With No Crowd Allowed, can we bring back Suburban Football. Bring back Home Ground Advantage.

[Wolfpac]

Since there are going to be no spectators allow to watch AFL, maybe the AFL can play games at Suburban Grounds. One's that are up to AFL standard of course.

Carlton can play at Princess Park.
Bring the Pies back to Victoria Park.
Let the Hawks play again at Waverly Park.

It will look so much better than playing at an empty MCG or Marvel. It will actually give home teams an advantage. And to us spectators at home, it will give us something to look forward to.

Plus it would probably save the AFL and Clubs Money.

 

[HaroLad]

As soon as Gill realises he will have no excuse but to give Geelong a home final he will cure the coronavirus himself.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

It’s an interesting thought but the grounds surfaces perhaps aren’t up to scratch, nor the facilities or TV positions, plus some are just wide open now so you wouldn’t be able to stop crowds from rolling up. They’d bust through the 500 cap easily, thousands would show up

 

[catters_28]

Not a chance boomer

 

[ThatsjustDappa]

Other grouds saving money? Nah, would cost loads more money, they have contracted games at venues. However I'm sure some legal boffin is working there way through any clauses around force majeure...

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Since there are going to be no spectators allow to watch AFL, maybe the AFL can play games at Suburban Grounds. One's that are up to AFL standard of course.

Carlton can play at Princess Park.
Bring the Pies back to Victoria Park.
Let the Hawks play again at Waverly Park.

It will look so much better than playing at an empty MCG or Marvel. It will actually give home teams an advantage. And to us spectators at home, it will give us something to look forward to.

Plus it would probably save the AFL and Clubs Money.

Yep play at Waverley, they'll just have to knock down a heap of houses first.

 

[The Swert]

Since there are going to be no spectators allow to watch AFL, maybe the AFL can play games at Suburban Grounds. One's that are up to AFL standard of course.

Carlton can play at Princess Park.
Bring the Pies back to Victoria Park.
Let the Hawks play again at Waverly Park.

It will look so much better than playing at an empty MCG or Marvel. It will actually give home teams an advantage. And to us spectators at home, it will give us something to look forward to.

Plus it would probably save the AFL and Clubs Money.

Broadcasting is not setup at many of the grounds anymore

And I doubt many teams have much experience playing matches at their own home grounds these days.

 

[Xtreme]

The playing surface at Waverley Park is still excellent, I'd love to see the Hawks play there

 

[Occidental]

Forget Waverley, why don’t Hawthorn go all out and play at Glenferrie?

 

[FootyJunkie]

Forget Waverley, why don’t Hawthorn go all out and play at Glenferrie?

Fans watch 5 seconds of the game at Glenferrie from a moving train

Jim from American Pie: "There's a kick"

 

[Tbonefreo]

As soon as Gill realises he will have no excuse but to give Geelong a home final he will cure the coronavirus himself.

You got one. And your boys f****** it up

 

[HardcoreGeelongFan]

You got one. And your boys f****** it up

AFL corruption at it's finest. Suspending SJ wasn't enough gave you the interchange bench adv too

 

[Tbonefreo]

AFL corruption at it's finest. Suspending SJ wasn't enough gave you the interchange bench adv too

He got pimp slapped by Crowley from memory

 

[Liam Boy]

arden st. oval is the same size as the playing surface at marvel. could be an option

 

[telsor]

Why not? Well let's see...

Crowd control...
The big stadiums you just need to lock gates to keep the crowd out. Suburban venues would be a lot more difficult, and lets face it, there would definitely be people turning up to try and see the game live.


TV.
Where do you put the cameras to have quality TV coverage at half these places? Given that TV will be even more important, that's a major issue.


Player/Medical facilities.
I imagine these could be a serious concern too.

 

[schumi26]

they really going on without spectators in the 1st round? Sorry these Games are awful like hell. Here in germany we had in our soccer league one of it? (Gladbach - Cologne on Wednesday) They wanted to go with the games in this weekend and then suspending. But the Pressure were bigger and bigger the last 12 hours. the game of my team were suspended at first due on the decision of the local government. then at least they say no.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Its an interesting idea, but sponsors still pay for the signage, there are expenses with moving TV equipment around, planning setup at unfamiliar grounds with no broadcast equipment, etc. And there are contractual obligations, the ground managers get paid whether people turn up or not and have little incentive to drop their demands. After all, when the crowds return, the AFL can't use other venues in most cases.

Whether the games should go ahead at all is another question again. For now, the risks are fairly low to players and staff I guess. But give it a few more weeks and that may not be the case.

 

[Robertio]

Would rather our boys play the Tigers at the MCG, we need to play there as many times as possible before we play finals this year.

 

[telsor]

Would rather our boys play the Tigers at the MCG, we need to play there as many times as possible before we play finals this year.

To be fair, we could still let the Carlton fans in. It'd still look empty after all.

 

[Bulldog1954]

I love the Dogs AFLW games at Whitten Oval. It brings back great memories of being there for games when I was a kid. The romance in playing games at suburban grounds is surely in being at the game? Not sure there is a heap of benefit in seeing these grounds played on through a television? It’s also impractical as Howard Littlejohn said.

 

[Will.B.Worth.Da.Waite]

Great idea. Would love to play at Princes Park again and it's good enough to host

 

[AndyD]

This is actually a really good idea and a way for the AFL to make the most out of a bad situation. Under normal circumstances, there is no way you would have Carlton play Collingwood at Vic Park again, but these are not normal circumstances and the AFL have that option now.

Crowd control and people trying to get into this games is likely to be an issue regardless of the venue. People will most likely hang around Yarra Park on Thursday. Clubs playing at their home grounds would help limit the speed of any potential spread of the virus, especially if a listed player catches it. For example say 6 clubs are meant to play at Marvel over a weekend. If any player on any one of those teams caught it, all players from the 6 clubs would be at risk and most likely need to quarantine, where if one venue only ever hosted two teams in a round, only those two teams would be effected. Marvel is also a higher risk venue given it houses the AFL admin, and any infection at the stadium could effect the running at AFL House.

In relation to broadcast facilities at the grounds, given the lack of crowds and the amount of space the TV crews would have to operate, I can’t see how that would be much of an issue. They would be able to set themselves up at any location in the ground without having to worry about blocking spectator views. I would suspect there will be a few different camera angles tried out this year even at MCG/Marvel given they don’t have to worry about fans in attendance

I also don’t really buy the argument about playing surfaces etc. If those surfaces are at a standard that the clubs are happy for their players to train/prepare/spend most of their time on, then I can’t see how playing games on those surfaces could be an issue. If a player is at any possible risk from using/playing on that surface, why on earth would they train on it?

The major issue with this would be the contracts with the stadiums stipulating the amount of games to be played per year. Given the purpose of those games being held at those stadiums was to draw the crowds which aren’t allowed to attend, I don’t think the AFL would have any problem activating any Force Majeure stipulations to get out of those contracts. What would be more likely is the AFL and stadiums renegotiating an extension of those contracts taking into account the impact of this event, and allowing them to move games this year


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Braybrook Son]

This is a great idea, but the AFL won’t do it because they are shits

 

[Dirty Bird]

I’m pretty sure I read China sent out a message to foreign cba players that’s the season is resuming April 1.

Could we fly all 18 teams to Shanghai and play all games at adelaide arena for the year?
Can let the locals in too!

Only downside is the Chinese are enforcing 2 weeks quarantine to all entering the country. So the season won’t kick off with Richmond vs Carlton.

 

[HardcoreGeelongFan]

Make the season State of Origin teams and have a hologram of Lou Richards call the matches