Oh now come on.

You are being a bit rude. i didn't say you were a dickhead.

Can one of the AFL fans on here, Jatz....Footballer...., explain to me how the AFL Sydney derby gets less than the season averages?

Are the regular season crowds really made up predominantly of away fans from AFL states?

Ha. Nice try dawner. 

Some of of us want to talk football and the state of our game - take your afl obsession elsewhere. 

I don't understand if you're being serious here or not. 
Sydney Swans got over 29k for a game against the Giants who have the second smallest fan base in AFL.
So the 29k is pretty normal and can't be compared with Melbourne, Adelaide, or WA derbies where easily over 50k people go to.
Overall I'm just puzzled how that sport gets in so many people, I've been to one game and walked out in the 3rd quarter out of boredom. 
Their crowd numbers are hugely impressive, especially when you consider their worst clubs still average over 15k a season and three probably only about 3 or 4 of those clubs. 

Pretty much every Aussie Rules fan is an AFL fan. Where as football had a stat that suggested over 70% of registered players are ignoring the A League (not sure how that translates to fans)

The AFL uses the same model as the NFL which is about uniting an entire audience behind a single league. As a global game we cant do that. Instead we need to look at how the 80/20 rule. Its no surprise or coincidence that every league around the world has a big 4 or 5 teams. Thats how global markets work

When WSW and BR are at the foot of the table and there is less than 8k for a game between MV and WSW it shows how wasteful we are with the 80/20 rule

Our biggest problem clearly was and is the FFA and their direction. They brag about the rate we have of registered players, yet totally ignore them and come up with ways to try and get non football people to our games.
We had a decent enough following in football, however instead of finding out ways of getting more football fans attending, the FFA basically pushed many fans away who already attended, and basically left those who don't attend with no reason to want to come to games. At the same time their stupid idea of getting non football people to come didn't work for the simple obvious reason, which is they simply don't like football so why bother with them. 
But overall back into the AFL their crowds are very impressive. 

Careful. Eldar will jump out from behind a tree and shout “AFL FAN!!!”

😂

Yeah, sorry, I still don't understand how a derby can draw less than a regular home game?

Please explain AFL fanbois


Some other crowds worth analysing are 10k for the Waratahs massive Parramatta stadium game and 6k for Bulldogs ANZAC match.

 Yeh Union and League crowds are shit, especially considering how long those sports have been around for compared to the A-league but there's no mocking AFL crowds, and that's coming from someone who absolutely hates that sport. 
By the way 29k was lower than the average AFL crowd, but higher than the average Sydney Swans crowd this season so it makes perfect sense doesn't it?

Well, it would be the equivalent of having a WSW Sydney derby in Football of 8k and considering everyone thought 21k was shit, I can only image we should hold this game to similar scrutiny.

Every single derby crowd in the A-league was shit this season we can't deny that, however for all 3 games there was legitimate reasons people need to understand. 
Overall we can't hide from the fact our crowds across the league have been down. 
Anyways fuck AFL I'm not defending it, however there's no way we can mock their crowd numbers, not us nor any other codes fans in this country. 

The Sydney derby is our biggest game of the year. And we’d all agree that 21k is pretty ordinary. But whatever. 

The Sydney derby is not the biggest game for the AFL - not by a long way. The AFL Anzac game got 92k, so that’d be the comparison if you’re looking for one, but I guess by pointing out obvious facts we must all be secret undercover AFL fanbois 🤣🤣

Yeah, the AFL crowds are impressive. Maybe we should copy what they are doing, closed league, fish where the fish are, salary cap.....what about introducing a draft?

Well the problem is we have been copying them and NRL.
We're football and as you know football is played all over the world. We don't need a stupid salary cap, or 5 clubs from Sydney and Melbourne and none in places like Canberra, Wollongong, and Tasmania. We don't need stadiums like Marvell stadium and the MCG, we need smaller boutique stadiums, yet all we have done is pretty much the opposite to what we need to do.
Clearly there is a problem with the way football is run in Australia. 
And honestly I couldn't care less about matching AFL crowds, all I hope for is a proper run league with decent crowds. Something we haven't had last few seasons. 

This post is spot on. There are parents I know that will watch little johnny play football in the morning and then go to an AFL match in the afternoon, but never consider the HAL
because they are disenfranchised.

That’s a silly excuse as not much of little johnnys games clash with the largely summer based A league. It’s really only the end of the season. Which imo makes this an even bigger failure as it’s not as if these kids are watching test cricket or bbl.

They have been disenfranchised going well back into the NSL days. Do you think kids at games were wearing South Melbourne kits to training before going to an NSL game?

I don't get it, what excuse are you talking about? 

The excuse that we keep hearing about how hard it is to engage our juniors with our top flight. It’s an epic failure on the part of the ffa imo. I look at the npl currently, South play on Sundays and we can’t even get our own juniors to the games because these kids are playing all over Melbourne on the same day. The ffa’s inability to get these kids to the grounds in the summer months isn’t good enough. I laugh when people say the A league has no clean air because of cricket, tennis, horse racing or whatever other crap is on. Really it’s no factor.

Every now and then I read a post that mostly nails what people know but can't put their finger on it properly, this is one of those, it resonated with me, bravo.

Attendance dropped 2.4% this season.  Thats a reasonable recovery after a poor start to the season.  Let's hope that it was the bottom of the trough and it starts to improve next season.

I can only talk about Sydney from experience and I wonder why anyone expects there to be a connection between the elite clubs and the 200k players in community football there when for 45 years the state and national league turned their backs on their predecessors and played the game for the "enclaves".  The footballing masses were taught that the elite arm of the game was not for them by the actions of a lot of the elite clubs.

The old adage "get the parents and you'll get the kids" rings true with regard to football attendance in Sydney.  It will take a generation or more to address the lack of connection with the masses playing the game and parents modelling their love of the game at the elite level is the key.

I agree with everything you said there, I'm just confused about this excuse you're talking about. I've done nothing but blame the FFA and likewise with others who posted on this matter. 

I find this post very confusing. So what you're trying to say is that because something was run so bad for 45 years in the past, it is very acceptable to run football in present and in future in the exact same bad way of the past?

Pretty much what the league is living on atm. 

It's no longer directly comparable with the new teams coming in. Personally I think the league will be going okay if it can maintain an average above 10k with the addition of the new teams.

We need a new criteriaafter this new team. It should be up with all the fanfare around such an exciting new team.

Based on what?

A specific calculation or a figure somebody pulled out of their ass in 2004 which has become the benchmark for everything?

The current attendance average which was not deemed acceptable is ~10,500. What you are saying is with a bias draw towards hand picked big games, less games, and the introduction of two metro teams, a reduction in average attendances means we are progressing along nicely

crowds matter for 2 reasons

one, they can can make CLUBS viable - rather than existing on handouts from the FFA.

and two, they improve atmosphere and energy, which can have an indirect impact on the broadcast product. Big crowds look better on tv

Disagree.

Packed stadiums look better. A 10k crowd at Knights Stadium looks better than a 10k crowd at Suncorp.