It is all about community and innovation as Auckland FC look to build on their history-making debut season in the Isuzu UTE A-League, CEO Nick Becker tells aleagues.com.au.
In the words of CEO Nick Becker, Auckland FC have had a “taste”. Now, they want the whole thing in 2025-26.
Auckland broke all kinds of records and claimed the Premiership in their inaugural Isuzu UTE A-League season before falling agonisingly short in the 2024-25 Semi-Finals.
Despite missing out on the Grand Final and a Championship, it was a dream first season for Auckland with sell-out crowds at Go Media Stadium and historic feats. The club also captured the hearts and minds of the Auckland public.
With less than a month before the Premiers kick-off their season away to runners-up Melbourne Victory on October 18, there is “unfinished business” for head coach Steve Corica and the Black Knights.
“That’s the big lead into this season. It’s not, ‘look well done, we won our first trophy, everything’s great’,” Becker told aleagues.com.au. “It’s actually, ‘we want to go now. We’ve got a taste of winning, and we’ve got a taste of silverware. We have this real taste for winning more’.
“We want to be the first (New Zealand) team to host a Grand Final. We want to be the first (New Zealand) team to win a Championship. We want to be the first (New Zealand) team to do a double in the season, and I think we’ve reflected that with what we’ve shown by some of the recruits we’ve got coming in from a playing perspective.”
In their Championship quest, Auckland have bolstered their attack with the signings of Australian forward Lachlan Brook following his MLS exit, while they have also recruited Englishman and 2018-19 Scottish Premiership Golden Boot runner-up Sam Cosgrove.
Young gun Jake Girdwood-Reich has also been brought in on loan to add quality to Auckland’s defence, while New Zealand international Oli Sail is helping fill the void left by star goalkeeper Alex Paulsen at the conclusion of his temporary deal at Go Media Stadium.
“Losing Alex Paulsen back to Europe was obviously a big loss for us, but then strengthening the keeper department with Oli Sail coming in now, we’ve got arguably two of the three best keepers in NZ, in my opinion, and two of them sit with us,” Becker said. “So put Alex into that mix too. We’ve been very fortunate.
“It’s more of looking at that as a how lucky we are, rather than a big loss and then off the pitch, we haven’t rested on our laurels either. It’s been a case of, we’ve had a lot of interest in the club, given the success that we had in year one. So we’ve really been able to maximise that off the pitch.”
Auckland are in weekly communication with American owner Bill Foley, who also owns Premier League club Bournemouth and NHL franchise the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
“We’re obviously connected into clubs in Europe through Bill’s ownership,” said Becker. “And we’re regularly checking in and connecting with people to talk about what we’re doing and how it could work with them, and where the similarities lie, and also where the differences are too, and how it can be a success.”
That regular dialogue and ability to pool resources from Bournemouth within the Black Knight Football Club is priceless as Auckland pursue success and silverware.
Becker added: “We’re really lucky, especially with the football department, so they can connect directly into Bournemouth, which is obviously really well resourced, but full of really talented people.
“For us, we’re able to tap into things like the guy who leads the ticketing globally for all the clubs. So he’s a group guy. He does ticketing for the ice hockey team in Vegas, for Bournemouth in the Premier League. He’s got a real broad range of experience across different sports, different clubs, different types of demand.
“That’s been really invaluable for us. It’s been brilliant. We’re sort of quite down the road on a number of conversations about a group-sponsored partnerships with brands who are keen to be part of what we’re doing down here in Auckland, and are also Bournemouth and potentially into the US too. So that knowledge sharing is a massive privilege for us.”
That is on-field matters. Off the field, it is a similar story as Auckland innovate at Go Media Stadium.
Key to Auckland’s success has been their matchday experience; From a Ferris wheel to a manmade beach inside the stadium, and there is more to come from the Black Knights this season, with the club continuing to engage the community.
It is all part of “staying true” to what they represent.
“Our memberships, we’ve already significantly surpassed where we got to at the end of last season and we’re still a month out from the season starting,” Becker said.
“We’re looking at how we can improve our match day experience. It was a breath of fresh air what we did around a match day, just for the A-League and also for other sports in New Zealand have started to to take note, but we’re looking to launch a couple of key things there.
“It’s more a case of fine-tuning it and seeing where we can add to it. I think we’re going to add a little bit to the kids fan zone in the north end of the stadium where there’s the big slide. We’ve also now got a big inflatable obstacle course. We’ll have an inflatable pitch. We’ve got the big beach. We’ll bring back the Ferris Wheel. All of that stuff, which the families and especially the kids absolutely loved, is we’re going to continue to do that, of course.
“We’re also bringing in tailgating, which is going to be a new thing that we’re doing, borrowed from our brothers and sisters in the US. And actually, there are a couple of places in the UK they do it really well as well, like Twickenham. That’s going to be one of the new things happening in the stadium that’ll open up three or four hours before kick-off.
“Fans would come in, cook their food. There will be pop-up bars. Red Bull is bringing in their Hummer with a DJ on it. The players will actually park in the second car park. So when they arrive, they’ll walk through the crowd and into the stadium. So there’ll be a bit of a player arrival moment, where they can be high-fived by the fans as they go through, and that will all be right next door to where the Port gather.
“We’ll bring that together, and there will hopefully be some really good atmosphere up there. I think Go Media Stadium is a fantastic stadium and the one thing that it probably needs to be developed is places to go beforehand. It’s in an industrial area, and it doesn’t have a huge number of bars and things like that around it. So we saw that as an opportunity for us to create that experience for our fans. Then we’ve also been working super hard in the community.
“I was just looking at the numbers before. We’ve been to over 61 clubs and schools since the end of May. And now, towards the end of September, we’ve engaged with over 12,000 kids at various football festivals, tournaments, club days, turning up at school assemblies, and really put in the hard yards there. Obviously, we’ve taken the Premier’s Plate around.
“We’ve got players turning up to them, and I think that’s stayed true to who we said that would be right from the start, which is we’re a club for the community. It’s really easy to say that you’re plugged into communities. It’s all about what actions you are. I think for us, turning up 61 times and engaging with those kids has been really important for him.”
This strategy, based on extensive research, and matchday innovation all centres on creating “generational fandom” in Auckland.
“If you took a standard family of four who turned up to the game, it might be that the mum and the son, the dad and the daughter, whatever the combination was, were true football fans,” Becker explained. “But there’s also the possibility that the other two aren’t so engaged in it. So if we can create an experience for the whole family where they actually buy into and go into the match day together as a great family experience.
“Then there are things to do for the parents or the kid, or whoever it might be who might get a little bit distracted during the game. There are other things for them to go and engage with and you know, the fan zone, the slide, the Ferris wheel, whatever it might be, they then get really excited about that.
“Our strategy was to make it very accessible for families. You can have a day out at Go Media, watch Auckland FC and it’s cheaper than going to the movies, and you’re there for a four or five-hour period.
“The other thing I think that’s worked really well for us in this space is we’ve got full buy-in from the players, and so they will stay, and I don’t think I’ve seen this anywhere else, but they’ll stay for an hour, sometimes longer after the game, meeting every single kid. Like no kid leaves without getting a selfie or an autograph or a high five, and the players they’re just out there, just doing it.
“Sport for me, it’s all about how do you create that emotional connection between the fan and the club and the easiest way to do that is through, they come to Go Media Stadium, it might be their first football game. They see an Auckland win, then they get to meet the player who scored the winning goal, and you have those moments, they go home, they tell their friend that they went down this massive slide. They saw the team win. They brought the shirt, they got an autograph, and they and they headed home, just with their head buzzing.
“I think that if you can achieve that kind of thing, you’re going to create generational fandom. That’s the bit that we’ve set out to do investing now.
“We’re incredibly lucky that we’ve got such great owners at the club. But they saw this is a long-term vision and you put the groundwork in now, and pay off dividends in the future.
