FAN QUOTIENT: Mumbai makes a decent start, needs much more to evoke emotional connect
THE LOCAL FOOTBALL SCENE in Mumbai was stunted for the last few years, as Mumbai FC, the sole I-League club from the city, was forced to play its home games in Pune due to an absurd litigation blocking the path of the renovation and re-opening of the Cooperage Ground. So when ISL came around and Mumbai City opened their doors to the fans, the football-starved fans responded with sizeable enthusiasm.
Whether it was loyalty to the city, loyalty to the celebrity owner, loyalty to whichever European club where a star player might have played, or a simple wish to attend a football match, it kind of worked. Most likely it was a combination of all of the above factors.
The presence of players carrying the tag of playing in some top European club or league is quite paramount for Mumbai City. Because most of the football culture in the city revolves around European clubs. Clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea have huge fan followings, mostly comprising of middle class urban youth, and they are well-organized, holding screenings every matchday and everything.
The clubs, and the brands associated with them, have taken good notice of this, and encouraged this by holding a kit launch and other fan-engagement events in the city. It's still quite clear, that when a Mumbai City match clashes with a Manchester Derby, most of these fans will prefer to watch the EPL game on TV rather than attending the ISL match. This is a problem, but one that can be ironed out in the long term. For now they need to have players like Nicolas Anelka, Andre Moritz or Frédéric Piquionne to evoke and use that fan loyalty.
For now, though, Mumbai City have a bigger issue that prevents them from tapping into the professional demographic. An average working Mumbaikar spends 2 hours a day travelling for work, mostly by bus or train. After undergoing that hectic journey, going all the way out to D Y Patil stadium in Navi Mumbai is a big task and most will not be able to invest that kind of time and effort. But due to the lack of a football stadium closer to the heart of the city (Cooperage Ground only holds around 5,000 people at the moment) this is where they will have to play for now.
In the first season, as the Mumbai City players suffered defeat after defeat, finishing in a lowly 7th spot on the league table, the galleries ebbed and flowed, in the end earning them a decent average of 22,592 spectators per home game. That's not a bad number at all, but in a stadium with a 55,000 capacity it leaves the stands half empty. And going by the chatter from the team management at various events, they need the average to be in the higher 30s in order to halt the flow of negative returns.
That may happen in the long run, especially if ISL and I-League are merged and Mumbai City, along with Mumbai FC, are given the entirety of a season to cultivate their own sets of fans and a rivalry that will come to define football in this city. Maybe a Mumbai Derby will finally see the D Y Patil stadium filled to the brink.
For now, however, they must keep trying. They have already achieved a good amount of fan engagement thanks to game events held around the city, but that does not directly translate into higher ticket sales. For that to happen, the name of the team has to evoke an emotional response in the fans' minds. But something like that is still a bit far away.
