Dear members and supporters,

This week we surpassed our Club membership record with 61,687 members (and counting … yes there’s still time to join up before the AFL audited number closes off on 31 July), surpassing our previous record of 61,442 achieved in 2018.

On behalf of our players, coaches, staff and Board I’d like to express our extreme gratitude for your incredible support in the way you have rallied around the Club. We see and feel it every day and I know when Ken announced it to the players during the week over in Melbourne the news was a great boost for a group who are away from home.  I think you’ll see from the response how much it means to our players also and I know they’ll be doing everything they can to repay your faith over the next nine weeks on-field.

To have significant double digit growth year on year (51,253 is 2020) is amazing considering the challenges we are all living through and we could not be more grateful.

A membership record is a good first step in our chase for greatness off field, with 100,000 members one of our key goals. We set deliberately ambitious goals at the start of the year and we are at the start of this journey. The increase in members aged 20-35 and the number of families joining are two important indicators that we are heading in the right direction but to deliver the growth we are chasing will need a whole of club effort. We all know Port supporters who aren’t members so let’s remind them that as a Club we need each and every one of us pulling in the same direction to achieve greatness.

AFL Member research mid-year shows Port Adelaide benchmarked number one across the league for overall satisfaction and ranked first also for value for money, member communications and service. The passion and connection of our members is not lost on our corporate partners.

One of the primary reasons our commercial partners continue to build their connection with our Club is because Port Adelaide members are more connected and engaged to their club than any other and this makes a real commercial difference. Just ask MG, KFC, GFG, BankSA, Tyrepower, RAA, AGL (and the list goes on) and make sure you keep supporting them as you are because believe me they notice and it makes a genuine difference. 

It’s another important week on-field as we take on GWS and continue to build our game into finals. Hopefully another of our important forward options in Orazio Fantasia returns this week as we start to get close to our best team back out there at the right time of the season. Travis Boak will also become the club's AFL games record holder, and I know you can’t wait to get back to Adelaide Oval to acknowledge and thank Trav for everything he’s done and continues to do for our Club. If everyone in South Australia continues to do the right thing, I’m confident we will all get that opportunity in Round 22 v Carlton.

Thanks again for your support

Cheers,
Richo