So how is that Fremantle Premiership coming along? about as good as the Richmond revival.

36k people tuned into FTA TV in Sydney to watch the current premiers and an undefeated Geelong on Friday night a big thumbs up for expansion. Lucky people in Melbourne and Adelaide have no life besides AFL to keep the ratings decent. Even the NRL got 40k in Melbourne last night. Think AFL ratings are similar to last year, with fox slightly up and FTA down continuing last years trend.

Must be a lot more things to do in Sydney than sit at home and watch AFL I guess.

Bit of a brawl in that Essendon game

A disappointing crowd today at the MCG, about 8,000 fewer than they were expecting.

Do not worry tomorrow has 2 monster blockbusters, Melbourne v GWS and NM v Brisbane should prop up the crowds up, get there early to miss the rush.

The save Hird campaign was a success though some 47k at a St Kilda home game today. As I posted before any publicity is good publicity it appears for Essendon.

What about the Gold Coast, what is going on there? 3 years in and they still look like a very ordinary team. Nice stadium built with taxpayers money but has it ever been more than half full besides a couple of games?

Is the Gold Coast the death of sporting teams? Does anyone follow any sport there? Do the players just get used to the relaxed lifestyle and this is reflected in their play?

Settle down. Wouldn't be surprised to see 30k for NM v Bris.

Attendances for round 4 to this point:

Syd vs Gee: 31,060
Haw vs Freo: 12,619
Rich vs Coll: 81,950
Ess vs St K: 46,965
WCE vs Carl: 38,674
GCS vs Port: 11,332

Cloke was massive yesterday, he's just phenomenal with his back to goal and really showed what he can do when he has some confidence in front of goal.

Also did anyone tune in to the alternate commentary running on Fox? It was the most hilariously one eyed commentary you'd ever hear, a real highlight was after Collingwood went 40 points up Eddie screaming out "WELCOME TO THE BIG TIME TIGES!".

Yeh, I tuned in to Eddy for a bit of a laugh.

SUP.

I only tuned in for the third quarter but my housemates and I were in stitches :lol:

Crowds today:

Melb vs GWS - 20,018
Adel vs WB - 24,684
Nth vs Bris - 22,776

Nope not even close, what a surprise.

Here are the clubs home averages after round 4.
Adelaide: 33,415 (2)
Brisbane: 21,308 (1)
Carlton: 80,971 (1)
Collingwood: 78,250 (2)
Essendon: 51,153 (1)
Fremantle: 37,796 (2)
Geelong: 38,696 (2)
Gold Coast: 12,708 (3)
Greater Western Sydney: 17,391 (2)
Hawthorn: 44,459 (2)
Melbourne: 20,504 (3)
North Melbourne: 25,679 (3)
Port Adelaide: 32,914 (2)
Richmond: 62,997 (2)
St Kilda: 51,874 (2)
Sydney: 25,716 (2)
West Coast: 38,531 (2)
Western Bulldogs: 22,236 (2)

Total round 4 attendances came to 289,074 for an average of 32,120

Total attendances after four rounds: 1,297,729
Average attendance year to date: 36,048

Someone asked earlier why people are excited about Majak Daw. He only lasted 13 minutes yesterday in his debut game, but it took him only 40 seconds to put his stamp on the game, coming 3 deep to take a big grab and convert from his first touch in AFL footy. North fans are definitely right to be excited:

http://www.afl.com.au/video/2013-04-21/majak-start

To be honest the only reason they are 'excited' is because he is obviously born overseas. It's the AFL harping on about they are for all types of Ozzies and aren't a pack of drunk bogans. The same thing happened with Nic Naitanui.

Keep convincing yourself of a 'World Cup'.

Essendon has set a membership record for itself with 50,441 members as of today.

Tigers went over 56k on the weekend.

Hawthorn has reached 59,322.

Little Port is at 37,701.

Vid preview for ANZAC Day clash:

[youtube]k-Uc4Ktl_1Q[/youtube]

Queensland must be an issue for the AFL at present, Gold Coast crowds have dropped by first year of 19k to 12k (including a derby game this year) and Brisbane are being propped by the AFL financially and are very poor on field.

Adelaide AFL fans are a fickle lot, Adelaide crowd sub 25k yesterday. Port's crowds up helped by the derby crowd. Port helped by the draw only really playing Adelaide as a decent team, look good for a WCE win as they have gone crap pretty fast. Sure like our winners here.

Think after first 4 rounds TV ratings on par to 2012, no one still watching much in the expansion non AFL states, despite having the reigning premiers. Crowds about 1% up at the same time last year, plenty of blockbusters and "derbies" with Anzac day game to come. Then will be interesting to see where things go from here.

Yep, my under 9 son played soccer in it in the morning when it was pouring down a lot harder than when the Crows game was on, so I would still expect Crows to get 30k+, has not been a real issue in the past.

Crowd averages 2013

Collingwood 69,873
Richmond 65,937
Carlton 61,783
Hawthorn 49,891
Geelong 46,188
Essendon 44,075
West Coast 33,816
Adelaide 32,229
St Kilda 32,168
W.Bulldogs 28,301
Melbourne 28,167
North Melbourne 27,798
Fremantle 26,855
Port Adelaide 25,021
Sydney 22,086
Brisbane Lions 20,577
GWS 19,981
Gold Coast 14,624

Top 10 crowds 2013

84247 Collingwood v Carlton M.C.G. 2013
81950 Richmond v Collingwood M.C.G. 2013
80971 Carlton v Richmond M.C.G. 2013
76300 Hawthorn v Geelong M.C.G. 2013
72254 Collingwood v Hawthorn M.C.G. 2013
56783 St Kilda v Richmond M.C.G. 2013
51153 Essendon v Melbourne M.C.G. 2013
46965 St Kilda v Essendon Docklands 2013
44045 Richmond v Western Bulldogs Docklands 2013
43241 Geelong v Carlton Docklands 2013

Think u have included home and away should just be home crowds otherwise does not make sense

The weather at AAMI is frequently abysmal. It's nothing new. Their fans should be used to it.

AFL media in fap overload with both the age and the hun talking crap about their participation and more AFL games in NZ and fucking Vanuatu.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/8582995/Sydney-Swans-hope-to-win-over-a-few-Kiwis

The travelling Australian media contingent outnumbered fans, as AFL arrived in Wellington yesterday.

The defending champion Sydney Swans were the first to fly into town, ahead of St Kilda's "home" clash at Westpac Stadium on Anzac Day.

Melbourne fans, Hannah 10, and Amy Williams, 6, on a coincidental family holiday in Wellington, were the sum total of the Swans' welcoming committee. Having heard their beloved "Swannies" were in town, the sisters got their guernseys on and dragged their parents down to the airport in the hope of meeting their heroes.

Most of the players were only too willing to sign autographs, before Swans defender Heath Grundy faced a media pack consisting of three Aussie print journos, a token Kiwi, a Channel 7 film crew and a cameraman and reporter from Swans TV.

Grundy's mum, Lynn, is a Kiwi, whose family emigrated to Australia when she was 4. Son Heath had no idea where his mum had lived prior to moving to Adelaide, opting for somewhere near Auckland as his best guess.

What he was sure about, on his first visit to these shores, was that there'd be about 30 Grundys at Westpac on Thursday for the first AFL regular season match to be played outside Australia.

:roll:

This is the article on footy in Vanuatu (and the South Pacific).

http://www.smh.com.au/afl/afl-news/south-pacific-sings-a-new-tune-20130423-2icxj.html


Why not?

People who play the game generally like it, and these island nations have many athletes suited to the game (like NicNat and others), and those who take to the game show a genuine ferocity at the ball.

What's the problem with introducing the game to them?

I don't understand why soccer fans go mental seeing articles like this. What's the big deal? It's just another option to play sport, just as we have many, many options in Australia.

Hand off it. It's nothing but a Victorian sport.

Also on the 7:30 report last night:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3743844.htm