AFL ahead of NRL in Sydney ticket sales
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Over 100,000 tickets have been sold to ANZ Stadium’s upcoming football feast, as the Sydney venue gears up for its biggest weekend of sport since the 2000 Olympics.
The AFL and NRL’s contest to draw a larger crowd in their respective weekend finals fixtures remains on a knife’s edge.
Bumper crowds are expected when Sydney host Collingwood in an AFL preliminary final on Friday night before Canterbury and South Sydney meet in an NRL equivalent the following night.
The AFL confirmed on Wednesday night that 54,000 tickets to Sydney’s home final had been sold.
Interestingly, the figure is higher than the AFL game between Hawthorn and Adelaide at the MCG on Saturday, which has a total of 50,000 tickets sold.
A spokesperson for the NRL said at the same point in time, the league had shifted 51,000 tickets to the ANZ Stadium showdown between the ground’s two tenants.
The weekend’s combined attendance is set to comfortably outdo the most recent time the ground hosted back-to-back preliminary finals.
In 2006 over 60,000 fans went to the Swans-Fremantle AFL clash and a little over 40,000 attended St George Illawarra’s NRL match against Melbourne.
Depending on what figure the AFL delivers on Friday night, the ARL Commission will be desperate to better it the following night, particularly with many factors in their favour.
The top priced tickets to the AFL clash ($160) are double that of the NRL ($80).
Even the cheapest tickets to the AFL in the upper reaches of the spacious ground are twice as much ($70) than that for the 13-man game.
Given the disparity in ticket prices, even remotely similar crowds would mean a comparatively much larger financial windfall for the AFL.
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September 20th 2012 @ 5:06am
Blaze said | September 20th 2012 @ 5:06am | Report comment
This would be pretty embarrassing for the NRL… considering its IN NSW and two of NRL’s biggest rivals are playing in the 2nd biggest game of the year, where as Sydney and Collingwood are not rivals and collingwood fans will have to travel to get there
September 20th 2012 @ 1:51pm
Pot Stirrer said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:51pm | Report comment
Not really, the way the AFL play with numbers as shown in their junior participant rates in NSW i bet theres alot of fee tickets for the
AFL to boast about as being bought.
September 20th 2012 @ 6:44am
Sydney is number one said | September 20th 2012 @ 6:44am | Report comment
Just goes to show that Sydney is the true sporting capital of Australia. Melbourne is just too insular.
Whereas the NRL crowd will be 100% Sydneysiders the AFL will have a third of the crowd travelling from interstate. It will be a shame that the red and white in the stadium is matched by black and white but we should be welcoming all these traveling Victorians willing to shell out money into our local economy.
September 20th 2012 @ 7:54am
Michael said | September 20th 2012 @ 7:54am | Report comment
Someone sounds a bit threatened.
You begin by saying Sydney is the sporting capital and then go on to say the AFL game will be half Victorians..
Which is it champ?
The fact it has taken until the preliminary finals to get a decent crowd would suggest otherwise.
September 20th 2012 @ 8:31am
Brewski said | September 20th 2012 @ 8:31am | Report comment
Melbourne is insular, but the NRL media is not, only yesterday Johnny Gibbs was begging RL fans to buy tickets to beat the AFL…!!.
September 20th 2012 @ 8:26am
Brewski said | September 20th 2012 @ 8:26am | Report comment
You would expect the NRL game to pull ahead quickly today, cheaper tickets, bigger capacity, saturday game, 2 actual tenants of the ground, Sydneys game etc etc etc.
Absolutely amazed that the AFL game is still ahead, but at the end of the day good for sport in Sydney.
September 20th 2012 @ 8:35am
TC said | September 20th 2012 @ 8:35am | Report comment
It’s great to see Sydney people embracing the indigenous game.
Both codes can grow and prosper.
The Sydney sports fan is the winner.
TC
September 20th 2012 @ 8:42am
Brewski said | September 20th 2012 @ 8:42am | Report comment
All i think these tickets sales prove, is what eveyone knows, but quite a lot of people refuse to acknowledge.
Australian football in Sydney is around 3 to 4 times the size of RL in Melbourne, and the games imprint in the northern states around 3 to4 times the size of RL imprint in the southern states.
This has always been the case, but the last few years has seen AF increase its growth.
September 20th 2012 @ 9:26am
NF said | September 20th 2012 @ 9:26am | Report comment
It’s only 3k difference but I expect it to shift again to the NRL today, Brewski you love to boast about how great is AFL going in the northern states considering the fact that AFL gets a better run here in QLD than in Victoria and that’s the truth. I give credit to AFL for growing there game with there strong administration something RL has never had as a result hinder the ability to grow elsewhere compared to AFL.
AFL should count it lucky stars it never had to deal with the problems the NRL went through the fact it’s still exist is a miracle as no other code has shot itself in the foot than RL and I’m sure you agree with that Brewski.
September 20th 2012 @ 12:37pm
Nathan of Perth said | September 20th 2012 @ 12:37pm | Report comment
Next time assassinate the lead negotiators of Fox and Nine – their replacements will most likely be less competent and more malleable and you can get your money and expand the coverage at the same time! (j/k on the assassination)
September 20th 2012 @ 9:29am
oikee said | September 20th 2012 @ 9:29am | Report comment
Then you will have no reason to be alarmed when the NRL now spends a few hundred million into our push into your lovely strongholds, no reason to fear us, join us.
You wont stop the Maroon marauders. Nobody can stop us, Sydney tried and failed misrebly.
September 20th 2012 @ 10:18am
piesman2011 said | September 20th 2012 @ 10:18am | Report comment
We welcome the NRLs money to help build our economies outside of NSW/Qld. We welcome the NRL to get our children more professional sporting oppotunities. We welcome the NRL to promote a game that will help keep our children fitter.
September 20th 2012 @ 10:54am
TC said | September 20th 2012 @ 10:54am | Report comment
Well put piesman.
Put in the money, effort and resources and all sports are welcomed with open arms.
TC
September 20th 2012 @ 11:01am
Punter said | September 20th 2012 @ 11:01am | Report comment
Oh how times change. I have always felt that whenever football tried to expand it’s wings in this country, you tended to look at it very negatively, cough WC bid, Del Piero cough!!! Great to see you evolving into this multi sports fan!!!
September 20th 2012 @ 11:30am
TC said | September 20th 2012 @ 11:30am | Report comment
That’s incorrect – I am supportive of the endeavours of all sports to improve their lot.
I have a bias towards supporting Lacrosse, because it has so little, and yet has been played in this country since 1876.
But otherwise, I want all sports to continue developing and to become prosperous.
I may have expressed the opinion that Del Petro will not make a big difference to soccer in this country in the long run – but that’s an entirely different discussion.
First and foremost, as a life-long soccer fan, soccer in this country has my full support.
September 20th 2012 @ 12:09pm
piesman2011 said | September 20th 2012 @ 12:09pm | Report comment
I would say with the WC bid that all Australians were behind the bid up until they were told that the domestic competitions would be told to not run for 6 weeks around which the WC would be run and that if they did run that the WC would be taking all of the grounds around Australia during those times so competitions such as the NRL and the AFL could not play at the SCG, Homebush, MCG and Edihad (leaving almost no where in melbourne to play a game).
September 20th 2012 @ 12:20pm
TC said | September 20th 2012 @ 12:20pm | Report comment
That’s correct piesman.
A lot of goodwill was burned by the FFA in it’s all or nothing approach, and this was reflected in a decline in interest in the A-League, which was only arrested last season.
TC
September 20th 2012 @ 12:32pm
Punter said | September 20th 2012 @ 12:32pm | Report comment
Thats better TC, showing the true colours again, like it much better that way.
September 20th 2012 @ 12:58pm
Ken said | September 20th 2012 @ 12:58pm | Report comment
No doubt AFL is further entrenched in the North than RL is in the South but your comment about it always being the case shows a lack of understanding about how divided we all were not very long ago. Growing up in the 80′s in Newcastle and Sydney we didn’t even know AFL existed, there was footy (RL) and soccer. The first time I remember learning about AFL was a driving holiday (does that still happen?) through Victoria when I was about 10 and I got into a conversation with another kid about which team we supported and it took us a while to realise we were talking about different games.
Times have definitely changed now and the AFL is about 10 years or so ahead of the NRL in pushing out from their homelands. Although I think your ’3-4′ times number might be a bit skewed, AFL gets decent crowds, this one is especially healthy, but test signals rate about the same on TV – it has a small but loyal following who are all pretty much at the games. That’s not really a dig though, I wish RL currently had a similar footprint in Melbourne.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:13pm
Breezy said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:13pm | Report comment
Ken – I’m sure people in Sydney knew that the AFL existed in the 80′s. Do Dr Geoffrey Edelsten and Warwick Capper ring any bells? I went up and saw Essendon play the Swans in 1986 and I’m sure there were over 30,000 there then. Because you were very young, you probably didn’t have much idea about what was going on.
September 20th 2012 @ 8:45am
langou said | September 20th 2012 @ 8:45am | Report comment
Well done Sydney sports fans. I hope both games sell out and get the exact same amount of people. I was hoping on going to the Hawthorn v Sydney and then ducking across the road to the Melbourne Storm game but scheduling has made us Melbourne fans have to pick one over the other.
September 20th 2012 @ 8:50am
mds1970 said | September 20th 2012 @ 8:50am | Report comment
No it hasn’t. The Storm game is Friday and the AFL is Saturday.
September 20th 2012 @ 9:18am
langou said | September 20th 2012 @ 9:18am | Report comment
Thanks mds1970,
I will be going to both, you bewdy
I don’t know what I was thinking, it clearly makes sense that if the Sydney prelim final is on Sat night than ours has to be Friday night. duh
September 20th 2012 @ 9:23am
oikee said | September 20th 2012 @ 9:23am | Report comment
The last head to head clash in Sydney, the Swans easily beat the NRL , what was it, over 60 thousand AFL fans, only 40 thousand NRL fans.
If i was AFL, i would be very afraid, you seem to have awoken the mongels, they might even beat the AFL crowd this time, and League is a TV game.
OMG be very careful, the masses are gathering the mongels are getting restless, the Maroon army has already penatrated the Melbourne Fortress while you slept (asleep at the wheel, or was your boss overseas again spending all the afl warchest), we breached your city with no resistence. walked in, ate your food, drank your wine and entertained your lovely women, oh-la-la, ? just between you and me, they loved us mongels, the army is gathering.
September 20th 2012 @ 9:28am
Minister for Information for the Democratic People's Republic of Football said | September 20th 2012 @ 9:28am | Report comment
I think someone should stop playing with his army soldiers in the sandpit.
September 20th 2012 @ 9:30am
oikee said | September 20th 2012 @ 9:30am | Report comment
September 20th 2012 @ 9:57am
TC said | September 20th 2012 @ 9:57am | Report comment
Sort of related (and in no way am I wanting people to make cross-code comparisons, I am putting this here because it’s an AFL thread).
Ratings for last weekend’s finals, regionals included:
Adel/Frem TV audience: 1.753m.
Coll/WC TV audience 1.925m – Highest rating match year to date, and higher than any game last year except for grand final.
The Collingwood vs Swans prelim could just about match that 1.9 million ratings figure.
TC
September 20th 2012 @ 10:04am
TC said | September 20th 2012 @ 10:04am | Report comment
Just noticed this story on the AFL website on the ratings:
http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/147870/default.aspx
Ratings for first two weeks of finals are a staggering 1.6 million up on last year.
TC
September 20th 2012 @ 1:22pm
Australian Rules said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:22pm | Report comment
The highest-ever ratings for an AFL game was the Syd v WCE Grand Final in 2005.
Goes to show the tv power of Sydney.
Given this Prelim is a Friday night game, and involves Collingwood, expect massive tv figures.
September 20th 2012 @ 12:34pm
Nathan of Perth said | September 20th 2012 @ 12:34pm | Report comment
Would be pretty happy with that – was also good to see strong Perth figures in there. 1.925m is a monster set of ratings, even for a semi.
And just quietly, shows that the period of Victorian domination may not have been as good for the game as they thought
but I shouldn’t stir ):
September 20th 2012 @ 1:19pm
piesman2011 said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:19pm | Report comment
posted in the wrong place.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:00pm
clipper said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:00pm | Report comment
Good to have the two sides in two articles, Rob.
There will be more people to the Canterbury / Souths game than the Swans / Collingwood game for three reasons
1. The Swans game is on Friday night – therefore many Collingwood supporters won’t be able to get time off or make time to get here Friday and many Sydneysiders won’t be able to get to the game on time or won’t feel inclined due to traffic etc
2. The Swans ticket prices are double that of the leagues – don’t think that was a smart move
3. The league sides are two of the most supported with Souths getting many fairweather fans who suddenly have decided to follow them – plus the fact that people like Johnny Gibbs are begging people to buy NRL tickets to beat the AFL.
That the two ticket sales are so close is quite remarkable considering these disadvantages.
One thing is certain though – the AFL will sell more tickets for all of this weekends matches that the NRL.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:09pm
Nathan of Perth said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:09pm | Report comment
“Souths getting many fairweather fans who suddenly have decided to follow them”
Oi! We are not!
September 20th 2012 @ 1:12pm
oikee said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:12pm | Report comment
All of this weekends matches, their are only 2 on. NRL will get around 90 thousand, AFL probably 120 thousand.
Plus the NRL is only braodcast live on FTA TV, so getting bigger tv audiences for AFL is not that hard either, you have live pay and FTA.
NRL still is outrating AFL on FTA. This weekend will be no different.
If you like you can use our Toyota cup games in the TV ratings to make it even.
That will give both codes a even ratings chance. Now fight fair, fight hard, or go home.
You think 12 million for Origin ratings this year is good, you aint seen nothing yet.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:24pm
Michael said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:24pm | Report comment
All the evidence I’ve seen has AFL outrating NRL so far this finals series.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:32pm
oikee said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:32pm | Report comment
Here you go, that is some finals ratings, as you can easily see the NRL is killing the AFL on Free to Air ratings, this is taken off a Crikey blog. Now that is the evidence you cant dispute that, why do AFL people keep trying to dispute facts, you just make yourselves look jealous all the time.
They have broken down Pay and FTA for you.
Friday night’s brutish clash that saw Hawthorn account for Collingwood was watched by a total of 1.860 million people across the country on Seven (main and digital channels, 1.455 million) and pay-TV (451,000). It easily eclipsed the 1.447 million people who watched Canterbury beat Manly in the first qualifying final of the NRL in Sydney on Nine (main and digital channels).
Saturday’s second qualifying final (an afternoon game) in which Sydney beat Adelaide was watched by 1.309 million people (975,000 million people on Seven’s main channel and 334,000 on pay-TV). The Geelong/Fremantle first elimination final was watched by 1.169 million people on Seven (main and digital) and 381,000 on pay-TV’s Fox Footy for a total of 1.550 million.
Saturday night’s second NRL qualifying finals on Nine (Melbourne beating South Sydney, a twilight early evening game) was watched by 1.311 million people on Nine and the first elimination final between North Queensland and the Brisbane side (won by North Queensland) was watched by 1.113 million, according to early data. (Some of the figures for the NRL games are clouded by poor coding data for the ratings in regional markets).
The last of the elimination finals saw the Canberra/Cronulla game win out with a total of 1.116 million viewers on Nine (main channels and digital) in metro and regional markets. The West Coast/North Melbourne game averaged 1.057 million viewers, with the pay-TV audience of 334,000 boosting the audience on Seven (main channels and digital, 723,000 in total) by close to half.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:44pm
Michael said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:44pm | Report comment
Umm.. You just proved my point champ.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:46pm
Australian Rules said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
Oh dear Oikee
The article you just lifted that from, disproves your point:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/09/11/afl-beats-rugby-league-in-tv-head-to-head/
The headline reads: “AFL beats rugby league in TV head-to-head”.
goose
September 20th 2012 @ 1:39pm
Australian Rules said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:39pm | Report comment
Oikee, you’re a dill.
Comments like: “NRL still is outrating AFL on FTA. This weekend will be no different.”…is just more nonsense from you.
I feel silly even responding… but oh well…
FTA Metro ratings for 2012 finals series:
AFL – 5.6M (approx)
NRL – 4.7M (approx)
Then…add 2.3M to the AFL for Foxtel viewers, which is not available for NRL fans during finals.
Keep at it muscles.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:48pm
oikee said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:48pm | Report comment
Come back with the Metro and regionals, no more leaving veiwers out of the contest.
As can be seen above, even the regionals are clouded because the signals are eroded, i know because i live in a regioanl and the amount of reboots is nearly once a day since Foxtel took over.
If i was you Austrlian rules, i would be more worried when they start just putting all facts of ratings in the one basket,
This will be the big wake-up call for AFL Austrlalia. Like the Paytv takeup, still strong for NRL, weak for AFL.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:20pm
piesman2011 said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:20pm | Report comment
It will be interesting if the AFL get more supporters to ANZ stadium despite these disadvantages.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:37pm
oikee said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:37pm | Report comment
As i mentioned, if the AFL like to compete, just add the toyota cup under 20 live games on pay to our only FTA coverage of the main games, as the Pay TV dont cover the main game like the AFL, so your playing on a unfair playing field. Both are live, the juniors and the Frre to air Main games.
If you want to take the NRL head-on, feel free to do so, i will be watching both Toyota cup games as this is a brilliant junior concept, the best in Australia.
I suppose you will want to dispute that fact as well.
You might end up looking pretty silly, because alot of the under 20 juniors are now origin and Australia rep players, i can do a list if you like.
Pleased to help out.
September 20th 2012 @ 1:51pm
doubledutch said | September 20th 2012 @ 1:51pm | Report comment
don’t worry about oikee, he tends to make stuff up including his fantasy mongrels.
Oikee, you still make me laugh with your level playing field comments. You still don’t get it, your commission signed off for 6 years on this level of coverage. Get use to an unfair playing field Okiee because your idiotic new commison just signed off for the same level again for another 5 years. You have a good day crying over that.
I think this is going to be a sell out looking at these figures now for the Swans. Once you get to 50k plus ticket sales at this stage critical mass has been achieved.
Work colleages, familiy members will now go with other friends etc… just because it is now an event.
The only way this won’t be a sellout is if it persist down on Friday night which will keep the 5-10k in walk ups away to reach 75k.
Me and my bro are going, bought the $160 buck seats, can’t wait to see it. I’m predicting this to be the best game of the year just like the HAwthorn/Woods prelim last year was the best.
Hawthorn and the Crows will respond to this I guarantee you. I’m predicting 70K plus to this game, the Crows have a legitimate chance against the Hawks and I’m hoping 10-15k of Crows fans hop the boarder. Melbourne will do the rest with neutrals for the love of the game, something other codes would no nothing about.