Kozzie4PM

Anyway it seems like a lot of people are partial to the move anyway so maybe I'm wrong!!

It doesn't buy you any say in proceedings. The AFL decides scheduling. They have decided to absolutely maximise profit by shifting the granny, rather than still make a killing albeit slightly less because they kept a tradition of the game intact. These kinds of things are presented as "the way the world's going" and "inevitable" but they're actually not. In reality the wishes of fans who come week in week out for decades are taking a backseat to the last 5% of people who don't really care but are more likely to switch on if it's at night.

A version of this argument gets trotted out for every unpopular change to the game's traditions. It made sense when the game was semi-professional but not now that the players earn big bucks. What would be the impact on the standard of play if the players' wages increased by 2% instead of 4%? A small amount of extra profit does not automatically equal a better game.

Yuck. Just wanted one normal one before they ruin it with disco lights etc.

I've gotten used to it straight away 😂😂

Long live Maysie. MFC legend.

Agree with the first part of this. Would normally want to punish a big club like WC but surely thousands of them supported us at the granny.

Doesn't get enough credit imv. MFC Legend.

No I don't think that's right at all based on the various stats posted throughout this thread.

I was disciplined like tmac and didn't start crying until after his goal sailed through 😂

My apologies. I thought we had about 200k and Collingwood/Essendon/Carlton all had 800k-1mil. But that is clearly incorrect. Thank you for posting that link. However, Melbourne does get a higher attendance to fan ratio and higher member to fan ratio than almost any other club. Importantly, this was the case even when we were garbage. I think we have a small, loyal and passionate supporter base. The fact we aren't getting runaway attendances post a premiership actually shows how passionate and loyal our fans are. Many here are arguing the opposite.

Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon have literally 4-5 times as many supporters as us.

Hmmm but we wouldn't want to let the actual data get in the way of good old fashioned hysteria.

When its a 6 day break vs a 5 day break, the 6 day break team always wins. Plus we are heaps better. 26 point win coming up.

I know a lot of hawks fans who are fine and a lot who are arrogant flogs. I try and be fair with who i dish it out to 😂

We don't get big crowds cos we don't have many fans. Being premiers only has a marginal influence on that. It's a beat up cos we're premiers and people are jealous of us.

Crowds are down across the comp. It's not specific to Melbourne. The other thing is, we don't have many fans.

I reckon it should be 15 million for 9 years!!

I was going to say that! Opposition fans don't dread playing us - they see it as an opportunity to get their coach sacked.

Smith is not coming in for Tomlinson. We have played two gorillas at the back for the last 7,000 weeks in a row.

We were bottom in 08.

Might not have been too pretty going forward, but we are arguably the best defensive team in the history of the game.

Yeh he was talking about Sandy. But there has been a trend to more private school players in the AFL. I imagine it's solely down to the scholarships.

Agree with this. Love Thursday nights but not us!

Not yet but let's revisit this in a couple of years 😂