NT is South Australia backyard

[Diamond_Jim 11,768]

Surprised by the 'surprise" expressed in the post game thread about the crowd being Pro Adelaide.

NT has been a major supporter of South Australian teams for decades.

Similarly due to geographical location Adelaide has always been the "big smoke" for NT residents.

If anybody thinks we are building support in the NT by this fiasco they believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden and that Port will have 200M Chinese followers after today.

It's about money pure and simple.

A few people have been potting Pert lately but I'm not sure he has had much time to do anything wrong. Last year IIRC Jackson re- signed us to another four years of ignominy in the North.

If Pert can get rid of these games he'll have my backing for that alone.

No one else does such a ridiculous transition... (Port in China is a joke)... Tasmania is reasonable and will change soon when North relocates (I hope.) Even the Bulldogs are now paid to play in Ballarat whereas in recent years they were sent to Cairns.

Last year all the members had to pay $5 to go on the waiting list for GF tickets that never eventuated. We happily paid it. Would we each pay $5 to Ditch Darwin.

[At the break of Gawn 3,497]

Big clubs don’t sell their home games.

Collingwood doesn’t. Richmond doesn’t. Essendon doesn’t. Even Carlton doesn’t!

End the contract.

[Leoncelli_36 2,264]

It is so bad that we play interstate sides there, who clearly have more support in that part of Australia than us. Not only that, but we give up a home ground advantage against an interstate side. I’d actually prefer to play bulldogs or Norf up there. I hate that we draw West coast/Adelaide/Port/Fremantle 

[Diamond_Jim 11,768]

Playing a Queensland side or GWS would reduce the natural crowd bias.

Playing WCE in Alice is a classic example of an own goal if the game meant anything this season.

Strange you know... AFL would be desperate to get games in Darwin so it really should not be an issue demanding we play team X. The problem is we did a deal with the NT Government without doing a concurrent deal with the AFL.

We can be so dumb off the field as well as on sometimes.

[John Demonic 4,804]

Does anyone know how many Crow fans travel up there? When i saw a shot of the main stadium on the wing, the entire crowd jumped up to their feet in celebration, it was either after either a goal or the siren i can't recall. Made me bloody angry. Aside from our cheer squad and a small pocket of indigenous girls on the half forward flank cheering when Gawn took a mark, i didn't see much support for us.

Edited June 2, 2019 by John Demonic

[Diamond_Jim 11,768]

33 minutes ago, John Demonic said:

Does anyone know how many Crow fans travel up there? When i saw a shot of the main stadium on the wing, the entire crowd jumped up to their feet in celebration, it was either after either a goal or the siren i can't recall. Made me bloody angry. Aside from our cheer squad and a small pocket of indigenous girls on the half forward flank cheering when Gawn took a mark, i didn't see much support for us.

Not sure how many Crows supporters travel but probably equal to the number of MFC supporters.NT has been the home of the SA teams for years. The Port support is even bigger.

The airfares from Melbourne are similar to those charged to fly to Asia and beyond plus the accommodation costs are among the highest in Australia.

If we have to play outside Melbourne I'd like to see us play in Mildura.. (lobby for State Government money and it's a marginal seat.)

[John Crow Batty 8,255]

I reckon we could make more money by selling our home games to Optus Oval in Perth and Adelaide Oval. Guaranteed 40,000 plus fans every game. Interstate fans will pay good money to boo and laugh us.

Edited June 2, 2019 by america de cali

[Diamond_Jim 11,768]

14 minutes ago, america de cali said:

I reckon we could make more money by selling our home games to Optus Oval in Perth and Adelaide Oval. Guaranteed 40,000 plus fans every game. Interstate fans will pay good money to boo and laugh us.

don't laugh we did that to Brisbane in their glory days. The Melbourne power clubs complained that we were gifting pints to the Lions.

[Hellaintabadplacetobe 4,089]

Can anyone tell me what the humidity was last night?

From memory we have rarely won the following week after a Darwin match and look spent early. 9 day break will help next week though  

[Diamond_Jim 11,768]

32 minutes ago, Hell Bent said:

Can anyone tell me what the humidity was last night?

From memory we have rarely won the following week after a Darwin match and look spent early. 9 day break will help next week though  

65-70% with a  temp of around 27. Has been worse but a major change from Melbourne conditions. The humidity unless you are acclimatised is a "killer".

That being said I have big respect for the Socceroos players who mange even bigger temperature changes during the World Cup qualification series.

We should have insisted on a bye as part of the deal. The Shanghai slingers get one every year.

Fixturing Darwin the week before QB was madness all round. Alice okay but not Darwin.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Diamond_Jim

[buck_nekkid 5,488]

Would be better if we played GWS or kangas.  We could market it as our home game and not fall for the old 2 card trick of selling a game and having the crowd so far against us.

[Roger Mellie 3,503]

10 minutes ago, buck_nekkid said:

Would be better if we played GWS or kangas.  We could market it as our home game and not fall for the old 2 card trick of selling a game and having the crowd so far against us.

Agree. The support base is for SA and WA in Darwin and Alice. If the AFL want to show their wares in the NT and the the 4 SA/WA clubs wont partake (sacrifice a home game), then they shouldn't benefit from it. We should play eastern state sides.

[At the break of Gawn 3,497]

Remember when we did the Gabba deals in the late 90s early 2000s? 

That actually would have been a heap better the last 5 years with Brisbane being poor (not so much this year).

[rjay 23,922]

12 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Playing a Queensland side or GWS would reduce the natural crowd bias

It would also reduce the crowd substantially.

We have little to no support up there & they have less.

Time to end the experiment...we don't make enough cash to throw away games like this.

 

[DeeSpencer 23,134]

20k to a home game on a nice weathers day against GWS. Yes we are struggling this year but the reality is we have to get bigger crowds at our current 9 home games to demand 11 at the MCG.

We'd probably only ever get 10 at the MCG and 1 at Marvel anyway, which we do play quite well these days but we wouldn't attend all that well.

Hawthorn have shown the brilliance of the Tassie deal was it worked in 3 ways:
1. Home ground advantage
2. Cash
3. Made their members hungrier for remaining home games.

We don't have the home ground advantage - although you'd think we are better adjusted than several other sides - but we get benefits 2 and 3 and there's no reason to stop that.

[Happeninghunts 7]

19 hours ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Big clubs don’t sell their home games.

Collingwood doesn’t. Richmond doesn’t. Essendon doesn’t. Even Carlton doesn’t!

End the contract.

Look how many members they have compared to us.

[Wells 11 4,744]

39 minutes ago, Happeninghunts said:

Look how many members they have compared to us.

Exactly. I hate we sell a home game but truth is We’re a struggling small club and we do what we need to do to survive ... until a better approach is found. We gave up the pokies income which is moral and the right thing to do but dangerous to the bottom line. ( didn’t bring the new training base either)  

As diamond Jim said... we should have bargained with the AFL about who we played there not whether or not we play there atm. 

[Moonshadow 16,199]

On 6/2/2019 at 10:53 AM, At the break of Gawn said:

Big clubs don’t sell their home games.

Collingwood doesn’t. Richmond doesn’t. Essendon doesn’t. Even Carlton doesn’t!

End the contract.

Hawthorn in Tasmania 

And Richmond have in Cairns until not so long ago

Edited June 3, 2019 by Moonshadow

[rjay 23,922]

10 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

20k to a home game on a nice weathers day against GWS.

Hawthorn GWS at MCG 14k...

Apart from some very long term Hawthorn supporters, and I reckon I could almost name & know them personally.

Their membership numbers flatter them...they don't turn up when things aren't going well, at least we do.

...and we cop the snow BS.

[loges 6,027]

On 6/2/2019 at 12:27 PM, Hell Bent said:

Can anyone tell me what the humidity was last night?

From memory we have rarely won the following week after a Darwin match and look spent early. 9 day break will help next week though  

Been up here since Thursday night and although the night was warm I wouldn't say humidity was a factor at all, it's been more of a dry heat every day. Temperature in the high twenties. And no there was no dew either.

[DV8 2,271]

On 6/2/2019 at 10:53 AM, At the break of Gawn said:

Big clubs don’t sell their home games.

Collingwood doesn’t. Richmond doesn’t. Essendon doesn’t. Even Carlton doesn’t!

End the contract.

 

8 hours ago, Happeninghunts said:

Look how many members they have compared to us.

And the numbers of viewers who want to watch those clubs, compared to us.

 

The more 'we all'  want to watch those power-clubs on the telly...  the more we shoot ourselves in our own troublesome feet.

[praha 10,279]

On 6/2/2019 at 10:53 AM, At the break of Gawn said:

Big clubs don’t sell their home games.

Collingwood doesn’t. Richmond doesn’t. Essendon doesn’t. Even Carlton doesn’t!

End the contract.

Richmond was only up to a few years ago.

[praha 10,279]

14 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

20k to a home game on a nice weathers day against GWS. Yes we are struggling this year but the reality is we have to get bigger crowds at our current 9 home games to demand 11 at the MCG.

We'd probably only ever get 10 at the MCG and 1 at Marvel anyway, which we do play quite well these days but we wouldn't attend all that well.

Hawthorn have shown the brilliance of the Tassie deal was it worked in 3 ways:
1. Home ground advantage
2. Cash
3. Made their members hungrier for remaining home games.

We don't have the home ground advantage - although you'd think we are better adjusted than several other sides - but we get benefits 2 and 3 and there's no reason to stop that.

We can't build a home ground advantage there with only two games a year though against the same teams. Which is the double edged sword. We go there for money but sacrifice MCG home games. In the process the teams we play in NT have the same exposure us as because it's always the same teams. We can only really afford to play the SA and WA teams there because they will bring crowds. You can bet WC support will outnumber Melbourne support 3-1 when we play them there is round 18.

The club should at least ask the AFL to cycle opponents. One year we play Adelaide and WC, the next Port and Freo. Adelaide has played in Darwin 2 of the past 3 times we've played there.

[Diamond_Jim 11,768]

9 minutes ago, praha said:

We can only really afford to play the SA and WA teams there because they will bring crowds.

The Darwin stadium only has a capacity of 12.5k and the Alice Springs 10k so the crowd numbers are not that relevant.

The game is underwritten by the NT government who carry the crowd risk anyway.

It's a soul destroying money opportunity that has no upside. FWIW if you are thinking of growing the membership base, the city of Casey alone has more than twice the population of the whole of Darwin.

[DeeSpencer 23,134]

14 minutes ago, praha said:

We can't build a home ground advantage there with only two games a year though against the same teams. Which is the double edged sword. We go there for money but sacrifice MCG home games. In the process the teams we play in NT have the same exposure us as because it's always the same teams. We can only really afford to play the SA and WA teams there because they will bring crowds. You can bet WC support will outnumber Melbourne support 3-1 when we play them there is round 18.

The club should at least ask the AFL to cycle opponents. One year we play Adelaide and WC, the next Port and Freo. Adelaide has played in Darwin 2 of the past 3 times we've played there.

Darwin - Adel, Freo, Adel, Freo, WCE, Freo
Alice - (  WCE ), Adel, GC, Port, Port, Port

Port might've cleverly extricated themselves from the NT games due to the China game. I don't particularly care who we play and where as long as it's not the same team at the same ground every year. I can deal with it being the Crows up there every 2nd year. We go there every year and can adapt to the conditions more often. It won't be a huge home ground advantage one way or another.