Playing AFL in front of empty stands has highlighted how crucial a role the atmosphere plays in the magnetism of live sport. The next generation of this country are turning to European Soccer, and part of the drawcard of these leagues are the atmospheres. More kids play soccer at U16 level than Football, League and Union combined. If the AFL wants to survive and thrive as a superior alternative for the next generation, it needs to think seriously about enhancing crowd atmosphere by returning to smaller venues.
Generally speaking, in international sports, if your planned stadium is not going to be at at least 80% capacity, for 80% of events, you'd be insane to build.
If you do, the owners/tenants of the venue are left with 4 pretty major problems:
- You'll have overspent on the build budget, and the costs to maintain and run the stadium will exceed the revenue from ticket sales, leaving a big hole in the bottom line.
-Below capacity attendances result in a massively diluted atmosphere, which heavily reduces the perceived quality of events held at the stadium - both for the attendees and tv viewers. People are willing to pay far less to see sport in venue at 25% capacity than they are willing to pay to watch the same match in a sold out venue.
-To counter the excess supply and reduced demand, you have to reduce ticket prices, which reduces the "perceived value" of the event. Holding a ticket to a game no longer becomes an enviable status symbol, and people have even less desire to actually attend a game.
-Because of the low ticket price and low exclusivity, there is an increased percentage of casual and fringe fans attending relative to hardcore fans, which dilutes the atmosphere even further.
You're left with a negative feedback loop that's pretty hard to break.
These issues can cause some interesting decisions by poorly run organisations. During the early 2010s, Cricket Australia refused to sell ODI tickets for less than $100, because they didn't want the perceived value of attending international cricket to be compromised. They had no problem filling stadiums in the late 90s and early 2000s when the Australian ODI team was on, but they were left with 4-8k attendances in the early 2010s in stadiums that were only getting bigger. For too long, they refused to budge on the ticket prices and their crowd numbers suffered a lot more than they should have given the reduction in quality of the team. Unsurprisingly CA is absolutely strapped for cash to deal with coronavirus. Playing games at smaller, more intimate and elegant, character filled, sold out venues would have added to the experience in an age of soulless concrete and steel. They would have had better attendances with those ticket prices because of the increased value of the experience. Not to mention the venues are cheaper to lease.
The issue is not that the MCG or Perth Stadium or the Adelaide Oval shouldn't exist - they should. The issue is that money should have been spent on venues with elegance and character like Victoria Park, Princes Park, and Whitten Oval, before building an additional soulless pieces of crap like Docklands. Extra toilet and food facilities is pretty a manageable undertaking. Cricket should absolutely not be at the Perth Stadium when the attendance wouldn't have filled the WACA. The SCG is too big. The Gabba is too big. ANZ is a joke. Metricon should be torn down and dumped in the ocean to create some more reef.
But what about the fan? What if they want to attend for $25. Too many would miss out!
I don't buy this argument at all - this only benefits fair-weather fans who detract from the atmosphere in any case. If you're an actual fan you buy a membership, or you buy your ticket early enough so you don't miss out. Should a concert be played in a quarter-filled MCG instead of Rod Laver Arena because some slow-to-buy fringe fans will miss out? All you're doing is reducing the quality of the concert. As much as the idea that any family can roll up to the ticket booth of the MCG and waltz in for a reasonable price for any match of the season is a nice utopia, it fundamentally hurts the quality of the product we produce, to the point where we're losing fans.
Clearly stadium size is not the only factor that dilutes the quality of the product - the number of teams and team location hurts as well. There's obviously too many teams. But a well run team can survive in a tough location if they have a small venue with lower costs. The Gold Coast and GWS would have done better in 10,000-15,000 seat boutique grounds, a small field size and a tight knit atmosphere akin to an English club ground. Metricon is a huge field and has about as much atmosphere as the moon. St Kilda/North/Footscray might be thriving a bit more if they played out of 20k Suburban grounds instead of having to fork out an arm and a leg to play at Docklands on a Sunday night.
The days of the suburban ground are not over. That's bullshit spoken by the type of people who enjoy going to Marvel Stadium.
Generally speaking, in international sports, if your planned stadium is not going to be at at least 80% capacity, for 80% of events, you'd be insane to build.
If you do, the owners/tenants of the venue are left with 4 pretty major problems:
- You'll have overspent on the build budget, and the costs to maintain and run the stadium will exceed the revenue from ticket sales, leaving a big hole in the bottom line.
-Below capacity attendances result in a massively diluted atmosphere, which heavily reduces the perceived quality of events held at the stadium - both for the attendees and tv viewers. People are willing to pay far less to see sport in venue at 25% capacity than they are willing to pay to watch the same match in a sold out venue.
-To counter the excess supply and reduced demand, you have to reduce ticket prices, which reduces the "perceived value" of the event. Holding a ticket to a game no longer becomes an enviable status symbol, and people have even less desire to actually attend a game.
-Because of the low ticket price and low exclusivity, there is an increased percentage of casual and fringe fans attending relative to hardcore fans, which dilutes the atmosphere even further.
You're left with a negative feedback loop that's pretty hard to break.
These issues can cause some interesting decisions by poorly run organisations. During the early 2010s, Cricket Australia refused to sell ODI tickets for less than $100, because they didn't want the perceived value of attending international cricket to be compromised. They had no problem filling stadiums in the late 90s and early 2000s when the Australian ODI team was on, but they were left with 4-8k attendances in the early 2010s in stadiums that were only getting bigger. For too long, they refused to budge on the ticket prices and their crowd numbers suffered a lot more than they should have given the reduction in quality of the team. Unsurprisingly CA is absolutely strapped for cash to deal with coronavirus. Playing games at smaller, more intimate and elegant, character filled, sold out venues would have added to the experience in an age of soulless concrete and steel. They would have had better attendances with those ticket prices because of the increased value of the experience. Not to mention the venues are cheaper to lease.
The issue is not that the MCG or Perth Stadium or the Adelaide Oval shouldn't exist - they should. The issue is that money should have been spent on venues with elegance and character like Victoria Park, Princes Park, and Whitten Oval, before building an additional soulless pieces of crap like Docklands. Extra toilet and food facilities is pretty a manageable undertaking. Cricket should absolutely not be at the Perth Stadium when the attendance wouldn't have filled the WACA. The SCG is too big. The Gabba is too big. ANZ is a joke. Metricon should be torn down and dumped in the ocean to create some more reef.
But what about the fan? What if they want to attend for $25. Too many would miss out!
I don't buy this argument at all - this only benefits fair-weather fans who detract from the atmosphere in any case. If you're an actual fan you buy a membership, or you buy your ticket early enough so you don't miss out. Should a concert be played in a quarter-filled MCG instead of Rod Laver Arena because some slow-to-buy fringe fans will miss out? All you're doing is reducing the quality of the concert. As much as the idea that any family can roll up to the ticket booth of the MCG and waltz in for a reasonable price for any match of the season is a nice utopia, it fundamentally hurts the quality of the product we produce, to the point where we're losing fans.
Clearly stadium size is not the only factor that dilutes the quality of the product - the number of teams and team location hurts as well. There's obviously too many teams. But a well run team can survive in a tough location if they have a small venue with lower costs. The Gold Coast and GWS would have done better in 10,000-15,000 seat boutique grounds, a small field size and a tight knit atmosphere akin to an English club ground. Metricon is a huge field and has about as much atmosphere as the moon. St Kilda/North/Footscray might be thriving a bit more if they played out of 20k Suburban grounds instead of having to fork out an arm and a leg to play at Docklands on a Sunday night.
The days of the suburban ground are not over. That's bullshit spoken by the type of people who enjoy going to Marvel Stadium.
