of the city, which is mostly in the west, still supports and follows rugby league and soccer.
Sydney sport has always been divided along socio-economic lines in a way Melbourne isn’t – as both rich and poor alike follow AFL.
From their name sounding like an insurance company (GWS); making their team song sound ‘old’ to give it a sense of history it doesn’t have and lying about its nearly 30,000 plus members (who were suspiciously absent in their home final loss to the Lions).
There is a strong smell of desperation around this corporate-created team trying too hard.
Not to mention the team is based in the south-west and not the west (another distinction the AFL fail to realise) and having a bet each way when playing ‘home’ games in Canberra. They actually built a facility in Blacktown which they quickly gave up.
The Giants have a long road ahead to building credibility as a legitimate team and not the charity case of the AFL.
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