One of the first things that should be noted when it comes to the A-League's Unite Round is that those who have attended one or both of its iterations appeared to have had a genuinely good time. Fun for fun's sake is something of a dying art in modern existence, let alone the hyper-capitalist world of modern football, so it's important to recognise happiness wherever it can be found. Especially before one sheds oneself of joy and mirth in favour of a dispassionate look at the future of Australian football's answer to the NRL's Magic Round and the AFL's Gather Round.
As in case you missed it, across the past weekend, every game of the A-League Men and A-League Women was staged across Sydney once again, the competitions uniting -- see what they did there? -- all of its men's games at the Sydney Football Stadium and its women's at Jubilee Stadium.
First, the good. After last year's rather ad-hoc effort, the league took major strides in its efforts to turn the weekend into something resembling an event this year, with a rise in the various events taking place around the games helping to create a greater sense of occasion. There was a men's Sydney Derby that drew more than 30,000 fans and provided the kind of thrills and spills that have come to be known with the league's marquee fixture.
Elsewhere, Wellington Phoenix and Auckland FC continued their strong starts to the A-League Men season and left us all wondering if we should call it the "NZ-League," while in the A-League Women -- which featured relatively stronger crowds than the men's equivalent -- the Central Coast Mariners sealed an undefeated opening month to the season against last season's top four with a 1-1 draw with Melbourne Victory, and Brisbane Roar surged to the top of the table after thumping Western Sydney.
There was plenty to engage with as a football fan. Ot to lament, if you're a Wanderers supporter.
That's the glass-half-full view, though. And just as the Sydney Derby's strong attendance is noteworthy -- not that it needed the hook of Unite Round to achieve this feat -- the rest of the men's fixtures at times evoked memories of the COVID years of the A-League, where the crowds that were in attendance were sparse enough to allow the players and coaches conversations to be picked up on the effects microphones dotting the ground. Those who made the trek to support their teams are to be commended for their efforts -- and there was a degree of cross-pollination across fanbases that bolstered supporter groups, such as Wellington fans joining Macarthur FC fans to root against Auckland on Sunday -- but this dedicated cohort was invariably facing an uphill void left by the cavernous void left by the vast majority of empty seats.
In the short term, it's difficult to see how this changes. One of the key reasons Unite Round struggles to attract the same level of excitement and crowds as Magic and Gather Rounds do is the same reason that the Premier League's move to bring international media content production and distribution in-house will likely fare better than KEEPUP did. Whereas the AFL, NRL and Premier League benefit from a cultural hegemony born of over a century of history and generational support, the A-League is still a fledgling offering in a fractured Australian system. Simply, there isn't a critical mass of supporters necessary to provide significant numbers able to invest -- in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis -- in travelling interstate and watching three days of football. The concept has obvious legs but a bigger challenge for clubs at present is simply establishing relationships and a shared culture built on getting these people consistently inside their home stadiums on a fortnightly basis, let alone travelling interstate.
But discussions like these -- agonising over crowds, activations, and everything else -- risk missing the forest for the trees when it comes to Unite Round. Because in some regards, this year, as well as last year, represents a success for the A-League simply because it has now been delivered and, presumably, met the base requirements assigned to it by the competition's contract with Destination NSW. For Unite Round, it must be remembered, only exists as a means for the league to escape its deal to stage its Grand Finals in Sydney for three seasons, a disastrous decision that did untold damage to the relationship between the league and its supporters that has left a legacy of mistrust and disillusionment that is still being felt today.
When examined from this perspective, it's been a triumph simply because it ensured that whoever hosts this year's men's and women's deciders will have earned the right to do so, in front of their fans; because it ensured that Sydney FC faced no doubters or naysayers after they marched into AAMI Park and beat Melbourne City in last year's A-League Women decider, and because it allowed last year's magnificent scenes in Gosford during the A-League Men Grand Final to take place. Indeed, from this perspective, Unite Round would have been a success for the league even if nobody had turned up.
That's the reality of the situation the A-League finds itself in; this past weekend was delivered as part of a contractual obligation to Destination NSW. The league's financial issues have been much-discussed in recent years -- thankfully, the conclusion of this year's event won't be followed by mass redundancies like last season -- and Unite Round has helped contribute to fixing that. That contract is now up, but if Destination NSW wants to pay to bring the round back next year -- or Tourism WA, Tourism NT, or Visit Wagga Wagga want to do so instead -- then in all likelihood will come back simply because it's in the best interests of the league and its coffers for that to happen. And not that you'd expect any less, but competition bosses have already indicated they remain committed to the concept, especially if it can continue with its existing partner.
"We're really proud to have welcomed 50% more fans from across Australia and New Zealand to Sydney compared to our first-ever Unite Round," said A-League commissioner Nick Garcia.
"We really believe in the long-term potential of this partnership with the NSW Government and Destination NSW, establishing a new tradition and welcoming football fans from across Australia and New Zealand to electrify [Sydney]."
From a footballing perspective, it's not ideal. In fact, at a time when the league is supposedly shifting towards a greater "football focus," Unite Round makes the fixture even more unbalanced and uneven. And in using games like the Sydney Derby and the F3 Derby as tentpole fixtures -- the scenes of this weekend's Sydney Derby will invariably feature in any pitch for future Unite Rounds -- they also risk diluting rivalries that serve as the league's lifeblood; Sydney's 4-2 win over the Wanderers on Saturday coming just 35 days after the league used the fixture to serve as the foundation of round one. In a perfect, footballing world, Canberra United's entry into the men's league gets sorted and Auckland and Macarthur's A-League Women entrance would see both leagues move to a 14-team home-and-away season, even if 26 games itself still represents a problematically short season.
But the A-League has long operated in an environment where it's never just about the football. Even if it's at its best when it is. And it's the realities of its current existence what will likely guide Unite Round's future.