An article in the sun with the attendance numbers for all clubs. An impressive 4th overall. Yes we had Anzac eve and QB but considering the time slots we get given, and the lack of Friday nights, I reckon that says something about the passion at this club. Not that we even got mentioned in the article mind you. Would have had to have gone against the myth that dee supporters don't care.

The article also spouted forth about how loyal the Essendon supporters are as there numbers are up 60% this year. To me that only shows how fast they fell off in a couple of bad years. The dees are in the elite bracket this year for support....and THAT is good for sponsorship as well. 

Great signs for the club and a valid point on the Bombers fans dropping off in the past couple of seasons.

Few things to note:

1. We have a game in NT that got 5000 people yet still have a higher average than Carlton, who get more blockbusters.  

2. Hawthorn has won 4 flags in 10 years and has 70,000 members but has fewer people going to games across the board.

3. North Melbourne is a major indictment on the league.  Even during Melbourne's worst years were never dropped so low as to attract a measly 22k average to home games. Danger signs for them as a club. 

IMO if we have half the success of a Hawthorn or Geelong, we'll be the biggest club in the land. 

Strange that the GWS average home crowd has dropped 5.1% this year. 

More importantly, we need to keep getting big home game crowds. Essendon's average home game crowd of 54,000+ is basically equivalent to a full Etihad Stadium. Obviously the average is boosted by larger crowds at the MCG. I expect Essendon to move its home games permanently to the MCG as soon as their current Etihad deal expires (or earlier if they can get out of it), which will put pressure on other MCG tenants. 

North are in trouble.

3 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

North are in trouble.

Just watch their club spokespeople make up all sorts of excuses. 

Eg. The deal at Docklands, the time slots, the retirements of stars

Just now, Moonshadow said:

Just watch their club spokespeople make up all sorts of excuses. 

Eg. The deal at Docklands, the time slots, the retirements of stars

However, don't expect anyone from North to say "We should have moved to the Gold Coast when we had the chance"

1 hour ago, Demon77 said:

Great signs for the club and a valid point on the Bombers fans dropping off in the past couple of seasons.

Given that the table only shows data from this year and the 2016 season, I'm not sure how you can claim that their fans dropped off in the past couple of seasons.  They absolutely would've dropped off last year given they fielded a seriously compromised team, so the % increase this year was always going to be higher.

Happy for you to show data of the 2015-2013 crowd averages to support your case.

12 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Strange that the GWS average home crowd has dropped 5.1% this year. 

More importantly, we need to keep getting big home game crowds. Essendon's average home game crowd of 54,000+ is basically equivalent to a full Etihad Stadium. Obviously the average is boosted by larger crowds at the MCG. I expect Essendon to move its home games permanently to the MCG as soon as their current Etihad deal expires (or earlier if they can get out of it), which will put pressure on other MCG tenants. 

maybe not so many FREE tickets ? 

The most important aspect in all this is we have one of the smallest supporter and and membership bases.

The ratio of our supporters to crowds would surely be the biggest by far.

The lack of media attention is ridiculous.

18 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Strange that the GWS average home crowd has dropped 5.1% this year. 

More importantly, we need to keep getting big home game crowds. Essendon's average home game crowd of 54,000+ is basically equivalent to a full Etihad Stadium. Obviously the average is boosted by larger crowds at the MCG. I expect Essendon to move its home games permanently to the MCG as soon as their current Etihad deal expires (or earlier if they can get out of it), which will put pressure on other MCG tenants. 

The loss of Cam MacCarthy would account for the majority of the drop off. His presence on gameday is sorely missed.

wow top 4 , even with the NT game/s 

maybe we might , I did say maybe get some better time slots 

the AFL will have to start to take notice soon enough 

27 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Strange that the GWS average home crowd has dropped 5.1% this year. 

More importantly, we need to keep getting big home game crowds. Essendon's average home game crowd of 54,000+ is basically equivalent to a full Etihad Stadium. Obviously the average is boosted by larger crowds at the MCG. I expect Essendon to move its home games permanently to the MCG as soon as their current Etihad deal expires (or earlier if they can get out of it), which will put pressure on other MCG tenants. 

Not so sure about that. They have perhaps the highest number of Medallion Club members and the club makes stacks off corporate ticketing and boxes at Etihad. Essendon is probably the only club that hasn't struggled out of the Etihad deal. The problem is that there's a higher benchmark there to break even than at the MCG. Them leaving Etihad now would be akin to Melbourne selling additional home games away. Would bode well with our MCC members, would it? Essendon stand to benefit quite a bit out of the AFL taking control imo.

In past years, I'd have thought big games like QB and Anzac Day Eve might have skewed the numbers with large amounts of away supporters artificially inflating these sorts of figures, but the roar when Wattsy kicked that last goal on QB showed me that this is no longer the case. 

Me and my boy have actually been to more away games this year than home games.

Does this table now prove that we are now one of the big 4 clubs in Melbourne?

49 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Strange that the GWS average home crowd has dropped 5.1% this year. 

More importantly, we need to keep getting big home game crowds. Essendon's average home game crowd of 54,000+ is basically equivalent to a full Etihad Stadium. Obviously the average is boosted by larger crowds at the MCG. I expect Essendon to move its home games permanently to the MCG as soon as their current Etihad deal expires (or earlier if they can get out of it), which will put pressure on other MCG tenants. 

Yes. Of course Essendon need to be rewarded for not being caught doing drugs for a couple of seasons.  What fantastic people. 

42 minutes ago, Moonshadow said:

Just watch their [NM] club spokespeople make up all sorts of excuses. 

Eg. The deal at Docklands, the time slots, the retirements* of stars

* don't you mean sacking?

It's so nice seeing numbers like this. I'm sure it motivates the boys. Love it

2 hours ago, praha said:

Few things to note:

1. We have a game in NT that got 5000 people yet still have a higher average than Carlton, who get more blockbusters.  

Our figures will naturally come down after we play in Darwin next week, plus our other remaining home games are against 2 interstate sides (Pt Adel and Bris) and also St Kilda (a low attend Vic club), so there's every chance our averages will be forced considerably lower. 

Not to say we haven't increased substantially from last year, and based on our projections we should get a better fixture next year (from a timing point of view) so this should again increase, but like any stats take them with a grain of salt, and look at who pushing their agenda (in this case the HS who seem to write nothing but positive articles pushing the Tigs and Essendon). 

average of over 40K? unbelievable!  well done MFC led by PJ. decent fixture money wise, friday night game finally and the anzac eve game was genius. QB gets bigger every year with ND on board. most important our team can now play afl footy

I remember a few years back while were getting one of many, many hammerings, waiting for the attendance to come up and hoping to see a 2 at the start of it!

Crowd numbers are relevant to supporters and make us feel good but it is revenue per game which will become increasingly important.

Geelong could get more revenue by playing more games at the MCG but it makes more per game from playing at Kardinia Park.

I sit in the AFL section and the corporate boxes are often sparsely occupied for our games.

As mentioned the new stadium deal between the AFL and say the Bulldogs will be a big issue.

Our stadium deal with the MCG is a case in point also. I assume it is similar to those offered to all the other tenants which means we are at an immediate short term disadvantage.

Nothing that a 20 year period including 8 flags won't fix !!

4 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

 

I sit in the AFL section and the corporate boxes are often sparsely occupied for our games.

 

I could be wrong Diamond Jim (it's happened once before) but I thought the corporate boxes were an annual rental not sold per game.

14 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

I could be wrong Diamond Jim (it's happened once before) but I thought the corporate boxes were an annual rental not sold per game.

You are right in the sense that there is an annual fee. You then pay an additional fee for "opening" the box plus a per head catering fee. The match day extras are no small amount as I recall from my days of corporate box attending many years ago.

Doubt that we see much of the corporate box money. I was mentioning it to underline that in the corporate world we are not seen as much of a drawcard at present. Hopefully it will change.

1 hour ago, small but forward said:

Does this table now prove that we are now one of the big 4 clubs in Melbourne?

Nope. Just shows that we have more passionate supporters who turn up to games.

We still have less supporters overall than the larger clubs and this is the reason why we wont get better game slots. Less people watching at home on tv.

Still, we are looking good at the moment which is great.

Frustrating as a Tasmanian that there are 2 QLD teams with a combined home attendance of 28,000.

2 hours ago, The Chazz said:

Given that the table only shows data from this year and the 2016 season, I'm not sure how you can claim that their fans dropped off in the past couple of seasons.  They absolutely would've dropped off last year given they fielded a seriously compromised team, so the % increase this year was always going to be higher.

Happy for you to show data of the 2015-2013 crowd averages to support your case.

No argument here, I should have been more specific, was agreeing on the big percentage increase from last year to this year.