AFL is on the decline - the younger generation is just not that into you

[blueboy25]

School footy at lunch time died decades ago

Not at my son's school it hasn't.

They also have school footy teams overflowing with kids from year 7-12.

The kids who didn't make the footy team get shunted off to the soccer team or rugby team.

 

[FRUMPY]

Need to bring the ticket prices and food prices down to fill arenas

General Admission for Adults should be max $20 Seniors and students $15 kids $10

More sections should be made available GA especially for games that won't be sold out - say from 72 hours out to fill up seats

Why would i turn up to a game where 30k are going to attend and i have to sit at the top of the Northern stand at the MCG when there are 60,000 empty seats below me?

others will say 'buy a better membership' to get those seats by why should i have to? Im happy to miss out on a big ticketed game becasue i havent paid for the big membership but we should be able to sit on the bottom tier if we want to when it is over 50% empty, usually about 80% empty

this is the issue, its all about the $$$ and not about the fans (they preach about doing stuff for the fans but its just the $$$)

 

[RedV3x]

Not at my son's school it hasn't.

Or mine.
There was an incredible 100% representation of the boys in the school team and the community team.

 

[RedV3x]

Why would i turn up to a game where 30k are going to attend and i have to sit at the top of the Northern stand at the MCG when there are 60,000 empty seats below me?

Why would I turn up to a game when I've paid a premium for my seat and it's been given away to some random?

 

[FRUMPY]

Why would I turn up to a game when I've paid a premium for my seat and it's been given away to some random?

its not given up to some random - you still get your seat.

 

[RedV3x]

its not given up to some random - you still get your seat.

Why should my seat be sold to a random when I've paid a premium for my seat ?

 

[FRUMPY]

Why should my seat be sold to a random when I've paid a premium for my seat ?

if you're not there, its not your seat

 

[Bjo187]

yep... spot on..

great chase down from behind by the tackler of course there is forward momentum... 'in the back' tackler not rewarded yet again. When the chase down from behind is a great part of the game.

In the back free kick was designed for 2 hands in the back push.

What is the tackler from behind supposed to do..pull the player backwards.

Couldn't agree with you more. It's god dame frustrating.

Yep since when did push in the back not include an actual push with the hands? They don't even land on their back most of the time, it's simply the player flopping knowing they'll get a cheap free kick. Acting has gone through the roof these days because of these tiggy touch free kicks, surely it's not something the afl want to encourage, it just makes the game even more difficult to adjudicate for our beloved umpires.

 

[RedV3x]

You guys really should try umpiring at least once before you criticise.
I'd wager any amount of money you'd be a failure.

 

[Macca180]

You guys really should try umpiring at least once before you criticise.
I'd wager any amount of money you'd be a failure.

Nah i'ld just let it go, stay out of it and only pay the obvious.

 

[RedV3x]

Nah i'd just let it go, stay out of it and only pay the obvious.

Sounds like a reasoned approach, but no, players play to the umpire so if you're only paying the obvious they're going to be "pushing the envelope"
so to speak and before you know it, you'll have an all-in brawl - guaranteed.

 

[JoondalupJ]

It's a pity you couldn't string a few cohesive sentences together to show your reasoning.
What major league has performed well in your opinion.
The NFL is down and participation is worryingly down.
The MBL is down big time.
It seems most of the big leagues overseas have problems.
Here in Australia, rugby and soccer are down, the AFL and NRL are Covid and weather affected.

In the longterm, the AFL established two AFL teams in N.S.W. and two AFL teams in Queensland.
The Swans and Lions are the biggest teams in town.
Participation is returning to normal and crowds are slowly returning to their previous levels.

Maybe not?
And what has that got to do with the AFL,.

What the hell is the MBL? Oh my lad tells me baseball, who cares! I don't follow it.

Look at what the rules in our game have done for 20 years nearly.

I think some of you don't like the truth. About rule fiddling. Put up with it and easily pleased!

Now if you can't read my stuff tough luck!

I speak and write a bit fast, I have a lot to say when I see blindness from some.

So either learn to read my writing if you want to have a comment AND talk about
the issue.
Not the ignorant comment, put a single cohesive sentences together. That's a rude mongrels comment.

If you are not a rude mongrel, don't sound like one! Like JAKA on the bleeding politics,

Some of you people have nothing to add or argue or say, grow some brains and talk about the issue.

On occasion I think too many smarties on FB just want no discussion just a bit of "I am" crud. And insult.

Why bother, your number two today, and there'll be more who really don't know what they are talking about?

What about soccer and NRL? I don't know about their following numbers or crowds I watch NRL on occasion.

I wasn't talking about any of them.

COVID stopped everything true. Weather affected??? My game is played wind rain or shine. Weather my arse!

Your ability to comment on what you just said, about all sports all over ,you must be very knowledgeable about the world.

I follow Australian Rules football and its changed in rulings for the worst.

About the Swans and Lions, they are fine , so who's returning to watch the GC17 and GWS.

When they start to win numbers seem not bad.

But when losing they are plastic rubbish inventions, that diluted the game and made the AFL rule fiddle begin.

With many mistakes and too many grey rules.

Too many free kicks to much castrating of the contest because contact is too over controlled.

Scoring, is free kicked,into statistics as good play when it is silly rules invented by Hocking and now Scott for heavens sake.
To do what exactly?

AFL is a corporate over governed autocratic money business, so much so that's all it's about MONEY.

You see I started separating the sentences a bit more, for your benefit of course.

Now if you are having a joke at me well and good, I don't mind.

If you are unable to understand common talk, Because I may be below your English expression education level,.
and your capacity is a bit above me????

Then you are a rude man or woman.

With nothing to say either.

I love a debate, I don't like backsides.

But we're all armchair warriors on here hey?

 

[JoondalupJ]

Nah i'ld just let it go, stay out of it and only pay the obvious.

Black and white rules so we all understand what the hell is happening!

 

[BigPond101]

Was footy at lunchtime ever common, at my school AFL was the number 1 sport by far but no one played at lunch. Too hard to organise then too many rules then by the time you ate lunch and pissed around there wasnt long left anyway. Handball was king, I love that game so much. Someone should start a handball league for adults

 

[Jon Brown]

Then you haven't experienced rucking when interference in the ruck was actually policed.
Rucking then was an athletic feature of the game and still is when you have players like Nic Nat.

The idea of tackling is to restrain the player so as to win a free kick for holding-the-ball
not to do as much (legal0 damage) as you seem desire.

The point is not that we desire the game to be more "damaging" or more hard or whatever.

It's that we want it to be far, far less "policed". We want them to let the players play, and for the natural state and true brilliance of the game to be left to show itself, rather than perpetually being artificially and often arbitrarily disrupted and decided by umpires with horrible game sense.

The rules are in desperate need of simplification and streamlining, to create a sport that is logically coherent. At the moment the game is weighed down by a million ridiculous tedious technicalities and distinctions that achieve next to nothing. It's a broken mess of its former self.

 

[Chilli Con Incarnate]

The game is in great shape. Crowd numbers are down because the cost of living is up and there's a pandemic going on. I've not looked, but I'm sure tv numbers remain high. They've spent the last 30 years making the game more tv friendly, and after being locked away, people have learned that it can be enjoyed from home instead of paying 34.95 for a hot dog.

 

[Engimal v3]

Why would i turn up to a game where 30k are going to attend and i have to sit at the top of the Northern stand at the MCG when there are 60,000 empty seats below me?

others will say 'buy a better membership' to get those seats by why should i have to? Im happy to miss out on a big ticketed game becasue i havent paid for the big membership but we should be able to sit on the bottom tier if we want to when it is over 50% empty, usually about 80% empty

this is the issue, its all about the $$$ and not about the fans (they preach about doing stuff for the fans but its just the $$$)

Yep, this happens at North games at Marvel. GA sits L1 if they don't forecast a big crowd. Makes no sense to cram people up on Level 3 if half of level 1 is empty.

 

[Macca180]

Sounds like a reasoned approach, but no, players play to the umpire so if you're only paying the obvious they're going to be "pushing the envelope"
so to speak and before you know it, you'll have an all-in brawl - guaranteed.

agree with your reasoning... so true.

But I think we need to fix the game by getting back to basics.

 

[Chief Ten Beers]

Folks have become used to watching footy at home since COVID.

I know several people who have also developed screen/internet addiction. They're deciding not to go out, procrastinating, they're late to appointments, they're going to bed late and waking up late, insist on working from home rather than the office (if they have an office job), etc. The effect of COVID is going to hang around for a while.

Interesting throught. Its not just AFL on the decline too, from what I've seen MLB has been 5% down since 2021.

To quote Forbes

" Some of it will be how society fully adjusts to the changes in life that occurred in 2020 and 2021. Some of it is a continued decline in attending games in person due to pace-of-play."

Maybe not alone

 

[Billy ray]

Interesting this level 1 v level 3 thing. I cannot stand watching footy on level 1. Its too low and you get no overview.
(Its like watching games on tv from the SCG. Camera too low).

 

[FRUMPY]

Interesting this level 1 v level 3 thing. I cannot stand watching footy on level 1. Its too low and you get no overview.
(Its like watching games on tv from the SCG. Camera too low).

definitely different watching it from both sections. You get a much better look from up high at the way teams set up and can see it unfolding before it happens alot of the time. But i just like the option of sitting in different areas. Annoys me that you cant have the choice due to afl wanting extra $$$ (like anything these days)

 

[RedV3x]

The point is not that we desire the game to be more "damaging" or more hard or whatever.

It's that we want it to be far, far less "policed"

Yes, the game is in desperate need of coaches telling their players to play properly.

 

[RedV3x]

agree with your reasoning... so true.

But I think we need to fix the game by getting back to basics.

The coaches will never get back to basics unless they see it as winning.
With umpiring, some laws and their interpretations have to be clearer and consistent.
I have spoken before how laws can be simplified and a quantitative approach increased.

People are bitching here like there's no tomorrow, but other codes are even worse.
The basketball offensive/defensive foul is really complicated.
Soccer is still plagued by "diving".
Rugby still pluck whatever penalty they feel like out of the air.
Rugby league has endless replays to revue scoring.

 

[RedV3x]

I think some of you don't like the truth. About rule fiddling. Put up with it and easily pleased!

Not only do I think the umpiring department could do better I have suggested many times how to actually do it better.
But the changes in umpiring are largely brought about as a reaction to changes in game play brought in by coaches.

Now if you can't read my stuff tough luck!

You waste your time with your scattergun rant as I don't bother to waste my time by reading it.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

School footy at lunch time died decades ago

Not at my son's school, he and his mates kick the footy around every lunchtime