G Half Full

[Hawkk]

I'm sick of hearing Essendon and COllingwood supporters saying 'look at Hawthorn v Melbourne' you dont deserve ANZAC day. OK that is fair enough. If you are arguing that as your reason as to why Ess and Coll should keep ANZAC day, why not give other clubs that CAN fill the G a go? Carlton v Richmond would fill it easily and you all know that. So what is the problem?

That's open to conjecture, if you use the Collingwood vs. Essendon crowds as reference, ANZAC Day usually brings a 20-25% hike in crowds.

If you use the Blues and Tigers as an example - who have averaged 49,587 across their past 10 matches, ANZAC Day should bring in an extra 10-15,000 fans on top of the 50,000 that usually attends Richmond/Carlton games - 65,000 in total.

The big question isn't whether the 2 clubs have the drawing power to fill the stadium consistantly - only Collingwood/Essendon have that drawing pull, its whether the 2 clubs have the capacity to dress the crowd.

Going back to the Easter Monday crowd - in isolation the 45,000 that showed up to the game is actually a pretty reasonable crowd, the problem was that most of the fans were sitting in the Olympic Stand, Ponsford and Hawthorn members area, which practically left the AFL members area empty. If the game was played at the Telstra Dome, everyone would be lauding the crowd as excellent on the basis of the crowd looking asthetically pleasing.

If for example Hawthorn and Melbourne were given the ANZAC slot and consistantly drew 50-55,000 for ANZAC Day, the crowd size wouldn't be the big problem, the big problem would be the dressing of the crowd.

Going back to the Richmond/Carlton example, going by the crowd in round 1, potentially a Richmond/Carlton game could work on ANZAC Day. I base this on the dressing of the crowd and atmosphere in round 1 that made the 59,000 in attendance look more like a crowd in excess of 70,000.

but then people would complain that the pies play 16 games at the G

No, you would be playing us at the MCG instead of sides like Brisbane etc.

i dont understand why we dont play our 11 home games at the MCG our home ground, but that is another matter

If we could, we would as well. The fact is we all can't - the best any club is ever going to get is Collingwood's 9 (14 in total)

hawks get 11 games at their preferred home venues this year, what happens with away games u shouldn't be able to complain about

It makes a huge difference to our memberships, this season we play 7 home games at the MCG and one designated away game - against Essendon. For the game against Essendon the club has bought all the tickets on all 3 levels of the Ponsford Stand and parts of the Olympic Stand and allocated reserve seating to our reserve seat holders and general admission memberships.

It basically means that in effect we play 8 home games at the MCG instead of 7. The home side - in this case Essendon, love it because it means that they are assured of 30,000 tickets being sold without having to promote the game and the MCC love it because it virtually guarntees that a crowd of 55,000+ should be in attendance (baring bad weather)

When the sponsorship agreement was signed the goal was to have 11+ games at the MCG (7 home and 4 following using this system) and 4 games in Tasmania - with incentives for Victorian based Hawthorn supporters encouraging them to travel down to Tasmania and appease the major sponsor.

Obviously without the AFL's help, it makes such a plan very hard to execute. As strange as it sounds, we are Carlton's 4th highest draw over the past 10 meetings - Carlton obligated to play 5 home games at the MCG - play Melbourne (drawing 24,000 last season) and the Bulldogs (drawing 26,000 in 2007) at the MCG, whilst for the 5th year in a row they play us at the Dome (which has drawn 45-49,000 over the past 4 years)

numbers may be up, but wouldn't they have to be at reduced prices as not as many games to go to???

for instance the pies sell legends memberships, ie 18 game reserved seat packages for bout $700........by selling off 4 games the hawks cant even offer that type of ticket

You'd think so, but apparently our membership prices have gone up on the provision that we have 8 'home' games at the MCG instead of the 5 last year.

 

[doppleganger]

No, you would be playing us at the MCG instead of sides like Brisbane etc.

pretty sure the pies v brisbane crowd last year was bigger than the pies v hawks crowd at the G.........well it certainly was a better atmosphere anyway

If we could, we would as well. The fact is we all can't - the best any club is ever going to get is Collingwood's 9 (14 in total)

dont understand why the pies dont get to play 11 games at home, the hawks do this year....lucky them!

It makes a huge difference to our memberships, this season we play 7 home games at the MCG and one designated away game - against Essendon. For the game against Essendon the club has bought all the tickets on all 3 levels of the Ponsford Stand and parts of the Olympic Stand and allocated reserve seating to our reserve seat holders and general admission memberships.

It basically means that in effect we play 8 home games at the MCG instead of 7. The home side - in this case Essendon, love it because it means that they are assured of 30,000 tickets being sold without having to promote the game and the MCC love it because it virtually guarntees that a crowd of 55,000+ should be in attendance (baring bad weather)

When the sponsorship agreement was signed the goal was to have 11+ games at the MCG (7 home and 4 following using this system) and 4 games in Tasmania - with incentives for Victorian based Hawthorn supporters encouraging them to travel down to Tasmania and appease the major sponsor.

Obviously without the AFL's help, it makes such a plan very hard to execute. As strange as it sounds, we are Carlton's 4th highest draw over the past 10 meetings - Carlton obligated to play 5 home games at the MCG - play Melbourne (drawing 24,000 last season) and the Bulldogs (drawing 26,000 in 2007) at the MCG, whilst for the 5th year in a row they play us at the Dome (which has drawn 45-49,000 over the past 4 years)

You'd think so, but apparently our membership prices have gone up on the provision that we have 8 'home' games at the MCG instead of the 5 last year.

bit rich to sell off ur MCG games and then expect to be given more dont u think???

hawks have their 11 home games exaclty where they want them, the away games isn't really up to them.

 

[Hawkk]

pretty sure the pies v brisbane crowd last year was bigger than the pies v hawks crowd at the G.........well it certainly was a better atmosphere anyway

I guess it helped that our game against the Pies was played on a wet winter’s night with one side firmly anchored to the bottom 3-4 on the ladder

dont understand why the pies don’t get to play 11 games at home, the hawks do this year....lucky them!

No you're right, you get 14...how silly of me.

bit rich to sell off ur MCG games and then expect to be given more dont u think???

Not exactly as rich as the sides that take millions out of the AFL CBF and expect 12+ games at the MCG. Whether you like it or not, unlike a lot of other Victorian clubs we don't take money from the AFL like there is no tomorrow - infact behind Collingwood we get given the least amount by the AFL out of all 10 Victorian clubs.

I've never quite understood why we get grief from opposition fans for being an independent of the AFL club

 

[doppleganger]

I guess it helped that our game against the Pies was played on a wet winter’s night with one side firmly anchored to the bottom 3-4 on the ladder.

friday night game vs hawks, didn't rain during the game at all
sat night game vs brions, didn't rain during the game at all

hawks and brions both were down the bottom

No you're right, you get 14...how silly of me.

15 this year actually

not our problem that teams like the kangas, geelong, saints, carlton etc. want to play their home game against us at the G

we should get our 11 home games at the G, after that it depends on other clubs

 

[Hawkk]

Just getting back to the topic at hand....

Just to clarrify the attendance at the Collingwood vs. Kangaroos game, according to the MCC - 42,402 (http://www.mcg.org.au/default.asp?pg=newsdisplay&articleid=2301)

 

[Ricardo]

Just getting back to the topic at hand....

Just to clarrify the attendance at the Collingwood vs. Kangaroos game, according to the MCC - 42,402 (http://www.mcg.org.au/default.asp?pg=newsdisplay&articleid=2301)

Then where did Sportal (and inturn the afl.com.au website) get their figure of 44,760 from? http://www.sportal.com.au/football.asp?i=news&id=96497

You'd think they would get the attendance figure from the same source.

 

[Hawkk]

St.Kilda vs Western Bulldogs - 38,000 - for a primetime clash between arguable the 2 best Victorian sides in 'rivalry round'

Adelaide vs Port - 39,000 - for a showdown

All of a sudden the 'G being half full' for a clash between the then, 15th and 16th combatants isn't too bad after all

 

[dave_27]

You would of been rapt with Sunday nights crowd hawk, you were predicting a sub 10k crowd before the game.

 

[Ricardo]

St.Kilda vs Western Bulldogs - 38,000 - for a primetime clash between arguable the 2 best Victorian sides in 'rivalry round'

Adelaide vs Port - 39,000 - for a showdown

All of a sudden the 'G being half full' for a clash between the then, 15th and 16th combatants isn't too bad after all

It actually was <37k

From the sounds of it Adelaide AAMI stadium members didn't want to front up because it was a Port home game (either that or the Showdown isn't all its craked up to be).