Australian Football League side Carlton has turned to the AFL for help with its 2015 membership drive -- "a campaign the new CEO concedes was mismanaged around Christmas and has since been partly outsourced," according to Samantha Lane of THE AGE. Unwilling -- "just four weeks" from the Blues' season opener -- to set a member target for this year, Carlton CEO Steven Trigg said his concern about what was "clearly a major challenge for us" led him to seek AFL assistance in January. After setting a club record two years ago in exceeding 50,000 members, the Blues' membership tally was 36,744 as of Wednesday. In January, Trigg contacted Travis Auld -- the former Gold Coast Suns CEO now working at league headquarters as GM of AFL clubs and AFL operations -- about what he called a "priority" issue for the Blues. Trigg said, "I made the request to the AFL in mid to late January and we've been working with them on a whole range of strategies in that area. It has been useful." Trigg was "unsure how many membership renewals the club might have missed out on" in December, but he said, "All I know is that any missed call, any missed opportunity, Carlton can't afford at the moment." More alarming, he said, was data the AFL produced last year that showed the Blues "ranked among the lowest in the competition" for "connectedness" with fans (THE AGE, 3/5).
