The WACA - Downfall

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Admiral Byng said:
Pretty much how I recall it. They were desperate to protect the WAFL in the early days, so WAFL played on Saturday afternoons only and AFL teams played home games in any other time-slot to avoid a clash, which means playing at night. Every now and again the AFL would schedule a Saturday games as a one-off and all the old codgers would ring talk-back radio to whinge about the VFL trying to ruin WA football.
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The VFL/AFL schedule wasn't designed to be as WA friendly as that. Friday night and Sunday were used for the televised interstate games into Melbourne, and everything else on Saturday was only filmed for later replay purposes, if at all. Protecting the WAFL was a happy coincidence, because Victoria was doing that for themselves in those years. Not sure if you guys had Eagles games broadcast live from Melbourne into Perth, or you had to wait for the replay, but I'd be surprised if you did get to see every Eagles match...? A few years later, the Bears started playing Saturday nights. It wasn't until the new tv rights agreements at the start of the century that the interstaters played their very first ever Saturday afternoon games at home...by this time, all games were televised, and until this was set in motion, every team in Australia was drawn depending on Melbourne tv scheduling...
 
Gibbke said:
The VFL/AFL schedule wasn't designed to be as WA friendly as that. Friday night and Sunday were used for the televised interstate games into Melbourne, and everything else on Saturday was only filmed for later replay purposes, if at all. Protecting the WAFL was a happy coincidence, because Victoria was doing that for themselves in those years. Not sure if you guys had Eagles games broadcast live from Melbourne into Perth, or you had to wait for the replay, but I'd be surprised if you did get to see every Eagles match...? A few years later, the Bears started playing Saturday nights. It wasn't until the new tv rights agreements at the start of the century that the interstaters played their very first ever Saturday afternoon games at home...by this time, all games were televised, and until this was set in motion, every team in Australia was drawn depending on Melbourne tv scheduling...
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Every Eagles game since their inception in 1987 has been telecast in Perth!
 

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Scotland said:
Over what time period?

West Coast 'sink' $7m into Subiaco Oval every two years.
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what is your return like though? my bet is you were still making a profit.

we were getting no returns and writing a cheque for the privileged of playing there. whilst being told we couldnt play at the mcg
 
Defacto said:
what is your return like though? my bet is you were still making a profit.

we were getting no returns and writing a cheque for the privileged of playing there. whilst being told we couldnt play at the mcg
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Our return is pretty good. What is your revenue like?

People love to complain about the percentage of revenue retained by West Coast & Fremantle, but we don't keep a greater percentage of revenue because we have a fraction of the cost, we keep a greater percentage of revenue because we generate much more revenue.

Yesterday the Bulldogs hosted North at Etihad Stadium and 23,000 people turned up consisting of competing club members (some of which are reserved seat holders), stadium members, AFL members and general attendees. Not long later Freo hosted Collingwood at Subiaco Oval and 37,000 people turned up, the overwhelming majority of which are reserved seat holders.

If you switched the 'stadium deal' for each game, who do you think would be much better off?
 
Gibbke said:
The VFL/AFL schedule wasn't designed to be as WA friendly as that. Friday night and Sunday were used for the televised interstate games into Melbourne, and everything else on Saturday was only filmed for later replay purposes, if at all. Protecting the WAFL was a happy coincidence, because Victoria was doing that for themselves in those years. Not sure if you guys had Eagles games broadcast live from Melbourne into Perth, or you had to wait for the replay, but I'd be surprised if you did get to see every Eagles match...? A few years later, the Bears started playing Saturday nights. It wasn't until the new tv rights agreements at the start of the century that the interstaters played their very first ever Saturday afternoon games at home...by this time, all games were televised, and until this was set in motion, every team in Australia was drawn depending on Melbourne tv scheduling...
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Every West Coast (and Fremantle) game has being telecast FTA in WA.
 
Spearhead said:
Every Eagles game since their inception in 1987 has been telecast in Perth!
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In that case then, there's been plenty of Saturday afternoon telecasts, which means you must have had many WAFL Sunday matches. Back home in Tassie, we would get some sort of footage of every game, live Swans/Eagles/Bears and then replay shows like the Winners and the news...there would always be a game or two each week where the footage was very amateurish on one camera, with no commentary but with a voiceover summary, and this occurred every year until Galaxy or Optus managed to fill in the coverage gaps. Can never remember one of these voiceover games involving an interstate club...
 
Gibbke said:
The VFL/AFL schedule wasn't designed to be as WA friendly as that. Friday night and Sunday were used for the televised interstate games into Melbourne, and everything else on Saturday was only filmed for later replay purposes, if at all. Protecting the WAFL was a happy coincidence, because Victoria was doing that for themselves in those years. Not sure if you guys had Eagles games broadcast live from Melbourne into Perth, or you had to wait for the replay, but I'd be surprised if you did get to see every Eagles match...? A few years later, the Bears started playing Saturday nights. It wasn't until the new tv rights agreements at the start of the century that the interstaters played their very first ever Saturday afternoon games at home...by this time, all games were televised, and until this was set in motion, every team in Australia was drawn depending on Melbourne tv scheduling...
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It was probably something worked out to mutual satisfaction, it kind of works out win-win for both.

As for coverage in WA of matches involving the two WA teams, we get all matches on FTA here, home and away games. Away games are usually live, home games usually on a delay of a n hour or 90 minutes, but, a full broadcast. Never got winners or highlights of non-WA teams.
 
Pretty sure that was a one-off, Subiaco was unavailable because of a rebuild/renovation. Probably when they built the grandstand on the southern wing, but I'm not sure exactly which redevelopment.
 
Admiral Byng said:
Pretty sure that was a one-off, Subiaco was unavailable because of a rebuild/renovation. Probably when they built the grandstand on the southern wing, but I'm not sure exactly which redevelopment.
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Yep, that's it. If you have a look at any footage from games at Subi in 1994, the whole Southern side was a construction site. It's also obvious from average crowds at Subi, they dropped about 9000 from 93 to 94.

Pretty sure that the 94 finals series was when they installed those temporary stands at the WACA, which they then left there until footy left.
 
Who would pay for the redevelopment and upkeep of the WACA?, having one stadium for footy in perth was always the AFL's plan, now when the new perth stadium gets built id imagine cricket will be moved there as well, having WCE, Freo, Perth/WA crickets team as well as the oz cricket team would surely reduce the cost of leasing the ground
 

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The WACA fully own the WACA. Cricket will only move to a stadium they'll have to rent out if the revenue from more ticket sales exceed that cost. That'll likely be only Big Bash in the medium term.
 
bomberman500 said:
Who would pay for the redevelopment and upkeep of the WACA?, having one stadium for footy in perth was always the AFL's plan, now when the new perth stadium gets built id imagine cricket will be moved there as well, having WCE, Freo, Perth/WA crickets team as well as the oz cricket team would surely reduce the cost of leasing the ground
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Unlike Victorian cricket there is no Melbourne Cricket Club to pay, although the WACA don't have a direct line to taxpayer funding as does the MCC, problem is the money goes to the MCC not cricket.
 
Gibbke said:
Why did the WACA host the 1994 WC finals? And why were both day games...?
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Subi were getting lights installed and so the WACA got to host the Qualifying Final against Collingwood and Prelim against Melbourne. The WACA was used for night games, but even when Subi got lights, night games were still contractually played at the ground until 2000.

As for why they were still day finals, it just came down to scheduling.
West Coast home finals were 3pm local time back then as part of a TV double header, and would ensure the visiting side would get back home that night.
 
The WACA this arvo.

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The ground needs to be lengthened about 5 metres each end for WAFL games, the 50m arc is about 2 metres from the centre squar ....SCG style, the story is that channel 9 is looking at WAFL games there.


 
Admiral Byng said:
Are you there today for the homeless sleep-out thing, where politicians and business leaders camp out for one night?
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No, although i did hear about that, was driving past and thought i would duck in for a quick look, the goal posts are used by state 16, 18's and Trinity school across the road.

I think the ground would work well for friday night WAFL fixtures.
 
Admiral Byng said:
No AFL or WAFL sides play there. Just highschool and junior level. As mentioned above, the ground is about 10m short of being long enough for senior level footy.
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Fair enough. I knew that the WAFL doesn't play there, just curious because I saw the goalposts and thought it might be an amateur team or something.
 
Silent Alarm said:
Can you just walk into the WACA hey?
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Just walk in, although there are probably tours like at all major stadiums, i just drove in, parked, pulled out my camera and told the attendant i was after a couple of photos .... he just waved me on, on the way out had a bit of a chat about the possibility of footy being played there .. again !.

Shield cricket is the same, just walk in, particuarly for last sessions, plenty of school kids drop in on their way home
 
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