AFL Silver Membership Waitlist Number Part 2

[damochandler]

My mate Benjamin Button did

The idiots changed mine I’m not kidding

 

[Dan]

Has anyone else had the membership change from adult to junior? Its my 10th year of membership, how long is the wait to get to gold

In line with the AFL Members T&C’s

Rule a3.71 - Any silver member who changes their membership from adult to junior will have their allocation listing for gold member status moved to the back of the waitlist queue.

(fwiw - I don’t agree with ^that^)

 

[TigerR]

In line with the AFL Members T&C’s

Rule a3.71 - Any silver member who changes their membership from adult to junior will have their allocation listing for gold member status moved to the back of the waitlist queue.

(fwiw - I don’t agree with ^that^)

Fine by me if someone can tell how to reverse the aging process.

 

[foxdog50]

Well im going to cancel my AFL Membership after 11 ish years. Im still in the 8000 number. What you get out of it, there no value

 

[Satan]

Well im going to cancel my AFL Membership after 11 ish years. Im still in the 8000 number. What you get out of it, there no value

As the absentee members are forced to rejoin next year as stated elsewhere ,the slowness of the queue may be temporary

 

[NetworkNerd]

Well im going to cancel my AFL Membership after 11 ish years. Im still in the 8000 number. What you get out of it, there no value

What membership will you get? Flexi-6 with GF add on? That should get you GF access with some home games at KP

 

[TigerR]

As the absentee members are forced to rejoin next year as stated elsewhere ,the slowness of the queue may be temporary

Haven't they already been forced to rejoin? The lack of progress suggests all this change has done is push absentees back to gold, delaying upgrades this year and probably for a few more years.

 

[Satan]

Haven't they already been forced to rejoin? The lack of progress suggests all this change has done is push absentees back to gold, delaying upgrades this year and probably for a few more years.

An AFL Absentee Membership allows you to place your AFL Membership on hold, while your AFL Membership is maintained. From 2025 onwards, an AFL Absentee Membership is only available for a maximum of one (1) year for the duration that the membership is held (any previous years of Absentee Membership will not be counted towards this limit). For example, if you hold an Absentee Membership for the 2025 season, you must reinstate your full AFL Membership for the 2026 Membership period to maintain your AFL Membership. You will also not be eligible to apply for an Absentee Membership again.

All Absentee Members will be reinstated to their previous full AFL Membership for the 2026 Membership period at the renewal rollover date, unless the AFL is otherwise notified by the Absentee Member. The renewal rollover date will be separately communicated to all Absentee Members.

 

[The Golden Glenferrie]

Use it wisely

 

[TigerR]

An AFL Absentee Membership allows you to place your AFL Membership on hold, while your AFL Membership is maintained. From 2025 onwards, an AFL Absentee Membership is only available for a maximum of one (1) year for the duration that the membership is held (any previous years of Absentee Membership will not be counted towards this limit). For example, if you hold an Absentee Membership for the 2025 season, you must reinstate your full AFL Membership for the 2026 Membership period to maintain your AFL Membership. You will also not be eligible to apply for an Absentee Membership again.

All Absentee Members will be reinstated to their previous full AFL Membership for the 2026 Membership period at the renewal rollover date, unless the AFL is otherwise notified by the Absentee Member. The renewal rollover date will be separately communicated to all Absentee Members.

The AFLMA minutes suggested there were already over 30k Gold now. AFL annual reports would always report absentees as a separate number, so there would very around 30k of Gold plus a few thousand absentees.
Therefore forcing absentees back will only make it worse and if it hasn't happened yet, then the pain will be prolonged.

 

[foxdog50]

As the absentee members are forced to rejoin next year as stated elsewhere ,the slowness of the queue may be temporary

Yeah but to be a absentee it still cost you $200 odd bucks

 

[foxdog50]

What membership will you get? Flexi-6 with GF add on? That should get you GF access with some home games at KP

Yep that sounds about right ️. I go to 5-6 games a year all in Victoria.
Thats all I need

 

[damochandler]

In line with the AFL Members T&C’s

Rule a3.71 - Any silver member who changes their membership from adult to junior will have their allocation listing for gold member status moved to the back of the waitlist queue.

(fwiw - I don’t agree with ^that^)

But i didn’t change it

 

[Shipping Report]

Well im going to cancel my AFL Membership after 11 ish years. Im still in the 8000 number. What you get out of it, there no value

What did you expect, free Grand Final access? It’s not the Waverley days.

I still think it’s incredible value, I’m not from Melbourne so everyone I know supports Victorian clubs and going to the footy (for ‘free’) is sometimes the only way I still keep up with old friends.

As a loner I love being able to scan in to a game, I find it the closest I get to some sort of peace.

I think last year it worked out that if you went to three games a month it paid for itself.

The biggest issue is stopping blow ins from getting into the reserve, I can’t stand some ****in family with 20 kids crawling all over the level three seats just because Richmond are playing a lowly interstate club. It’s gotten a bit feral at times.

Cheaper beers would also help but at least you can have a glass schooner and watch it from the bar.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

What did you expect, free Grand Final access? It’s not the Waverley days.

I still think it’s incredible value, I’m not from Melbourne so everyone I know supports Victorian clubs and going to the footy (for ‘free’) is sometimes the only way I still keep up with old friends.

As a loner I love being able to scan in to a game, I find it the closest I get to some sort of peace.

I think last year it worked out that if you went to three games a month it paid for itself.

The biggest issue is stopping blow ins from getting into the reserve, I can’t stand some ****in family with 20 kids crawling all over the level three seats just because Richmond are playing a lowly interstate club. It’s gotten a bit feral at times.

Cheaper beers would also help but at least you can have a glass schooner and watch it from the bar.

Yeah, precisely this.

If you're the kind of person who complains about lack of value about the slowness of the gold - by all means leave if you no longer perceive it as value for money, but don't complain about how unfair the system is in my view.

Silver still gives you access to 40 general admission AFL games at either of the two stadiums in Melbourne, which until recently had no waiting list. Otherwise a ticket cost you $27, and you could get your money back on the membership once you attended about 25-30 games, depending on the year and the costs.

Naturally gold membership (more than 40 games if you're that ridiculous), finals and GF memberships were eventually a bonus. But I don't mind if that's the design to "reward" the people who see the value for money for the Silver membership for consecutive years anyway. They're the people that deserve to get Gold membership, not the person with money and a desire to go to the GF but not actually that much of a footy fan that they want to go to neutral games in Melbourne. Even if they have paid more money for longer, why should a person who scans into an AFL game 15 times a year average over several years (and doesn't see the membership as value for money) get access to gold earlier than the person who scans in their membership 30 times a year, and is almost certainly a more deserving neutral footy fan?

Collingwood's 2010-11 GFs tipped the balance, where suddenly hundreds of thousands of Collingwood fans missed out on a GF and fans of other clubs thought "this could be me", which has led to a 15 year imbalance in the purposes of the AFL membership that IMO is only slowly starting to get rectified with people dropping out. People started buying memberships for 15 years with the intent of this being "a ticket to the GF" (helped along by the AFL that framed it this way to get more $$$), rather than its more pure intention, a simple way for hardcore Melbourne neutral footy fans to get value for money in attending games at mass scale.

Attending GFs was never actually that hard for a properly dedicated fan before 2008-11 in any case - Essendon, even with the most members of any Melbourne club and Melbourne had 45,000 members between them in 2000, which included AFL and MCC members, which meant that any hardcore fan had access to a ticket.

 

[foxdog50]

What did you expect, free Grand Final access? It’s not the Waverley days.

I still think it’s incredible value, I’m not from Melbourne so everyone I know supports Victorian clubs and going to the footy (for ‘free’) is sometimes the only way I still keep up with old friends.

As a loner I love being able to scan in to a game, I find it the closest I get to some sort of peace.

I think last year it worked out that if you went to three games a month it paid for itself.

The biggest issue is stopping blow ins from getting into the reserve, I can’t stand some ****in family with 20 kids crawling all over the level three seats just because Richmond are playing a lowly interstate club. It’s gotten a bit feral at times.

Cheaper beers would also help but at least you can have a glass schooner and watch it from the bar.

Love you to sweet heart

 

[Shipping Report]

Love you to sweet heart

Far out, if you take that as criticism you must have one incredibly easy life.

 

[TigerR]

Yeah, precisely this.

If you're the kind of person who complains about lack of value about the slowness of the gold - by all means leave if you no longer perceive it as value for money, but don't complain about how unfair the system is in my view.

Silver still gives you access to 40 general admission AFL games at either of the two stadiums in Melbourne, which until recently had no waiting list. Otherwise a ticket cost you $27, and you could get your money back on the membership once you attended about 25-30 games, depending on the year and the costs.

Naturally gold membership (more than 40 games if you're that ridiculous), finals and GF memberships were eventually a bonus. But I don't mind if that's the design to "reward" the people who see the value for money for the Silver membership for consecutive years anyway. They're the people that deserve to get Gold membership, not the person with money and a desire to go to the GF but not actually that much of a footy fan that they want to go to neutral games in Melbourne. Even if they have paid more money for longer, why should a person who scans into an AFL game 15 times a year average over several years (and doesn't see the membership as value for money) get access to gold earlier than the person who scans in their membership 30 times a year, and is almost certainly a more deserving neutral footy fan?

Collingwood's 2010-11 GFs tipped the balance, where suddenly hundreds of thousands of Collingwood fans missed out on a GF and fans of other clubs thought "this could be me", which has led to a 15 year imbalance in the purposes of the AFL membership that IMO is only slowly starting to get rectified with people dropping out. People started buying memberships for 15 years with the intent of this being "a ticket to the GF" (helped along by the AFL that framed it this way to get more $$$), rather than its more pure intention, a simple way for hardcore Melbourne neutral footy fans to get value for money in attending games at mass scale.

Attending GFs was never actually that hard for a properly dedicated fan before 2008-11 in any case - Essendon, even with the most members of any Melbourne club and Melbourne had 45,000 members between them in 2000, which included AFL and MCC members, which meant that any hardcore fan had access to a ticket.

If OP wanted to get to Gold just to go to the GF every year, then that is not unreasonable necessarily, especially when initially being told it would take 7-10 years to get there. But now the wait has blown out to so long, you would want to get some value in the meantime. And when the AFL only upgrade 50 members or thereabouts, well that is just about it for anyone joining now and hoping to get to gold.
Personally I joined because it wasn't much more than I was paying already as a Richmond member and the extra $80 or something (in 2012) meant I could go to 2 weeks of finals and get good value. The future GF was an incentive too.
As for who is more deserving, I think anyone hanging out in silver for years is as deserving as anyone else, however many games they go to, but that is just my opinion. The ones who aren't deserving are the Medallion Club scumbags who take our seats. (Fact not opinion.) That is the crux of the waitlist problem.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

you would want to get some value in the meantime.

But that is precisely my point.

If you don't see the "value in the meantime" for getting a significant discount to going to 30+ games of footy in a year, then don't stay in the waiting list for the Gold.

Personally I joined because it wasn't much more than I was paying already as a Richmond member and the extra $80 or something (in 2012) meant I could go to 2 weeks of finals and get good value.

Sure, that worked for you at the time.

I don't think that makes you more deserving of a GF ticket morally than a genuine neutral fan through a neutral membership scheme that clearly is a passionate footy fan that they go to 30+ games a year, irrespective of how the AFL sold it to you at a time. Merely a desire to go to neutral finals isn't enough for me. Go to games every week. Some of us (including me) are that passionate neutral fans that we do. Is it fair that I miss out on a GF ticket even though I'm clearly more of a week-to-week AFL nutter in a neutral sense than current Gold members who may be a bit apathetic about the AFL in general but just go to the GF because it's an in demand thing, culturally/socially?

I think anyone hanging out in silver for years is as deserving as anyone else,

I disagree. I don't think that the "hanging out for years in silver" is as deserving as the people that are geneuienly passionate footy fans that they go to neutral games (something that you are claiming).

The ones who aren't deserving are the Medallion Club scumbags who take our seats. (Fact not opinion.)

Agreed.

As an aside, keep in mind that the AFL has increased the GF tickets allocated to the membership bases of each club from 10,000 in the early 2000's to 17,000 today. If you are so desperate to go to the GF that your team plays in, there are a multitude of ways within your clubs membership with the added benefit of more of the actual money you spend going to the club itself (ie only about a third of an AFL membership payment goes to the club).

In a holistic sense I don't see it that controversial that of about 78,000 seats outside of the MCC reserve, 34,000 go to the two competing club members and about 20,000 (the size of the AFL reserve minus corporates or whatever) go to neutral AFL fans who are such passionate AFL in general fans - that they go to 30+ games a year to get value for money out of their silver membership over several years that in some respects they are more deserving of the GF seat than an actual less passionate but club supporter member, one that buys a club membership but a cheap one that gets them GF access.

 

[TigerR]

But that is precisely my point.

But I am saying it in the context that the OP might have been prepared to take a hit for the 7 to 10 year wait they were told by the AFL but now it is 15+ years then yeah, that is getting too long to take a hit, depending on your circumstances.

I disagree. I don't think that the "hanging out for years in silver" is as deserving as the people that are geneuienly passionate footy fans that they go to neutral games (something that you are claiming).

Hanging out is a bit of a lose term, I don't really mean someone who never goes, but if I wait 18 years and you wait 18 years to get to Gold, we have both done some hard yards as such. I wouldn't prioritise a person going to 30 games over someone going to 15 and circumstances change. e.g. family gets in the way, but come finals they don't have that option.

 

[Shipping Report]

I also just don’t get why you’d want to go to a Grand Final by yourself. Probably different if you’re from interstate but if your team is in it, wouldn’t it be nice to experience it with your family or a close mate even if it is just on a TV in a pub?

 

[Dan]

I also just don’t get why you’d want to go to a Grand Final by yourself. Probably different if you’re from interstate but if your team is in it, wouldn’t it be nice to experience it with your family or a close mate even if it is just on a TV in a pub?

Go with other gold members?

First couple years as gold I went to the GF by myself but as the years go by more of your family or and friends/colleagues become gold and you go with someone or as a group. Make a day of it....head to the pub afterwards.

Fun.

 

[eddiesmith]

I do laugh at people who think because they go to 40 games a year wearing their bulldogs jumper to a Collingwood v Carlton game that they’re more worthy than someone who goes to a handful of their own clubs games.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I do laugh at people who think because they go to 40 games a year wearing their bulldogs jumper to a Collingwood v Carlton game that they’re more worthy than someone who goes to a handful of their own clubs games.

If you're so much of a supporter going to your "own clubs" games, buy a membership where more of your money actually directly goes to the club and you get more benefits from the club. The waiting lists to go get a grand final ticket access should your club make it are certainly shorter and therefore less costly than even the advertised 7-10 year wait time as advertised in 2011-12 for AFL Gold membership.

I honestly don't see an argument for neutral game AFL membership benefits if you're using the AFL membership as a workaround for your own club's MCG game benefits and not proving yourself as an AFL member? When the MCG hosts a non-Collingwood Prelim Final why should a new AFL Gold member who signed up in 2012 and only used the 13 years in the interim as a workaround Collingwood memberships get access to that neutral game, morally, than someone who signed up in (say) 2016 and has spent 9 years going to an average of 20+ neutral games a year? They have proven themselves more than the Collingwood fan as someone who enjoys the Prelim for neutral football's sake as a fan of neutral football rather than the Collingwood fan going to the Prelim game becuase they want a sense of social capital and theatre.

This is not to say that the Collingwood fan doesn't deserve to go if they're willing to pay for their membership every year. Just that if you're paying an increasingly big amount - to the point that you don't ever see the "value for money" because you aren't exceeding going to 20 games per year - either don't pay the silver membership amount anymore (and buy a Collingwood membership), or otherwise don't complain and understand the problem is not that it isn't value for money anymore, just that you're not accepting the value of being able to use your barcode, for free, for an empty seat, at non-Collingwood Melbourne games, so it's your fault, not the AFL's that you don't see the value for moeny.

 

[TigerR]

If you're so much of a supporter going to your "own clubs" games, buy a membership where more of your money actually directly goes to the club and you get more benefits from the club. The waiting lists to go get a grand final ticket access should your club make it are certainly shorter and therefore less costly than even the advertised 7-10 year wait time as advertised in 2011-12 for AFL Gold membership.

I honestly don't see an argument for neutral game AFL membership benefits if you're using the AFL membership as a workaround for your own club's MCG game benefits and not proving yourself as an AFL member? When the MCG hosts a non-Collingwood Prelim Final why should a new AFL Gold member who signed up in 2012 and only used the 13 years in the interim as a workaround Collingwood memberships get access to that neutral game, morally, than someone who signed up in (say) 2016 and has spent 9 years going to an average of 20+ neutral games a year? They have proven themselves more than the Collingwood fan as someone who enjoys the Prelim for neutral football's sake as a fan of neutral football rather than the Collingwood fan going to the Prelim game becuase they want a sense of social capital and theatre.

This is not to say that the Collingwood fan doesn't deserve to go if they're willing to pay for their membership every year. Just that if you're paying an increasingly big amount - to the point that you don't ever see the "value for money" because you aren't exceeding going to 20 games per year - either don't pay the silver membership amount anymore (and buy a Collingwood membership), or otherwise don't complain and understand the problem is not that it isn't value for money anymore, just that you're not accepting the value of being able to use your barcode, for free, for an empty seat, at non-Collingwood Melbourne games, so it's your fault, not the AFL's that you don't see the value for moeny.

My brain hurts.