Now that we're pretty much at the half-way point of the season it's a good time to see how the clubs are tracking crowds-wise compared to their historical averages since 2000 for the matches so far. As usual, if the exact match-up at a given venue hasn't occurred before I've tried to find the most suitable comparison. Obviously for the Perth teams the best comparison is with Subiaco, which probably doesn't have that much value, so you might want to take Fremantle and West Coast's figures with a grain of salt.
The figures I'll give are the average difference between the actual crowd and the historical average for each club in bold, and the difference for each home match beginning with R1 in brackets. The specific match-ups that haven't occurred before, and where I've therefore used a less accurate comparison, are marked with an asterisk.
Adelaide: -545 (-472; -4,537; -557; 5,886*; -2,541; -1,047)
Brisbane: -7,676 (-5,646; -6,429; -10,267; -8,044; -7,996)
Carlton: -1,651 (20; -708; 1,511; -14,544; 5,467)
Collingwood: -483 (-7,100; 16,604; 10,849; -21,054; 398; -2,597)
Essendon: 2,569 (7,931; -3,213; -6,139; -3,091; 280; 19,646)
Fremantle: 11,157 (15,751*; 10,924*; 16,060*; 9,694*; 3,357*)
Geelong: 1,144 (2,959; 4,357; 6,327; 1,967; -9,891*)
Gold Coast: -1,763 (-5,545*; 2,016*; -6,051; 571; 192)
GWS: 218 (911; 961*; 967; -1,567; -184)
Hawthorn: -4,108 (-4,857; 1,542; -1,804; -12,175; -4,490; -2,865)
Melbourne: 14,076 (11,857; 6,900; 35,743; 1,804*)
North Melbourne: -1,818 (3,124; 1,354*; -5,809; -289; -7,520; -2,749; -834)
Port Adelaide: 390 (143; 2,896; -656; -822)
Richmond: 14,132 (25,845; 24,989; 2,271; 14,325; 3,229)
St Kilda: -7,782 (-8,308; -8,969; -4,639; -5,039; -11,953)
Sydney: 3,578 (7,368; 4,037; 9,396; 1,438; 3,012; -3,783)
West Coast: 17,569 (16,597*; 18,542*; 18,708*; 14,526*; 19,407*; 17,634*)
Western Bulldogs: -390 (-1,709; 689; 1,231; 1,629; -3,254*; -3,361; 2,042)
Overall we have 9 clubs higher and 9 clubs lower than their historical averages, although if you exclude the WA teams it becomes 7 and 9 respectively. The strong positive figures from West Coast and Fremantle, coupled with those of Melbourne and Richmond, seem likely to drive what will probably be a small crowd growth this year.
Looking ahead, Collingwood have the best chance of any club to enter the positive, although this seems unlikely because their upcoming home games have traditionally drawn exceptionally well and it would therefore take unexpectedly good crowds to better their historical averages. Port Adelaide should remain ahead of the ledger with a few blockbusters to come, while GWS could go either way. Essendon will almost certainly slip into the negative, and Adelaide will have trouble making up its deficit. Brisbane and St Kilda are once again showing that they probably aren't the drawcards they once were, even though both are languishing at the bottom of the ladder.