"The home of football"

[base615]

For the third time: my point (and that the point of this thread) is that bigfooty has an obsession with a level playing field, except when it doesn't have any great benefit to their team. Some arguments which are being used in this thread to justify something which is unfair (the minor premier traveling to the home ground of the lower qualifier, who's played there three or four as many times this year) are ridiculed in other arguments about equality in the league. Your opinion on where the grand final is best played has no impact upon that, so you saying "your point is wrong", and listing sporting events is... I don't know.

You fundamentally don't understand the fairness or advantage of home ground though. Home ground advantage is predominately about having your own fans there. In the GF this is largely negated by having equal numbers of fans from each competing team. It's just not an issue.

The decision on venue would need to be made before the start of the season making it entirely possible that Hawthorn could be minor premiers and end up playing Sydney at ANZ. How does that resolve your perceived problem? It just doesn't make sense and that's before getting to the arguments about tradition, quality of ground etc.

 

[wild side]

Us interlopers provide a huge boost to the Melbourne economy in the GF week!
What does the Melbourne economy do for the rest of us ?
Take an inordinate amount of the GST!
Basically sweet FA.

 

[base615]

Us interlopers provide a huge boost to the Melbourne economy in the GF week!
What does the Melbourne economy do for the rest of us ?
Take an inordinate amount of the GST!
Basically sweet FA.

Look at Western Australia's GST revenue going to other states as a kind of campaigner tax

 

[base615]

is there anything sydney won't taint with their arrogance?

Can I just point out that there are about 3 Sydney fans on the "move it" side of the argument and almost all of the rest of us are in favour of keeping the grand final at the G.

 

[Kummerspeck]

You fundamentally don't understand the fairness or advantage of home ground though. Home ground advantage is predominately about having your own fans there.

Again, you seem to be confusing your opinion with fact. How is having your own fans there more important than playing at a ground you have a greater opportunity to play and train on throughout the year or not having to travel play there?

In any case, as I mentioned earlier, I don't really care where it's played. Just the sudden disinterest in advantage and disadvantage when suitable.

 

[wheels08]

Is COLA the main reason Sydney are relevant?

I ask this because the answer is the same. Yes.

Foolish post

 

[base615]

Again, you seem to be confusing your opinion with fact. How is having your own fans there more important than playing at a ground you have a greater opportunity to play and train on throughout the year or not having to travel play there?

In any case, as I mentioned earlier, I don't really care where it's played. Just the sudden disinterest in advantage and disadvantage when suitable.

You're aware that Hawthorn also don't train on the MCG? We've played there 3 times this year which should be enough to understand any particular idiosyncrasies.

 

[replicant]

You fundamentally don't understand the fairness or advantage of home ground though. Home ground advantage is predominately about having your own fans there. In the GF this is largely negated by having equal numbers of fans from each competing team. It's just not an issue.

The decision on venue would need to be made before the start of the season making it entirely possible that Hawthorn could be minor premiers and end up playing Sydney at ANZ. How does that resolve your perceived problem? It just doesn't make sense and that's before getting to the arguments about tradition, quality of ground etc.

While i don't think it needs to be moved, there is more to home ground advantage than just the playing field and number of fans. Both of those count, but also:

Before the GF would you prefer:
Sleeping in your own bed, or sleeping in a hotel room?
Having family around, or being away from family and friends.
Not breaking your routine (training, eating etc...), or being at unfamilar places/times for those.
For W.A. teams, even the time zone change can be a bit disruptive.

So there are several advantages to Vic teams from having the GF at home. i travel a lot for work, and i can tell you that little things like traffic noise, temperature, noisy neighbours etc... in hotel rooms can lead to pretty poor sleep. Not ideal preparation.

These advantages aren't huge, and they shouldn't matter, but they are real. Saying it's just about having an equal number of fans at the game is a bit of an over-simplification.

 

[base615]

While i don't think it needs to be moved, there is more to home ground advantage than just the playing field and number of fans. Both of those count, but also:

Before the GF would you prefer:
Sleeping in your own bed, or sleeping in a hotel room?
Having family around, or being away from family and friends.
Not breaking your routine (training, eating etc...), or being at unfamilar places/times for those.
For W.A. teams, even the time zone change can be a bit disruptive.

So there are several advantages to Vic teams from having the GF at home. i travel a lot for work, and i can tell you that little things like traffic noise, temperature, noisy neighbours etc... in hotel rooms can lead to pretty poor sleep. Not ideal preparation.

These advantages aren't huge, and they shouldn't matter, but they are real. Saying it's just about having an equal number of fans at the game is a bit of an over-simplification.

Personally I'd prefer the hotel and being away from family distractions but of course that preference would be unique to each person

 

[vaughany]

Grand Final will always be at the MCG. Period. End of story.
/close thread.

 

[PowerForGood]

No point in pushing it because it will never change - it's (VFL) tradition and will never change.

However I think its a shame that the majority of my club's supporter base (incl just about my entire family) will never get the opportunity to watch their team win a Grand Final live, simply because of the full price cost and logistics of travelling over a weekend on top of a Grand Final ticket cost. Vics just dont get how hard it is and how disruptive and how expensive it actually is to go. And being realistic, they will never have to.

 

[10571z]

No point in pushing it because it will never change - it's (VFL) tradition and will never change.

However I think its a shame that the majority of my club's supporter base (incl just about my entire family) will never get the opportunity to watch their team win a Grand Final live, simply because of the full price cost and logistics of travelling over a weekend on top of a Grand Final ticket cost. Vics just dont get how hard it is and how disruptive and how expensive it actually is to go. And being realistic, they will never have to.

Sorry but Adelaide is an easy drive to melbourne.. 8 hours. Plenty of my mates drove leaving early to the port v richmond final.

Stay out of the city and it would be an easily affordable weekend for most. I suggest get a money jar and put some gold coins in it. After all the time it is between grand finals I dare say you would have plenty of money.

 

[Scotland]

It would be nice if whoever the 'official' or 'partner' or whatever they call it airline of the AFL wouldn't violently molest non-Victorian fans wanting to attend the GF each year.

WA fans (and others, we're just the furthest away and driving isn't really an option unless you're a retiree with nothing better to do) love heading over to Melbourne for the GF, but **** me do the airlines make it hard with flight availability and pricing.

 

[Experimental]

As a GC supporter, I'd personally be mortified if they tried holding the GF at Metricon.

The idea of a club being able to play the GF at the MCG in front of one hundred thousand people is incredible. Leave it as is, imo.

 

[Scotland]

As a WC fan I would rather play a WC vs Freo GF at the MCG than Subiaco.

 

[radiojake]

Again, you seem to be confusing your opinion with fact. How is having your own fans there more important than playing at a ground you have a greater opportunity to play and train on throughout the year or not having to travel play there?

In any case, as I mentioned earlier, I don't really care where it's played. Just the sudden disinterest in advantage and disadvantage when suitable.

Just so you realise, if Sydney happened to play either North Melbourne, Western Bulldogs or St Kilda in this week's GF, Sydney would have had more games at the MCG than the opponent, thus a greater opportunity to learn the 'way' of the ground...

drop it, already

 

[NinjaSwan]

Fine as it is, ANZ is the only other ground big enough and it shouldn't be hosting any football let alone a grand final.

 

[Docker Alyssa]

I cannot believe anyone would talk about MCG not being the best sporting venue on earth, let alone not the only
possible location to house the AFL GF!

The argument for NFL superbowl is moot. Their TV audience is the big thing made a deal of. Since they have literally
our entire population x2 or more watching live, the amount of people being capacity at the venue is not that special.

In our case, 100,000 fans in our small country in one place is freaking epic. And the way they cheer, the type of game it is
with the nuances of play and all that, you need at least 90,000 to give it that feel of GF day both live and on TV.

History tells us what we can achieve with that capacity. If you took away half the crowd sometimes, and made even more fans
travel - by it being in some other state every year - Wow, sounds lame on all fronts.

 

[nerRADIAN]

The G is the spiritual home of footy, fine as it is.

It can't be the home of football when it has 'cricket ground' in its name.

I do think it's unfair but there really isn't an alternative. The NFL move the Super Bowl around every year but there's not enough high capacity grounds here to do that.

 

[nerRADIAN]

I cannot believe anyone would talk about MCG not being the best sporting venue on earth, let alone not the only
possible location to house the AFL GF!

What is that based on? Surely not design as its actually looking a little dated.

 

[Shoei]

I cannot believe anyone would talk about MCG not being the best sporting venue on earth, let alone not the only
possible location to house the AFL GF!

The argument for NFL superbowl is moot. Their TV audience is the big thing made a deal of. Since they have literally
our entire population x2 or more watching live, the amount of people being capacity at the venue is not that special.

In our case, 100,000 fans in our small country in one place is freaking epic. And the way they cheer, the type of game it is
with the nuances of play and all that, you need at least 90,000 to give it that feel of GF day both live and on TV.

History tells us what we can achieve with that capacity. If you took away half the crowd sometimes, and made even more fans
travel - by it being in some other state every year - Wow, sounds lame on all fronts.

Get your hand off it

 

[DarwinRoo]

So let's rotate it around and next year we can play the GF at ANZ Stadium between Brisbane and Port and the year after in Perth for North vs the Bulldogs.

 

[tazaa]

I think interstate supporters more than anything love the trip to Melbourne, the atmosphere of grand final week and the nervous energy surrounding it all. As if its part of the ritual of winning a flag. Id guess that for the 11 times the cup has left Victoria those interstate supporters would change nothing about the experience and would love to do it all again. The special moment of conquering footballs greatest task.
Would any of you West Coast, Adelaide, Port, Sydney and Brisbane supporters change a thing about the flags you won?

 

[Tippett2Goal]

Sorry but Adelaide is an easy drive to melbourne.. 8 hours. Plenty of my mates drove leaving early to the port v richmond final.

Stay out of the city and it would be an easily affordable weekend for most. I suggest get a money jar and put some gold coins in it. After all the time it is between grand finals I dare say you would have plenty of money.

So driving 1600km, + 2 nights accom +game tickets + food etc
Adds up pretty quick still looking at over $1000

 

[FootyJunkie]

as been said, build a 100k stadium somewhere else and then the AFL might consider moving the GF

upgrading ANZ is the only chance... but SOP is a sterile environment lacking any atmosphere, pretty pathetic 14 years removed from the Olympics

the MCG's size and history pretty much locks in the GF there indefinitely