captain ebert
12 Sep 2003, 15:31
any news on this?
i hope he doesnt leave....job's not quite done at alberton yet......
footballphantom
12 Sep 2003, 16:37
From todays Advertiser
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,7242144,00.html
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MICHELANGELO RUCCI: You heard it right: Eddie is spot-on about why SA's not sold on finals
12sep03
IT is not often that Collingwood president Eddie McGuire can draw unanimous approval from South Australians for a declaration on the state of AFL football.
But McGuire's reflection on how Adelaide has become a tough market for selling AFL finals tickets will bring a chorus of "hear, hear" from South Australian football fans.
McGuire noted on Sunday, as he sat at AAMI Stadium before the Port Adelaide-Sydney qualifying final, that when it is a burden on football fans to buy tickets, the game is perilously placed.
Only a few days earlier McGuire, along with SA Premier Mike Rann, had taken up AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson's plea to publicly urge South Australians to fill AAMI Stadium for the double header of AFL finals at AAMI Stadium last weekend.
Ticket sales had been poor. McGuire with his national Footy Show on Channel 9 and Rann with his appearances at Crows and Power training echoed the unreal threat that if South Australians did not support finals then their teams would not have finals played at at AAMI Stadium.
Taking off his media hat and donning that of a custodian of the game as Collingwood president, McGuire took a very different - and very timely - stance.
He argued if the Power and Crows earned home finals they should host them, regardless of ticket sales.
He questioned the logic of ridiculing SA fans to sell tickets.
He declared football fans had to encouraged rather than badgered to finals. He said cheaper tickets brought bigger crowds, creating a better environment for the fans and an experience that would bring them back for future finals.
McGuire, with his successful marketing hat, urged the AFL and the two SA-based clubs to come up with schemes - for example, buying final tickets on lay-by during a season - to reduce the financial impact.
The AFL has reacted, securing details of Crows season ticketholders who did not attend last Saturday's elimination final against West Coast.
The match drew 38,641 fans - more than Essendon could draw for the same final against the Eagles in the same timeslot a year earlier when 37,475 went to the Telstra Dome where as many as 6000 AFL members paid just $5 to enter.
The 8000-10,000 who did not attend will be asked whether the match timing, ticket price, television coverage or other factors influenced them.
The impending move of Port chief executive Brian Cunningham to fill the football operations office vacated by Andrew Demetriou also may help in giving the league a better understanding that the Adelaide market is different to any other in AFL football.
The AFL's second attempt to lure the fans, after trying marginally cheaper tickets this September, will be revealing.
From the second last paragraph Rucci thinks he is going