Clinton Young from Hawthorn holds aloft the Premiership Cup during the 2008 Toyota AFL Grand Final between the Geelong Cats and the Hawthorn Hawks at the MCG. GSP images
Australia’s major sporting bodies came together last weekend lobbying for a national ban on ticket scalping. It was good to see certain codes take up the fight; fans deserve to be protected from missing out on tickets because of people only interested in making a profit. But the AFL’s involvement in the push is a bit perplexing.
Because every year at the Grand Final, fans miss out on seeing their team thanks to exploitation, and the problem has nothing to do with scalping.
It’s an issue that gets little attention 51 weeks of the year, but when Grand Final week arrives all of the sudden there is an outcry about ticketing. And so there should be.
Here’s where most of the tickets end up: MCC members get their typical slice, AFL members get theirs, Medallion Club members get a few thousand seats, each of the 16 clubs get a thousand, and AFL “Entitlements/Contractual Obligations” are fulfilled.
Even with the MCG’s capacity, it leaves little left over for members of the competing clubs.
Last year, each competing team’s members got only 11.5% of Grand Final tickets. This year, with the allocation listed on the AFL website, the best prospective Grand Finalists can hope for – and it’s unlikely to be pushed even this far – is 13%.
To compare to a similar event in world sport, the two clubs that compete in the FA Cup final in England receive 27.78% each. Even competing teams in the Super Bowl get a better slice than AFL Grand Finalists (although the percentage of those seats passed on to season ticket holders is unclear).
The most telling sign of misallocation is that last year, more than half of Hawthorn’s members and half of Geelong’s members missed out on tickets through the members’ ballot.
And it gets worse. The disparity in allocation isn’t even the cruellest part.
No, the cruellest part of the AFL’s Grand Final ticketing process is what fans that miss out through the ballot have to go through.
With scalping out of the question – select events in Victoria receive protection already – the only remaining avenue is to go with one of the corporate hospitality packages, which cost upwards of $1,200.
Apart from obvious shame of “corporate types” taking tickets away from “real fans”, the cost of these packages mean many fans simply can’t afford to go to the game.
To rub salt into the wounds, the make up of these packages does nothing to justify the price. All that is included is a ticket to the game, plus a pre-game breakfast, brunch or lunch typically put on by one of the 16 clubs.
Last year, the face value of a Grand Final ticket was $161.
A ticket to a club breakfast would’ve set you back $200-$250.
So, in essence, you are paying $1,200 or higher for a package that isn’t worth no more than $400. It’s a rip-off.
And it makes calls by the AFL for bans on scalping look farcical.
The league allows its clubs to profit at the expense of fans. The league lets clubs on-sell tickets to official AFL agencies that do the same.
The league even lets clubs sell their tickets back to boost numbers for its own corporate event – Centre Square – which further deprives members of the chance to see their team in the big dance.
Evidently, come Grand Final week, there’s no bigger scalper than the AFL itself.
Kane learned the hard way that you NEVER switch the footy off!
Poor Jeremy McGovern and Jack Darling!
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