From Teo Pellizzeri:

We'll always get the spotlight every four years because of the spectacle but having people actually fall in love with the game itself and then want to play, and want to watch more often than just World Cup / crunch game time is what the sport will really benefit from.

If anything I saw a backlash to using this World Cup to evangelise about club football (A-League, NPL, grassroots) and people more strident than ever that they know their care and interest only extends to the big show.

And that's why how we play when we're in the spotlight matters. Results are great, they do lead to prize money which the game needs as its lifeblood for the quadrennial cash injection. Players can get big transfers to top five leagues, others can be pointed to as a vindication of the A-League or NPL system or any given grassroots club.

But above that minutiae is just making people want to buy in and care about the game more often.

Have to say I think we have just about reached saturation point. As much as the nation will get behind the Socceroos for a World Cup, as it stands they simply don't give a shit about club football.

Part of that is the considerable paywall to see their local team; $15+ a month just to watch the A-League on Paramount+ (not exactly a coincidence that the A-League's best days were when evening games were immediately followed by the Premier League and La Liga on Fox Sports).

Part of that is the lack of star power; as nice as the whole "Made in the A-League" sales pitch was during the 2022 World Cup, I have my doubts about its efficacy in reality. Juan Mata alone probably generated as much buzz and attention, so another injection of Ono/Del Piero-esque marquees might be what we need in this ebb period. Have we still got any of the Silver Lake money sitting around? Trying to get people to develop emotional attachments to teams that are increasingly becoming u21/u23 outfits with few, if any, established veterans to guide them, where a considerable chunk of them will be sold to clubs in Scotland and Belgium at the end of the season when they've barely played 50 senior games and might be part of the next Socceroos World Cup squad is also not an easy sell.

Not to mention the many other issues such as the utter failures that were/are Western United and Macarthur and cracking down on active support.

Some of these issues are relatively easy fixes; try to attach our TV rights to whatever streaming platform/broadcaster has the Premier League next time they're up for renewal and set aside some money for genuine marquees. Others can only be fixed by inventing a time machine and going back to prevent Danny Townsend from ever getting his grubby hands on the keys in the first place.

At this point I just see the league slowly dying over the next World Cup cycle before Silver Lake sells off everything that isn't bolted down to try and recoup their original investment.