Which interstate clubs have the biggest & smallest followings in Victoria?

[kreglze]

I would back myself to be one of the few Gold Coast supporters currently living in Victoria, will be interesting to see the amount of GC supporters will be out at the G, looking forward to it!

 

[Pessimistic]

Did you go to the 2013 GF, out of interest? Here's a pic and a vid to illustrate similar numbers, not claiming we have some juggernaut fan base in Melbourne though. There are better ones around but cbf digging them up. The Grand Final parade was almost overwhelmingly purple too.

With competent planning and organisation it's not that difficult to get a shot like this for a prelim/GF, doesn't really tell you anything about the size of the fan base.

We had to let you have some fun ! And spend all your money

 

[leeloo]

Perhaps because they like the teams and their identities? I'm not originally from Perth/WA so some people find it weird i support a team on the other side of the world, but honestly who cares, people in this country are supporting EPL & NBA teams way over in England and the States and no one seems to make note of that or anything. I've seen quite a few people who support West Coast but have no connections to WA whatsoever, they probably just support the Eagles due to liking the players and or team branding.

Or they were a good team when they took an interest in football?

Honestly, why would a Victorian (emphasis on Victorian) choose a team that they only get to see a couple of games of? Especially when there are plenty of Victorian teams that they can get good (and cheap) membership to and go and see pretty much every weekend? And in great stadiums! Most WC and Freo supporters I know are very envious of how good the Vic supporters have it.

OK everybody has their own reasons and opinions but it doesn't make sense to me.

And the EPL and NBA analogies don't make sense, we don't have any teams here that play in that league.

And can we exclude Fitzroy supporters from this discussion, they have a legitimate reason to follow Brisbane and that makes sense

 

[I Remember Bluey]

'Dead even' for the Hawthorn game is very much an embellishment of the truth (and yes I was there)

Well it's a good thing he never said that, isn't it

 

[Big_Birdy]

I reckon Eagles would have more SA based supporters than Vic.

Lots of fans over here with no connection to WA.

 

[Marley10]

1. Sydney the biggest supporter base for obvious reasons.

2. Brisbane

3. West Coast

Adelaide's supporter base in Victoria might be inflated a bit by the proximity of Adelaide to Melbourne, but would be comfortably 4th.

 

[Niximus]

Using the average of the last 5 (non-final) games against Collingwood in at the MCG as the measuring stick. (not perfect, and I know it doesn't address all the variables)

Sydney
2013 - 65306
2009 - 54400
2007 - 63842
2000 - 33182
1998 - 57894

Ave - 54,925


West Coast
2014 - 53049
2013 - 41198
2012 - 62957
2011 - 52560
2008 - 52968

Ave - 52,546


Adelaide
2014 - 41482
2013 - 54790
2010 - 42159
2009 - 41591
2008 - 52592

Ave - 46,523


Brisbane
2014 - 32926
2011 - 47788
2009 - 47268
2007 - 45096
2006 - 54820

Ave - 45,580


Fremantle
2012 - 44891
2009 - 44114
2008 - 45383
2007 - 44480
2006 - 30373

Ave - 41,849


Port
2014 - 43368
2009 - 34793
2007 - 35355
2004 - 27226
1999 - 29462

Ave - 34,041


I didn't bother with GWS and GC.

 

[Jones2ByrneJones]

Adelaide tend to have parochial marketing (team for South Australians, etc), which, while there's nothing wrong with that, wouldn't necessarily garner much support from Victorians. Which makes me wonder how many of the interstate teams' fans in Victoria (Brisbane/Sydney excluded) would be interstate expats living in Victoria, not Victorians deciding to root for an interstate team.

 

[Scott lastname]

Sydney then Brisbane then daylight.

In my experience, POrt have more fans in Melbourne than Adelaide. However, that could be pure confirmation bias and what I've come across; however, Port have more history as a club and you have some old fellas who used to support Port in the SANFL. They are also a less polarising team than Adelaide. So I'm sticking with my theory.

WCE probably come in next, together with Adelaide. Then Freo.

GC would have Gary Ablett's mum and head polish salesmen down in Melbourne. Plus Victorian old people who have their winter homes on the Gold Coast.

GWS would have Tom Scully's mum, but no head polish salesmen or retirees, so less than GC.

 

[RodneyMaynard]

I remember going to a game between Adelaide and North at the MCG when I was a kid and Crows fans easily outnumbered Roos fans. The "Carey's a w***er" chant was deafening.

North flogged us

 

[Niximus]

I remember going to a game between Adelaide and North at the MCG when I was a kid and Crows fans easily outnumbered Roos fans. The "Carey's a ******" chant was deafening.

North flogged us

Funnily enough, one of my first games I attended outside of SA was Adelaide v North at Etihad (Colonial Stadium then maybe?) except Carey was a Crow at that time . There were still Carey's a w***er chants going, jut from the other side.

 

[smasha]

Of course had they put more planes, trains and automobiles on perhaps Melbourne may have looked more like Freo.

It's easy to fit alot of supporters in when you're playing Hawthorn.

 

[Dazb86]

Just from going to the games it seems like West Coast have the biggest following. Not sure if they all fly from Perth though.

 

[smasha]

Swans for mine.

 

[beerbandit]

Swans then Lions.

I'm certain more South melbourne fans went along with Sydney more so then Fitzroy fans with Brisbane

 

[Hawkk]

It's easy to fit alot of supporters in when you're playing Hawthorn.

Its probably easier when you play Richmond given they typically wilt at the first hurdle (or whichever way the wind flies)

 

[Forward Press]

Just from going to the games it seems like West Coast have the biggest following. Not sure if they all fly from Perth though.

There is a big Victorian contingent. From BF alone I've encountered a disproportionate amount of Eagles supporters that live interstate. Might be something to do with their early 90s success, before Freo came onto the scene.

 

[The Falcon Strike]

Just from going to the games it seems like West Coast have the biggest following. Not sure if they all fly from Perth though.

Not being a prick - but I would have thought in games against the bullies - there would be far less people flying over to watch.

Typically it is going to happen against one of the bigger drawing clubs to get that big match atmosphere.

Mind you - the other games on that weekend are a massive factor as well

 

[Dazb86]

Not being a prick - but I would have thought in games against the bullies - there would be far less people flying over to watch.

Typically it is going to happen against one of the bigger drawing clubs to get that big match atmosphere.

Mind you - the other games on that weekend are a massive factor as well

In general we play on a Sunday too which would effect the fly-in numbers.

 

[Craze]

In games I've been to I reckon Adelaide have more support in Melbourne than West Coast.

 

[Arwib]

This is actually quantifiable. 2009 to 2014 here's the average home and away crowds for each club in Victoria:

Sydney - 34699
West Coast - 31255
Brisbane - 30077
Adelaide - 28932
Fremantle - 26094
Port Adelaide - 24888
Gold Coast - 23813
GWS - 21024

West Coast being above Brisbane is a bit surprising but I think it's to do with the frequency of teams playing certain teams. Eg; West Coast playing North only once in the period in Melbourne versus Brisbane playing them six times; Eagles paying twice at Kardinia Park with its capacity constraints versus four times; and playing Collingwood five times to Brisbane' three.

So you can look at AFL memberships and Victoria memberships for Brisbane and conclude they probably still have more Vic support than West Coast.

Sydney have played Collingwood just twice, less in Melbourne than the other established teams. They've also played Kardinia Park equal most (five times) with Port. This means crowd figures for this period probably slightly underestimates how much larger Sydney's following is. This is reasonable. Remember that Sydney have both a big share of the South Melbourne base and are also from the largest city in the country. There's a lot of Sydneysiders living in Melbourne, many wouldn't have been footy fans and some will have jumped on the Swans once in Melbourne. Others will have vaguely supported Sydney but gotten more committed in the Melbourne footy environment. And of course it's easier to travel between Sydney and Melbourne for a game than between any other two cities.

The rest is pretty logical. Eagles and Crows bigger than Freo and Port mirroring their own cities.

West Coast and Freo bigger than Adelaide and Port respectively, due to a much larger city and richer inhabitants more able to travel and relocate. (WA has more out of state migration than SA)

 

[Niximus]

This is actually quantifiable. 2009 to 2014 here's the average home and away crowds for each club in Victoria:

Sydney - 34699
West Coast - 31255
Brisbane - 30077
Adelaide - 28932
Fremantle - 26094
Port Adelaide - 24888
Gold Coast - 23813
GWS - 21024

West Coast being above Brisbane is a bit surprising but I think it's to do with the frequency of teams playing certain teams. Eg West Coast playing North only once in the period in Melbourne versus Brisbane playing them six times, twice at Kardinia Park versus four times, and playing Collingwood five times to Brisbane' three).

Sydney have played Collingwood just twice, less in Melbourne than the other established teams. They've also played Kardinia Park equal most (five times) with Port. This means crowd figures for this period probably underestimate how much larger Sydney's following is. Sydney have both the South Melbourne base and is the largest city in the country with a lot of Sydneysiders living in Melbourne - a lot of them wouldn't have been footy fans and some will have jumped on the Swans once in Melbourne.

So you can look at AFL memberships and Victoria memberships for Brisbane and conclude they probably still have more Vic support than West Coast.

The rest is pretty logical. West Coast and Freo bigger than Adelaide and Port due to a much larger city and richer inhabitants. Eagles and Crows bigger than Freo and Port mirroring their own cities.

The problem with using the average over a certain timeframe, is that certain teams are scheduled to play the big drawing Vic teams more frequently than others. If over the last 5 years you mostly played Melbourne, The Bulldogs and Saints when you came to Melbourne, you'd have a lower average crowd than someone coming to play Collingwood, Hawthorn and Essendon.

See my post above where to find the last 5 games vs Collingwood at the MCG, I only had to go back to 2008 for Adelaide and West Coast (and with West Coast they had played them there every year for the last 4), where for Sydney, I had to go back to 1998.

 

[Arwib]

That's exactly what I noted. I think it mostly affects West Coast and Brisbane, and makes Sydney look closer to the pack than they are. The relativity of everyone else looks pretty reasonable.

The sample for each team is about 35 games, that's enough to make some inferences with caveats like I mentioned.

 

[Arwib]

It can be taken another way. Here's the "average of averages".

This the average of each team's average crowds against the ten Vic teams 2009-2014. This controls for frequency of playing certain teams:

Sydney - 35586
Brisbane - 31470
West Coast - 30126
Adelaide - 28963
Fremantle - 27354
Gold Coast - 25217
Port Adelaide - 24256
GWS - 21759

Suns having a higher figure than Port is the interesting one there. They have a higher average crowd against Carlton, Collingwood, Geelong, North, and the Bulldogs. They've never played Richmond in Victoria.

Put this down to Port's pre-2013 pulling power being woeful, crowds rising overall in the years Gold Coast have been active versus pre 2011 (eg; North v Port avg is 14k mostly from pre 2012 games, and North v GC is 18k; Suns don't have Kardinia games pre-capacity increase plus the Ablett factor), and some quirks in who Port played in Victoria on 2013 and 14.

 

[aCunningPlan]

I'll throw these numbers up for debate, since AFL Membership is really a Melbourne thing.

2013 AFL club support numbers

Sydney - 851
Brisbane - 493
Adelaide - 431
West Coast - 288
Fremantle - 150
Port Adelaide - 141
Gold Coast -49
GWS - 16

Now there is the occasional skew with people nominating sides like Sydney just so they get a better chance of getting into the grand final, but I think this not a wide spread thing...particualrly because if the grand final has an interstate team involved then the chances of getting into the AFL reserve improve dramatically (as a first year AFL member with essendon club support I could have got tickets to last years grand final in the AFL reserve).

On the numbers themself I think they are incredibly accurate on the level of support.