Expansion Where is Wellington, New Zealand at?

[Crawb]

2013: St. Kilda V Sydney (Thursday 7:50pm) - 22,546
2014: St. Kilda V Brisbane (Friday 7:45pm) - 13,409 [wet-ish]
2015: St. Kilda V Carlton (Saturday 1:10pm) - 12,125

Another disappointing crowd. The 2014 crowd was understandable considering the circumstances, but 2015 really provides no excuses. Perhaps it might be time to re-think the Wellington match?

To be fair the crowd isn't terrible, I mean if GWS got 12k per match the AFL would be thrilled. But this is a one off match per season, the novelty should make the crowd a little bigger at least...

 

[thecatattack]

Cause NZ don't give a * about AFL.

 

[daniel_4tw]

Saints will struggle to make the experiment worthwhile if they keep losing every game.

 

[Hammer#8]

Kiwis only really like the All Blacks and their cricket team.

Those crowds are to be expected. If they want better crowds, schedule a game with two of the big Vic teams. Not bottom 4 teams.

The AFL could have been bold and scheduled a Magpies/Bombers clash in NZ, but they don't want to lose money, they want to expand the game as cheaply as possible.

 

[Damon_3388]

Hang on, people are actually expecting this fixture to draw a big crowd?

Two bottom-four certs, playing in a different country to which they have no connection. What did people think would happen today?

 

[Messenger]

How many paid for their ticket?

 

[Donners]

I read something along the lines that parents could bring up to five kids under 15 for free - I wonder how many of those are included.

 

[Ant Bear]

41.2889°S/174.7772°E

 

[Billy ray]

You would be in the minority , and pissed, if you paid.

 

[Rob]

Bear in mind Wellington, and NZ in general, aren't great attendees of sport. The Hurricanes averaged 10k last year. Their soccer team gets much less.
Don't let the size of the stadium fool you - it's hardly ever even half full.

 

[Quivorir]

Cause NZ don't give a **** about AFL.

The sooner the AFL realise this, and the rest of the world don't either will be a great day.

 

[afl genius]

Bear in mind Wellington, and NZ in general, aren't great attendees of sport. The Hurricanes averaged 10k last year. Their soccer team gets much less.
Don't let the size of the stadium fool you - it's hardly ever even half full.

This is very true, they don't attend sport unless its all blacks. 2 decent sides wouldn't hurt either

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Just wait til the Hawks go over there
The saints are just keeping it warm for us

We already sponsor (and effectively run) the junior competition over there, and the national side

 

[Rich]

Bear in mind Wellington, and NZ in general, aren't great attendees of sport. The Hurricanes averaged 10k last year. Their soccer team gets much less.
Don't let the size of the stadium fool you - it's hardly ever even half full.

Correct.

That stadium seems to always have a hell of a lot of empty seats at any event. The only times I've seen it close to full was at the cricket world cup and an all blacks match.

Otherwise it's ghost town.

 

[beta_condition]

Only if the AFL accepted Hawthorn's offer to play there, apparently it's too unfair for a team to have a non counting home game but perfectly fine for Sydney to have an academy.

 

[Hamingja]

Boy did the Saints screw up not investing in Tasmania.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Boy did the Saints screw up not investing in Tasmania.

The saints tries to muscle in on the Hawks in Launceston, and then the Hawks bailed them out

It's kind of a running joke since the 60's, the Hawks do something, then the saints try to do the exact same thing

Even now with nz, the Hawks are putting in the time through sponsorship, tours, etc (and have been for over 10 yrs), whilst the saints idea of investing is putting up a few signs around the place - after the Hawks did the work

 

[Bomberboyokay]

It only happens because some New Zealand government agency think it's worth paying for.

 

[Plugger35]

It's still better than Etihad.

We get about 500k guaranteed revenue for playing in NZ no matter what the crowd is, we'd need to sell out Etihad to even get close to that figure.

 

[askdotcom]

aren't horrible crowds but seriously the is no long term future and the afl needs to give most states in Australia a team before New Zealand.

 

[Plugger35]

The saints tries to muscle in on the Hawks in Launceston, and then the Hawks bailed them out

It's kind of a running joke since the 60's, the Hawks do something, then the saints try to do the exact same thing

Even now with nz, the Hawks are putting in the time through sponsorship, tours, etc (and have been for over 10 yrs), whilst the saints idea of investing is putting up a few signs around the place - after the Hawks did the work

Like how we recruited a decent ruckman in McEvoy and then you did the exact same thing by recruiting him off us while giving us Savage and two first round draft picks?





.

 

[Rich]

Like how we recruited a decent ruckman in McEvoy and then you did the exact same thing by recruiting him off us while giving us Savage and two first round draft picks?





.

That's premiership player Ben McEvoy to you.

And it was Savage, a pick and a pick upgrade. Hardly three players for one.

 

[nobbyiscool]

I don't think we can comment on the success of Wellington without knowing the AFL's intentions.

If the intent is to try and find a new frontier to expand the game to, obviously it's an abject failure. But I can't imagine this multi-billion dollar corporation having so little awareness of the NZ market, and the NZ sporting market - you wouldn't be playing in Wellington if this was a genuine attempt at expansion. You'd make more money out of Tasmania.

However if the intent nothing more than an gimmicky expansion of ANZAC Day tributes, who cares? The alternative is that St Kilda play an extra game at Docklands, which will probably be a money-losing game while the team is as s**t as it currently is.

 

[Plugger35]

That's premiership player Ben McEvoy to you.

And it was Savage, a pick and a pick upgrade. Hardly three players for one.

You still had to poach off us to get a decent ruckman, like you did with Spida Everitt along with Hale from North or Salmon from Essendon.

When was the last time Hawthorn recruited a decent ruckman of their own? Don Scott?

 

[Rich]

You still had to poach off us to get a decent ruckman, like you did with Spida Everitt along with Hale from North or Salmon from Essendon.

When was the last time Hawthorn recruited a decent ruckman of their own? Don Scott?

Simon Crawshay.