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The 2015 Attendance Thread

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Another reason I've found for low turnout of reserve seat holders/members is that they still attend, but with friends/colleagues on an MCC or AFL member guest pass. You would be surprised how many MCC guest passes are sold. Although this doesn't really apply at Etihad.

What do the guest passes cost?
 

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Carlton is very quickly (and rather alarmingly) dancing the dance irrelevance. It's hard to see them challenging for a flag over the next 2-3 years and it's plausible that they could go another 5 years without a flag (meaning it'd be a quarter century since their last flag)

Hard to imagine that a club that for so long was the perpetual challenger (where only a GF performance was a pass grade through the 80s) are entering into a period of such insignificance

Plausible? It's a dead set certainty.
 
A fairly average crowd at Ethihad.
Plenty of Crows fans too with. a Saturday timeslot and school holidays. It will be interesting to see how Collingwoods crowds hold up this year if their form continues to plateau. It's been many years since we have seen what the Pies crowds are like when a sense if belief drops away. We saw it late last year to some extent. The league will be hoping they beat the Saints next week.

Reasonable crowd at the G, thought it would definitely start with a 5. Decent all the same. Bit of a burst balloon today for those hoping the Tiger conveyance was on it's way.
 
I would've expected a capacity crowd, around 45k - fair dinkum, bog ignorant.
The strength of the Eagles are the season seatholders, so attendances arent the issue they are for some of the clubs. There are concerns over vacant seats, just as there is at Geelong.

The Equalisation Set of Melbourne would be squealing for a bigger handout IF the game started at 6.10 Friday night.

T

All I'm hearing here are excuses. Having reserved seat holders should make it even easier to get them along as they've already paid for the seat.

West Coast 35k, Collingwood 33k seems some teams aren't as big crowd drawers as they'd like to have everyone believe.
 
About a par crowd. Will be interesting to Collingwood's crowds if they are again bottom 8 this season.
Agree. We are entering interesting times. Clubs are mowing diwn Collingwoods hold on membership sales and if the Pies struggle on field they may well be overtaken in total attendances.

In a sense I'm hoping Richmond can get on a roll as It by virtue of it's big fixture and MCG games looks as if it could achieve a strong year in attendances. I won't discount Essendon just yet as it will probably get going at some stage and will draw well as is usual despite not playing many games at the G. Though it won't be helped by Carlton's early demise so it won't be the Blues surpassing the Pies.

It is entirely feasible that the Pies could be overtaken in both memberdhip and attendances in the next 2-3 years.
 
Was hoping for 9k, but perhaps that wasn't realistic with Melbourne as opposition.

The upside is that we will only attract decent crowds if we are playing exciting football, and that's starting to happen.

Unfortunately, will probably be about the same for the Suns in two weeks time, however, the game against Geelong later in the season could be a record for a Giants game at Manuka (currently a bit above 11k for a game against the Saints two years ago).
 

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Par? They reckon theyve got 70000 members!

The AFL happens to agree, year on year with their released membership figures.

Allowing for many of them to be 3 game members who are there for big games against Carlton, essendon, Geelong, hawthorn etc. Allow for another 10,000 AFL members with reserved seating at MCG, plus Collingwood members with MCG reserved seating. allow again for supporters preferences to see their games at the MCG - crowds against Adelaide at the MCG are higher for almost all clubs at the MCG than Etihad.
 
All I'm hearing here are excuses. Having reserved seat holders should make it even easier to get them along as they've already paid for the seat.

West Coast 35k, Collingwood 33k seems some teams aren't as big crowd drawers as they'd like to have everyone believe.

Stand by your claims boyo, every ignorant word of it .. not sure anyone ever claimed West Coast are big crowd drawers but they are big financially for factors apparently beyond your understanding e.g season seat sales, price, demand for membership. A 6.10 game start is not an excuse, no excuses used. No gimmicks like cheap pies getting a gig.
 
Par? They reckon theyve got 70000 members!
Yes, but we know Melbourne clubs don't usually draw more than 30k of their own supporters when they aren't going great. That's just reality. Collingwood aren't immune.

- Collingwood roughly draw 29-35k

- Essendon roughly draw 26-32k

- Carlton roughly draw - 24-30k

- Richmond and Hawthorn are difficult to weigh up as there's great fluctuations.
 
Par? They reckon theyve got 70000 members!

There are just under 75,000 seats for club members at the G, the rest are MCC/AFL enclosures - the challenge for the big membership clubs should be to sell out the G.
Share your cynicism on numbers, I understand the Bulldogs #1 ticketholder has bought 1000 memberships, making membership #s irrelevant other than for P155 & dribble. $s alone are comparable IF they are reported on the same criteria. That the AFL signs off on the numbers adds nothing to the reality that they are worthless for any real comparisons between clubs.
 

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Stand by your claims boyo, every ignorant word of it .. not sure anyone ever claimed West Coast are big crowd drawers but they are big financially for factors apparently beyond your understanding e.g season seat sales, price, demand for membership. A 6.10 start is not an excuse, no excuses used. No gimmicks like cheap pies getting a gig.

Well, no, posters like you continually have a crack at other clubs for not being able to pull crowds and for relying on away game supporters to bump up crowd numbers when the unequal fixture is raised. Look at Collingwood 80k members give or take and only 33k to today's game against the Crows (with a decent contingent of Crows supporters). West Coast have the whole state to themselves this week, no other AFL games in town, had Friday night billing and playing a club with traditionally decent support in WA - was also their first home game for the year - yet could only draw 35k.

Melbourne got 27k against Gold Coast last week so I reckon we're actually not doing too bad really and some of these arguments about crowd numbers being used to rig the fixture probably need more scrutiny.
 
Agree. We are entering interesting times. Clubs are mowing diwn Collingwoods hold on membership sales and if the Pies struggle on field they may well be overtaken in total attendances.

In a sense I'm hoping Richmond can get on a roll as It by virtue of it's big fixture and MCG games looks as if it could achieve a strong year in attendances. I won't discount Essendon just yet as it will probably get going at some stage and will draw well as is usual despite not playing many games at the G. Though it won't be helped by Carlton's early demise so it won't be the Blues surpassing the Pies.

It is entirely feasible that the Pies could be overtaken in both memberdhip and attendances in the next 2-3 years.

I expect Hawthorn (probably this week) and Richmond (possibly) to surpass Collingwood for total members this year. With respect to attendance it's just so hard for the status quo to change given the commercial realities of the draw. Clubs need to effectively draw 10-20% larger crowds just to make up the handicap of the draw.

Last year Hawthorn (who isn't privy to the big 4 cartel but nonetheless do very well out of the draw anyway) drew 4/6 highest drawing home and away games last year (3 were home games) and yet 'only' drew the 3rd largest home and away attendance across the season. We do much better out of fixture than other clubs but it just points how difficult it is to outdraw Collingwood in good seasons and bad (it hasn't been achieved since 2004-05)

Essendon have the potential to outdraw Collingwood in a poor season (as 1996-2001 will attest) but they are confined by their agreement to play 8-9 home and away games at Docklands. Richmond perhaps(given the amount of home games at the MCG) but that's only based on potential rather than demonstrated results (at least since the Carter administration).

The AFL need a strong Collingwood, or at least a competitive Collingwood, more than anything else (Sydney / GWS aside). I expect Collingwood to draw 55,000 plus to next Friday Night against a St Kilda side that put in a pretty strong contest today...
 
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Well, no, posters like you continually have a crack at other clubs for not being able to pull crowds and for relying on away game supporters to bump up crowd numbers when the unequal fixture is raised. Look at Collingwood 80k members give or take and only 33k to today's game against the Crows (with a decent contingent of Crows supporters). West Coast have the whole state to themselves this week, no other AFL games in town, had Friday night billing and playing a club with traditionally decent support in WA - was also their first home game for the year - yet could only draw 35k.

Melbourne got 27k against Gold Coast last week so I reckon we're actually not doing too bad really and some of these arguments about crowd numbers being used to rig the fixture probably need more scrutiny.
300 tickets were left to the West Coast game. Not as in a solid bay of seats. 300 single tickets scattered around the ground.

No, seriously, if you haven't been to a game at Subiaco, head on out early and just watch the interactions around you. It is chock full of members who have been members for at least the last ten years, usually the last fifteen or twenty; in the same spot; with the same neighbours; interrupted only by passing away of old age. It is flat out weird. I was in there (in $70 Premium seats which are, I'll have you note, wooden benches from the 70s, in a ground where amenities are free standing brick structures squeezed into cramped concourses that fit two men across), and each person with a member lanyard was 40+ and they knew everyone in their area, said hi to people from all over the bay, knew everyone's names, asked about everyone's kids. I mean parts of the ground are starting to develop subcultures due to constant familiarity, as far as I can tell. And most of these old goats who cannot attend don't put the resale seats up because they don't computer, because they're still used to computers being things that sit in warehouses and stop old Gerry from winning the war.

The West Coast Eagles home crowd has gotten WEIRD. Flat out weird. I mean just check the membership threads, one of the largest adult/concession access membership bases, yet fewest junior memberships in the whole league.
 
Pies even in there very poor years in the late 90's and 2004-2005 would attract 26-35,000 if their own fans.

Today's 33,000 was about par what collingwood get at Etihad. At the mcg you would add an extra 10,000
 
Pies will struggle for the next 3 years but their is light at the end of the tunnel with their young kids. Just need some patients. Considering we have been one of the top teams for the last 10 years it was always going to happen then we will need to rebuild
 

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