The Membership Challenge: A fan’s journey joining all 17 NRL clubs
Imagine joining every club in the NRL. How easy is it to sign up? How do the clubs communicate throughout the season? Are you acknowledged and nurtured as a new member? This fan found out.
Recruiting members is a challenge for many organisations in 2024. As Robert Putnam famously observed in his 2000 book, ‘Bowling Alone’, across the West there has been an increasing decline in both paid and voluntary membership.
Organisations that depend on members – from unions and P&Cs, to industry associations and even sporting clubs – are, with some notable exceptions, finding it more difficult than ever to bring new members into their ranks.
There are complex cultural shifts feeding into this trend. Cost of living pressures, less ‘free time’, a declining trust in institutions – to name just a few. However, I’m also convinced that there are gaping holes in the design and delivery of the customer experience of member-based organisations that makes getting and keeping new members harder than it needs to be. I’ve got a unique and compelling case study to illustrate it.
This year I joined every club in the NRL. That’s right – from the Broncos to the Warriors, I am now a card-carrying member of all 17 clubs. I wanted to compare the experience of becoming a member of an NRL club for the first time. How easy is it to sign up? How do the clubs communicate with me throughout the season? Am I acknowledged and nurtured as a new member?
Would love to see a ranking by club as a follow up article.
A deep dive into the success and failures of each club would no doubt help the staff address opex pressures they have to staff their teams and may help them build their business cases for more resource… something the majority of clubs would no doubt cite as their reason behind the failings.
Great article, I can relate to the experience! I am a die-hard NRL fan and love my club the Penrith Panthers. I was a non-ticketed member about a decade ago, but as you articulate in your article you just feel like a number to these clubs and it does not feel like value for money if that is the way you get treated, so I gave it away and would not reengage unless it drastically changed. I would buy a membership every year if you received more personalised messages/gear. I have mates who are AFL supporters and what they get trumps anything the NRL clubs are putting out. Until it changes I will be keeping my hard earned in my pocket.
A great read! Please write a second article about the rest of your experience. The observations are insightful – e.g., the lack of personalisation for new v returning members was surprising.
Some practices had a whiff of unnecessary data harvesting. Is there a real need for clubs asking for the fan’s date of birth? (The birth month would suffice.) Clubs also need to ensure they include any unavoidable ‘fees’ as part of the total price and not suddenly appearing at checkout, otherwise they could be sent to the naughty corner by the ACCC.
Brilliant idea joining all the clubs great article