Expansion Lowest finals crowd since WW1...

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I went to the game last night as an Eagles supporter. Whilst obviously there were more Giants fans then Eagles it did feel like I was in Perth due to the noise of our supporters.

Tickets were $80 (which I paid half price as a Telstra customer). That is huge money in western Sydney. Imagine a family of four?

Also there happened to be an NRL game on at the same time literally next door involving a more well known western Sydney sporting team named the Parramatta Eels. I has it a guess that may have reduced this Giants crowd by at least a few thousand fans.
 
Probably would of been hoping for 20K, so there will be disappointment but Geel/Sydney had 55k on friday night and neutral AFL members still could of get cheap seats. The pricing for club members is too steep, especially when we have gone in the direction of young fans, parents aren't gonna shell out a couple of hundred just for a footy match when they can just watch it on tv. AFL finals ticket pricing has always relied on the starved, rusted on fans to camp out and buy a ticket at any cost, Richmond fans will be thier success story for saying there is no issue with the pricing but its time to review it. A club member going to 2-3 finals is up for a lot of money, especially if they have to travel.
 

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The clash with Parramatta's final was not ideal. Also GWS are being marketed at young people (which explains the branding) so they needed an afternoon or twilight game to push it into the 18k mark.

Based on h&a crowds surely people didn't expect a final against a Perth side to sell out. I'm surprised by the reaction.

Good win, btw.
 
The_Wookie said:
GWS and Gold Coast were created for the same reason that West Coast and Adelaide were. The AFL saw an opportinuty to move into the market and make some money.
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Get your hand off it, West Coast and Adelaide debuted to packed stands and massive public and media interest. If that isn't a groundswell of public interest and support what is?
 
BIRDBRAIN said:
100% agree with everything in this post. They are not a football club, they didn't come about because there was a groundswell of local support desperate for a team and desperate to watch football played at it's highest level. It is a fake AFL-funded team, which the AFL have gifted enough concessions to ensure they win a few fake flags. This entity is nothing but a sick AFL social engineering project.

I'm not sure success will breed anything in Western Sydney either. If anything, handing out fake flags to the likes of The GWS will make the AFL out to be a rigged, joke of a competition, which it is. The flags are going to be the bait on the AFL's hook and the people of Western Sydney are the big gullible fish with their big gullible mortgages, are they dumb enough to take the bait?
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Lol. Keep confirming why your name is an accurate description of you and not a witty play on words.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
No surprise - lots of Eagles supporters considering they had to travel but that is common at Giants games.

Blaming the game next door is an excuse - 10K people didnt make a decision between the teo games and all decided with the AFL.

Absolutely no coverage here even with 2 teams.....everything is league
 
BIRDBRAIN said:
Get your hand off it, West Coast and Adelaide debuted to packed stands and massive public and media interest. If that isn't a groundswell of public interest and support what is?
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it was non existent before hand. What happened after was because of the teams creation, not because of popular demand for a team.
 
placing this crowd in context:
- GWS are Sydney's second AFL team. Up until the GWS was formed all AFL fans in Sydney would have supported the swans or an AFL club from another state. It will take many years of success for the giants to build a respectable supporter base.
- Sydney are hardly known for their sporting attendances. Even last week the NRL in Sydney recorded a finals crowd of 15k between 2 Sydney teams
- There were other sports involving western Sydney on at the same time
 

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irish said:
God what happens as there players are poached and assistance from daddy ( AFL ) stops and they slump down the ladder ? Have to be free entry to get anyone in

Bit of a worry
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They will get propped up for decades just like the Swans.

GWS are an 8 year old club in a non AFL market. Crowd numbers are hardly an issue at this point.
 
Whatever the reasons, by AFL standards it was a terrible crowd.

This is not having a go at the people of western Sydney, who - in the main - never wanted an AFL team and now have no interest in it just because it is there.

AFL is not and almost certainly never will be the No 1 sport in the northern states.

With no disrespect to the Swans supporters here, it would be interesting to see the effect on Sydney home crowds if they had a drop off in performance for a few years. In the early to mid 90's, Swans home crowds were often less than 10,000. They were a real bottom side in that era, but had been in Sydney 10+ years by then.

When Brisbane won their three flags and for a few years after they had great crowds at the Gabba. They had regular full houses, and averages favourably comparable to overall league averages. Now their crowds are half or less of AFL averages.

The point is that genuine, sustained broad support is and probably always will be very difficult for clubs in northern states to achieve, and western Sydney will be the hardest market of all.
 
As mentioned in the gameday thread, the Eels (one of the biggest Western Sydney teams) were playing next door, the Matildas played Brazil in Penrith(?) earlier in the afternoon, and the Wallabies played in Canberra. Lots of competing sport fixtures for the Giants to contend with this weekend. 15000 would be disappointing (17500 would be the pass mark for a final against a WA side who never thought they'd get this far), but this is only their sixth year in the competition, and second in finals, and they've had a lacklustre formline in recent months.

The giants as indicated in some previous posts also don't really have a night game culture. Very much a family afternoon/twilight supporter base. Increased relevance onfield means they are getting more night games now with the FTA networks, but a lot of these are away games.

The amount of Eels and Eagles colours in the same precinct was surreal.
 
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More attendees at a women's soccer game than at the football. Lol. Unless they are playing a Vic team in a home final ( who can fill a stadium for them), they should lose the right to host. It won't be a long term issue though. They'll be bundled off to Canberra in a few years. Hard to fathom how the marketers can make them appealing. A soulless, plastic team competing with another team in the same city that actually has some history and appeal, and has been super competitive for a decade. Hard sell. Can't wait to watch them melt in the heat of a final with 90k rabid Tiger fans bellowing at them.
 
Not to disparage women's sport but if you aren't going to a crunch football final because of that then it isn't very likely you'd have gone to the footy anyway
 
schmuttt said:
I raised it as a discussion point, I don't really care about GWS that much. So we should be expecting them to sell out Spotless in 2025?
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2025-2030 you'd hope the numbers start to consistently rise year upon year. For now I expect difficulty in maintaining support if there is a better option (NRL next door, Wallabies in Canberra which is GWS 2nd home).

At least 15 years before a crowd like this becomes panic stations.
 
RUNVS said:
Either way it is a stupid thread because GWS are 5 years old, and they are aiming to get new young fans. Those young fans, lets say they were 6 in 2012, will not be even able to go to games by themselves for another 6 years at least.
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Can't go to the footy alone until they're 17?

Pussies.
 
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12 of their top 18 home crowds (excluding Olympic Stadium games) were in 2016 and 2017.

Only 1 cracks their lowest 20 (v GC this year).

Averaging 3,000 more a game already compared to year 1.

And to put it into perspective, yes the crowd drew less than the H&A fixture, but that H&A fixture was their 5th highest home crowd ever (at Spotless or Manuka). So I believe it is fair to say there must be other factors involved.
 

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Expansion Lowest finals crowd since WW1...

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