Yeah you can buy it. Comes in the form of merchandise and memberships. If fans of the club have no hope for it, why are they going to turn up? In an increasingly difficult financial time, if people don’t have hope, why would they pay $110 for a singlet or hundreds of dollars for a membership?
Some will always spend what they can for the love of the club. Others will spend more in good years and less in bad years. Some will go full bandwagon and only show support when things are going really well.
We reached peak membership and merchandise sales after the flag which isn’t surprising. Also not surprising is the drop off this year. The factors at play are a poor end to 2017, losing Stringer and an absolutely disastrous start to 2018. People didn’t have hope. Going into next season, as of right now, there’s even less hope.