Dr. Gonzo

From BigFooty (https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/2022-membership-updates.1290913/post-74512462) Apr 21, 2022 - Update Richmond = 94,639 West Coast = 90,000 (announced on February 22) Collingwood = 81,231 Carlton = 78,663 Essendon = 71,973 Geelong = 60,301 Hawthorn = 60,100 (as of February 19) Melbourne = 57,424 Port Adelaide = 56,577 St Kilda = 53,633 Western Bulldogs = 46,718 Fremantle = 46,633 North Melbourne = 43,643 Adelaide = 40,000 + (as of February 19) Brisbane Lions = 37,006 Sydney = 35,722 (as of February 19) GWS = 25,094 (as of February 19) Gold Coast = 8,721 (as of February 19) Carlton hit 80,000 today apparently

The AFL isn't built that way (salary cap, draft etc) but some clubs have managed to beat the system. Sydney and Geelong have been up for 20 years missing finals once or twice then back up. Hawks may prove to be that kind of club too albeit with another year or two outside the 8.

We could continue using Goschs for training and have our staff based at Punt Rd instead of AAMI Park Wouldn't happen but it could definitely work if it had to

That's not really true, at least according to the latest Roy Morgan poll. https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8799-afl-supporter-ladder-june-2021-202109210357 Anyhow, I'm not expecting us to get 60k to games against clubs like GWS/GC like the Pies and Tigers do when they're up and about (the Tigers drew 90k plus to the Prelim against GWS!). 35k-40k is not unreasonable for us I would have thought.

Jesus Macca how dare you tarnish me with that brush! I thought I'd been posting here for long enough to know I'm not a troll who crawled out from the gutter like Who 🤣

You're obviously new to Facebook 🤣 I really like the design, it's definitely busy and not sure how it will look in practice on the field but I love the actual design, the stars in the blue are great

It's not about how we are tracking relative to other teams. I don't care if we're first, seventh or thirteenth. WA has just allowed 100% capacity this week after starting the season at 50% capacity. Once that takes effect those club's will exceed our average. You say we are having our best season crowd wise since the early 60s - so we should be! We just broke a 57 year drought. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be expecting or pushing for more. Comparing our crowds to others is irrelevant because crowds are often dictated by performance. We are the standout team. Many others who typically draw good crowds are performing average to poor. You also need to exclude those games in smaller locations like Tassie, Cairns and Ballarat to get a true reflection. Just like we would typically exclude Alice Springs and Darwin games, it's not a true reflection. If you think we are only capable of drawing 20k-25k that's fine. I think we are capable of a whole lot more and the supporters are letting the club down.

Hopefully they remember their priorities down the track when the team isn't travelling well and we have to go cap in hand to the AFL again. Fact is we're not competing with suburban club's anymore it's a national comp with financial behemoths, club's that sell out 60k stadiums with reserved seating and waitlists on their season tickets.

This is a furphy. If Collingwood, Essendon, Carlton etc were coming off a flag and undefeated and we were meandering around the middle-bottom of the ladder we would not be looking at the same numbers. You are not comparing apples with apples, we are coming off a drought-breaking flag and sitting on top of the ladder undefeated. Our crowds realtive to club's like Essendon are irrelevant. It is a continual poor turnout from Melbourne supporters who had the excuse of night games, week night games, Easter holiday. Those excuses were not there Saturday so where was everyone? We would've been lucky to have had 25k of the 40k there.

What's the difference between a checkside and a banana? I thought they were the same kick (checkside being the SA name for it)?

Agree and it's not just the players it's the supporters. Last week the Tigers supporters were so subdued, cheering the goals, whinging at the umps of course but not much more - seems they know they're pushing it uphill to beat us so come in with a defeated mindset. Pretty boring.

Getting the Mother's Day slot is BS. If we had to be scheduled surely send us interstate against the Eagles or something, this has been a graveyard slot for years. Hawks drew only around 13k v GWS on mother's Day a couple of years back.

You're joking if you reckon those numbers are anywhere near accurate

Agreed 100%. The atmosphere at our games has been ****house and the empty stands are frankly embarrassing.

Agree and I think it cost us twice last year (the loss to Adelaide and the draw to Hawthorn). In both those games we had a break on the opposition (twice in the Hawks game) and allowed them back in. I'd like to see us a bit further in front before trying to ice a game, 5 goals with a quarter left is nothing.

I think it was also TMac who had a shot from about 45 out from the Warne Stand side to the city end when he had two players screaming for it on their own about 20 out directly in front. Terribly selfish and he missed the shot.

Isn't it obvious?

You watch the Saints game yet mate?

For all the outs we still have May, Lever, Gawn, Petracca, Oliver, Viney, Brown, TMac etc Hawks still look very light on but I expect them to come out firing, won't be an easy game today and could definitely see us getting rolled if we're not on our game. Obviously we missed a lot of shots last week but we were also very sloppy around the ground I thought, our touch/flow was just a bit off the whole night. Hopefully that's rectified today.

The bane of my childhood

Agree this has always bugged/confused me too.

🤣 She came to the GWS game, wants to come this week to. I can get her in anyway with our AFL memberships (usually at least one spare to use) but would've been nice to have the additional ticket. No biggie though.

This is a great deal but I wish I'd held off on my MILs membership. I bought her an armchair membership for $85, could saved $20 and got access to 6 home games 🤷‍♂️

They're doing that again? They did that when Fox Footy relaunched and we got every game without ads on Fox - it stopped after a while though as the AFL must have told 7 to pull their head in and stop acting so childish, Fox $ are just as green as 7s. Easy solution is to make the radio commentary available as an option through the fox service particularly for games simulcast from 7. Can't see it happening though.

The NFL earns $1 billion a year from ESPN for Monday Night Football alone (18 games now, previously 17 games). $4bn a year total (probably more now). The AFL will ultimately move down the path of selling off different packages (eg Thurs Night, Fri Night etc) - they pretty much do this already and have done so since 9 and 10 entered the fray in 2002 - they just announce it as one package. The only difference is there has been only one pay tv provider involved to this point so people don't worry so much but it is inevitable that there will be multiple pay tv services involved down the track. I'll happily pay for it too if it means less of the boofheads on 7 and we actually get some production that treats the game with respect