LANCE Franklin has become the face of the Swans since his move, and the rewards are flowing.
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Could it be that, after a $10 million outlay to land the AFL’s biggest star on an unprecedented nine-year contract, Sydney has got its money’s worth within 11 months?
“Buddy” Franklin, “Buddy”, “Buddy Love”, “Bud”, “Franko”, or just plain Lance (which is, incidentally, the name he once nominated as his preference); whatever you call him, the glamour forward is a seriously big deal.
On the eve of the this year’s grand final, veteran media analyst and buyer Harold Mitchell stopped short of declaring that Sydney could already have recouped — collaterally — the sum of dosh it used to lure Franklin from Hawthorn.
But what Mitchell is convinced of is that the AFL and Swans would have benefited mutually this season, to at least the tune of $10 million, from the most significant player move since 2010 when Gary Ablett also stepped into what’s regarded in the code as a “frontier market”.
“The player that kicks all the goals is always the superstar,” Mitchell says.
“Franklin is exactly that, and he’s now coming from Australia’s biggest city.
“This is a bonanza for the Swans and the AFL.
“If Franklin stars and the Swans win, they get their money back in a year. That’s all about TV rights and sponsorships.”
While Ablett, the apparently unfailingly mild-mannered cleanskin and devoted Christian, is now a well-established household name with Gold Coast locals, Franklin stepped into sin city with a reputation of being a cock-sure party-lover.
With Sydney media giving the impression of barracking for a slip from this champion AFL poster boy, Franklin delivered early.
In March, his luxury car was crashed by a teammate, Dan Hannebery.
Never mind that Franklin wasn’t in the vehicle at the time, the wheels belonged to Buddy.
Soon after came the paparazzi shots of Franklin’s interaction with some bikini-clad babes on a beach.
Not entirely unusual behaviour for a 27-year-old man living in Sydney, but the tabloid headlines shrieked: BUDDY AND JESINTA CAMPBELL’S HOT RELATIONSHIP MUST BE ON ICE!
In April, it was national news when Franklin was in a bingle.
In this instance, he was behind the wheel of his model girlfriend’s car.
Snap. Picture. Boom. Story.
Story after story, after story.
With Franklin all of five games into his new football life, some of the AFL’s most influential commentators were claiming Franklin had poisoned — or was at least seriously threatening to infect — the Swans’ celebrated team-first, second and third culture.
Sydney, apparently, had made a $10 million mistake.
Yet from that point, the Swans began what became a club record-equalling 12-match winning streak.
Franklin played in 11 of those games and booted 40 goals.
Fast forward, and Sydney is in its fourth grand final in 10 years.
Last Friday week, Franklin and Sonny Bill Williams were page-one men in Sydney’s NRL-dominated, News Limited tabloid.
On Monday, Franklin was featured in the same money spot alone.
In Sydney, this is unheard of for an AFL player who is only news because he is good news.
Even more importantly, though clearly not unrelated, is the fact there is not a bad news story in the metrics the Swans use to measure their commercial performance.
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In Franklin’s first year wearing red and white, the club has signed a record number of members — exceeding 40,000 for the first time.
On grand final eve, Roy Morgan circulated study findings showing Sydney, for a ninth year, was the AFL’s “most widely supported club”.
Not only that, but with the Swans having 1.135 million supporters, the survey said there was daylight between the competition leader and next best, Collingwood, with 739,000.
The figures, measured in the period July 2013 to June 2014, had this year’s other grand final combatant, Hawthorn, ranked 10th with 448,000 supporters.
Attendances for Swans games in Sydney have been better this season than they’ve been since 2007.
The club’s sponsorship numbers are also at record levels, merchandise sales are up, and no prizes for guessing which player’s jumper sells most.
Since Franklin joined Sydney, television audiences for Swans’ games have also grown considerably — an estimated 20 per cent on free-to-air and pay TV combined.
This ranks the club in the top five most-watched in the competition; a powerful position given negotiations for the AFL’s next broadcast deal will soon intensify.
Sydney’s new chairman, Andrew Pridham, says he talks and thinks a lot about these kinds of things.
More people are watching Sydney, more sponsors want to align themselves with Sydney and more people want to say they are members of Sydney.
It flows that more people are talking about Sydney and — crucially for the AFL — they’re not just talking about the Swans and Buddy, they’re talking about the code in general.
It’s the kind of gold that causes executives from all kinds of industries to rub their hands with glee at the success.
“The Buddy factor is all about the water-cooler talk. He is transcending the game now,” said Lewis Martin, the general manager of Channel Seven Melbourne.
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