Diamond_Jim

I wonder what the level of interest is in this game interstate. I suspect if you dig a little that it's not great. Similarly the level of interest in Melbourne in the Storm is abysmal. The GF really needs to go on the road occasionally. (One in every three years would be fine)

Enjoy the Melbourne v Sydney game tonight aka Storm v Roosters

I have often wondered if Irish recruitment costs are inside or outside the soft cap. If not it's a decent opportunity for the wealthier clubs. Sounds like these guys will just be in the normal draft so there is no real advantage to any one club in developing a pathway. Not even sure I like the idea of raiding the Irish Gaelic comp. European soccer has effectively killed off Africans and South Americans seeing their stars play locally with the local leagues being a shadow of what they once were

No that goes to the competition known as VFL

what is strange is the number of best on grounds that the winners get. You would expect far more one and two votes in a proper statistical spread. Being the top player out of a possible 46 on 12 occasions is hard to believe. Cripps is good but he's no phenomenal superstar

Will it ever change..... Sydney Swans and Brisbane Lions fans are facing Melbourne airfares at more than twice the normal rates, forcing some to contemplate driving as cheaper places on trains fill up ahead of the first all-interstate final since 2006. As of 1pm AEST on Monday, flights leaving either city on Friday and returning on the Sunday of the grand final weekend were around double the cost of the same trips the following week for each of the three main carriers. Excluding flights on its low-cost carrier Jetstar, the starting price for a round-trip from Sydney with Qantas was $1016, compared with $499 the following weekend. Virgin return flights from Sydney were cheaper, at $684, but flights from Brisbane started at $1360, more than double what they were the week after. On the Jetstar route to Brisbane, return flights started at an eye-watering $1807, more than three times the amount for flights the next week. Non-stop Jetstar flights are now also unavailable for returning to Brisbane on Sunday, 29th September. https://www.theage.com.au/traveller/travel-news/swans-and-lions-fans-fork-out-double-for-grand-final-airfares-20240923-p5kcms.html

No wildcard surprises me as it kind of made sense (far more than round zero)

AFL Members are sold out so it's looking like a sellout all round. In reality there aren't that many seats available having regard to the popularity of the event itself. Surprised that the MCC has not gone full ballot but I suspect it will come. I prefer the ballot to the online ticketmaster rush that AFL members have.

There was a ballot which allocated 14,500 reserved seats Total Number of Unrestricted MCC members is now around 41k with a further 20k unrestricted who aren't eligible for the GF

around 7-7:30 am is my guess. Gates open at 8am. You enter get your seat and will be given a reserved ticket for that seat. You then disappear and return around 1pm or thereabouts. Brunch places will be doing a roaring trade. You could take a punt on later but it's up to you. There are only 7k unreserved seats https://mcc.org.au/my-mcc-membership/visiting-the-members-reserve/2024-afl-finals-series/2024-afl-grand-final#Access

If you can over summer watch each game of the 2021 season. (Most games are on youtube) From a scratchy error filled game in Round 1 against Freo you can see the gameplan evolve. Even the kick to the forward pocket. Cannot quite remember when we hit our straps but IIRC it's around mid season. The final H&A game in the empty Geelong stadium is unreal. Kind of sorry they used the fake crowd noise as it was almost other worldly that year. There's a version of the G&F with Denis Commeti commentating. My favourite. BTW I trace the turnaround from Mitch Hannan's failed disposal into the Dog's forward line. It happens about 30 seconds before Caleb Daniels dumps Max Gawn and the rest is history.

The last Virgin flight to Brisbane out of Melbourne is 22:30 which I suppose explains the weird start time. Frankly you'd think that between the AFL and channel 7 they could afford to charter a later plane and make it say a 7pm start

This finals series is feeling like what Hawthorn or Geelong supporters must feel when their team misses finals..... Irrelevant !

I don't follow the pokie machine industry in depth but as I recall we exited at the top of the market I think. Since then the various restrictions and licensing amendments have made the individual pokie machines far less valuable. So income wise perhaps we have not lost that much. On the other hand we missed the big boom in land prices and perhaps a sale of the Bentleigh club today would have given more. The real answer is a big future fund with diverse assets such as those held by US universities. They take decades to build but you need to start sometime

It's not so much about the crown leasehold it's the ability to transfer the leasehold and its improvements at value. This leasehold will be littered with covenants limiting its end use. There is not a great market for AFL facilities. In the case of Hawthorn and Essendon they can subject to planning approval sell the underlying land for industrial or residential use. We could end up like say North Melbourne which carries a large asset on its books in the form of "leasehold improvements" at Arden Street. Take that asset out of their balance sheet and it looks rather sick. In short we need to raise fresh capital to complete this activity or better still get the Government to pay for it a la Geelong and Footscray.

Agree. This is why we should not be using Future fund capital on the build. At least Essendon and Hawthorn own their land.

Hope not That is "future fund" money. Use the income but not the capital. Frankly we should have been raising money for the training ground for years. Of the $113M being spent by the Hawks various governments are putting up $30M ($15M from each of State and Federal)

Dingley has a budgeted cost of $113 M for the Hawks facility (The land cost was under $8M)

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Mobiles will be okay. It's the television they'll restrict. Netflix operates that way. As an aside Foxtel is up for sale and the most likely buyer is a foreign hedge fund turnaround organisation. They'll pretty it up and onsell it in in five years. The mega rights deals with AFL, NRL and cricket will make for interesting negotiations with the offshore owners

The $35 sub is for 4k... 2 screens I suspect password sharing will disappear by 2026... It is the way

Gambling sponsorships like tobacco in the last century will be gone within ten years. I wonder who will be the mega sponsors of the future Watching AFL and NRL I often have no idea who the main jumper sponsors are so I'm obviously not the target market

Just to let people know that the Digital membership with Kayo is likely to rise substantially for 2025. Collingwood are reportedly charging $350 which is only $60 or so under the usual 12 month price. Definitely now worth opting out around August for those who just want football

Oh well Feasibility is a step ahead of "concept plans" Frankly I expected a little more after all these years

To be fair he's proving better than Schache