Home game attendance grows 10%

[Handsome.B.Wonderful]

Outstanding effort.

2011: 26,474

2010: 23,851

http://stats.rleague.com/afl/crowds/kangaroos.html

http://stats.rleague.com/afl/crowds/2011.html

 

[MaddAdam]

Great news. I'd expect another rise next year.

 

[LT Smash]

Of course, next year there will be a couple of Hobart games with 15K or so. One of those would probably be vs a team that would only draw that crowd at Etihad too, but the other game will be a 30K+ crowd so we'll lose around 2K from our averages.

 

[Teffy]

Wow.

In an year when AFL attendances were at their lowest in 7 years, that is sensational.

http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/business/afl-crowd-figures-in-decline/2273480.aspx

 

[Dan]

Yeah I've noticed a little bit more bums on seats on the members wing at the dome. The North end you'd think has helped too.

 

[Archer_11]

The North end you'd think has helped too.

The North End is one of the best ideas we've had in years imo and is a masterful response to Etihad's brain inspired 'let's make level 1 half empty' policy.

 

[Twinkletoes]

The North End is one of the best ideas we've had in years imo and is a masterful response to Etihad's brain inspired 'let's make level 1 half empty' policy.

Agree with this. Good thinking by the person responsible for the idea too.

As we said last year, just imagine how good it will be once we return to winning ways and a more appealing fixture. Considering our shocking start this year it's reassuring that our attendance numbers exceeded expectations. The major downside still being the fact it takes a crowd of roughly 4k more than our average to cover the cost of playing at "$$$$$$$$$$ Dome"!

 

[Hearts to hearts]

That's great to hear - no home game against Essendon this season, and our usual array of home games against lower-drawing sides, so it's an especially pleasing result.

Also nice to see more North colours around the streets this year - even last Sunday, as I was wandering around St Kilda with my family before heading to the game, I passed quite a few of our supporters.

 

[utility]

When comparing apples with apples (last home game against same opponent) our home attendances were up 2.9% or 8267 in total (282943 vs. 291210). This may not seem all that significant, but the league average from 2010 to 2011 fell by 4.7%:

2010: 6,495,680 (36,907 average)
2011: 5,729,080 (35,148 average)

Down

Only three games saw a drop in attendance, largely attributed by fickle Melbourne-based supporters of other clubs (Carlton -5.5%, Melbourne -12.1%, Bulldogs -26.1%).

Up

What is very heartening was our attendance increases against non-Victorian sides (Sydney +2.6%, Port Adelaide +6.0%, Brisbane 8.9%, Adelaide +10.4%, Fremantle +18.1%).

The other results were positive (Collingwood +1.2%, Richmond +24.8%, St Kilda +28.4%).

Interestingly we hosted nine teams in consecutive years, while the other two (Collingwood, Richmond) we hosted in 2009.

Table:

CO 40578, 2009: 40087, +491, +1.2%
RI 36461, 2009: 29224, +7237, +24.8%
PA 16014, 2010: 15109, +905, +6.0%
ME 23536, 2010: 26763, -3227, -12.1%
SY 24267, 2010: 23646, +621, +2.6%
AD 18185, 2010: 16479, +1706, +10.4%
ST 29693, 2010: 23118, +6575, +28.4%
WB 22754, 2010: 30794, -8040, -26.1%
BL 20809, 2010: 19100, +1709 +8.9%
CA 41332, 2010: 43732, -2400, -5.5%
FR 17581, 2010: 14891, +2690, +18.1%

291210, 282943, +8267, +2.9%

 

[Event Horizon]

A lot of it is to do with the fixture - if we play one less interstate team as part of our 11 home games, compared to last year, the attendance average goes up automatically. We haven't played the Eagles and Gold Coast down here, thank God. Last year, from memory, we played every interstate team at home.

The other factors would be Boomer's milestone against the Crows and car promotion against Freo would have got us a few extra thousand as well.

 

[Shinboner Schem]

Comparing the 2011 H&A crowds to 2010...

In 2011:
Melbourne had the lowest attendance in Melbourne (15.7k v WC)
North had the 2nd lowest in Melbourne (16k v PA)
The 20 most attended games were at the MCG

In 2010:
North hosted the 5 lowest attended games in Melbourne (14.8k v FD, 15.1k v PA, 16.5k v AC, 18.4k v WC, 19k v BL)
Richmond hosted the 6th lowest atteded game in Melbourne (19.2k v AC @MCG)
Hawtorn hosted the 7th lowest attended game in Melbourne (21.2k v PA @MCG)



What is disturbing is that in 2010 our home crowd vs WB was 30k, but in 2011 it was only 22k!!

 

[utility]

What is disturbing is that in 2010 our home crowd vs WB was 30k, but in 2011 it was only 22k!!

Bulldogs went from chocolates (14-8 @ 125.4%; prelim/4th) to boiled lollies (9-13 @ 95.6%; 10th)... I'm guessing a few jumped off the bandwagon.

Excluding the Gold Coast game, 8 out 10 game they hosted this year had lower crowds (vs. Melbourne was marginally higher, vs. Essendon was larger due to the Bomber's form).

BL 22331, 2010 30831
GC 21373, N/A but first GC game in Melbourne
SY 10184, 2010 14308 (both at Manuka Oval)
RI 39141, 2009 46261
HA 30747, 2010 35933
AD 19363, 2010 26884
ME 29516, 2008 27446
CA 38582, 2009 44268
WC 20883, 2009 22417
ES 38986, 2010 26776
FR 18128, 2010 26797

267861, 301921 (exc. GC; 10 games) - down 11.3%. (total 289234 with GC)

When comparing the two clubs, we drew slightly more over season (291210 vs. 289234) though for comparable fixtures they drew slightly higher for most matches.

vs. BL, NM 20809, WB 22331
vs. RI, NM 36461, WB 39141
vs. AD, NM 18185, WB 19363
vs. ME, NM 23536, WB 29516
vs. CA, NM 41332, WB 38582
vs. FR, NM 17581, WB 18128

If you look at matches against non-Victorian sides it looks like the Bulldogs had about 1000-1500 more "core" supporters than us this year; according to the AFL website we had just under a thousand less members (28761 vs. 29710).

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/118901/default.aspx?newsid=98326

It's quite feasible that we will could bypass them in attendance/membership figures next year.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

Have noticed a lot less whingeing in the media about our attendances, not surprised at those figures. Well done melbourne based supporters

 

[Shinboner Schem]

Given we had the 5 lowest attended games in melbourne in 2010, you could say that whingeing in the media was deserved.

Good on the club to for their efforts to turn it around!

 

[Ohhh Errol]

could the doggies drop off be because of their "replacement" game thing? It was definitely a replacement game last year, not sure if it was this year.

20,000 against interstate teams would be awesome. That extra couple of thousand would make so much difference atmosphere-wise.

 

[Forever North]

If you include NAB Cup/Challenge games we only played ONCE in Melbourne in the first 8 weeks of the footy season, R2 v Pies. Makes it hard to sell memberships, get supporters talking etc. But I wholly understand the playing of a NAB game in Ballarat and probably Hobart next year. Would be good to see more of the team early on and play more Melb based teams at home. Just the way things are at North I suppose.

 

[TheKanga]

Great news, i think our crowds are going to improve even more in 2012.
Exciting times ahead.

 

[Snake_Baker]

Interesting data:

 

[Egga]

Interesting data:

View attachment 788390

Is the metric here attendance as % of league average?

It’s not reassuring to see ours in line with Fitzroy and South before their relocations.

Edit: obviously it looks
Worse than it otherwise would due to the AFL’s fixturing policy and probably also our increase in Tassie games.

 

[koshari]

not terribly different to westerns and they won a flag! at least when we were up and about we were in the yellow.

 

[big_e]

Interesting data:

View attachment 788390

What do the numbers actually represent?

 

[Colbys Boots]

Interesting data:

View attachment 788390

Yes, very interesting. The thing that pisses me off (and also confirms my own confirmation bias) is that we were as strong as Hawthorn through the late 70s but they went in one direction and we went in another.

 

[Snake_Baker]

What do the numbers actually represent?

*Correction*

The numbers represent the 5 year average for all attendances relative to the particular clubs year in question.

Example: North 2019 = 0.74 of the competitions average for (2014-2018, n = 1.00) = 37% supporter representation.

Of course, the draw and form do impact this significantly. This is highlighted in the ~ 1972-1990 where we had success and only really played in Melbourne where our numbers climbed from ~ 0.63 (31.5%) to ~ 0.90 (45%). The national expansion would also affect this.

The takeaway message is that we must be successful and the majority of growth will appear from the local market.

Yes, very interesting. The thing that pisses me off (and also confirms my own confirmation bias) is that we were as strong as Hawthorn through the late 70s but they went in one direction and we went in another.

The numbers are s**t house mate.

 

[Orange Peanut]

Interesting data:

View attachment 788390

The importance of on-field success at NMFC summed up in 1 graph.

 

[King Corey]

Conclusion: North Melbourne supporters felt disengaged over several years and poor fixturing exacerbated it.