An article in the Herald Sun on Wednesday started with the line: “Crowds in the AFL heartland have dropped to their lowest levels in years”.

It went on to say “The AFL-wide average crowd after Round 9 is 33,393. At the same time last year, it was 34,072.”

This isn’t a great sign for footy, is it?

Well, first up, whenever someone quotes an “average” it’s good to have a bit of a deeper think as to what’s going on under the surface. An average is a good starting point for analysis, but it doesn’t tell you much about what’s causing the average to be what it is.

This probably sounds a bit silly, but bear with me. Say you have two sets of three numbers; 10, 20 and 30; and 0, 10 and 50. Both of these sets have an average of 20, but are clearly quite different.

So what you’re saying is we should dig a bit deeper before drawing conclusions?

Yes! There are some numbers quoted in that article: Etihad Stadium crowds are down 12 per cent, MCG crowds are down six per cent; crowds at Adelaide over are up 47 per cent. In the west, attendance at Subiaco Oval are up a bit – mostly due to the Dockers – while crowds in Sydney/GWS and Brisbane/the Gold Coast have remained steady. A fellow Roar Contributor put together a ripping piece a couple of weeks ago that discussed this issue in some detail.

Ok that’s great, but aren’t these figures still just averages?

Ok smarty pants. Yes, I guess you’re right.

Have at it then.

Right, so the Adelaide/Port Adelaide story is fairly well known. The move to a new, larger, Adelaide Oval has meant two things. First, the capacity of the ground is bigger, so that adds to the “potential” size of crowds for these games. But that’s just part of the story. Being a new ground, its fair to assume that there is a lot of really cool stuff to see and do there, which would also provide a boost.

Also, Port Adelaide have created this immense football community around their club over the past year or two (built on on field result, but also through smart positioning off the field), which has meant their home attendance of 42,967 per game is not only fifth best in the league, but up an incredible 59 per cent on their average last year, and, even more incredibly, more than double their 2012 level. Adelaide has seen similar levels of crowd growth, but not to the same extent.

In fact, average attendance at the Adelaide Oval is 44,792 – second only to the MCG so far in 2014.

Wow, Adelaide Oval is second most attended venue? So what’s going on in Melbourne then?

Melbourne crowds are down a little overall, and there are a few things worth considering here. The AFL, as any organisation dealing with a hyper critical media would do, is trying to deflect criticism; “small sample size”, “unfavourable scheduling”, “experimental time slots” have all been cited recently. Well, we can test a couple of these.

Great, numbers…

Bear with me, this won’t take a minute.

All up, of the 20 games that have been played at Etihad so far this year, 11 of them have involved an interstate team. Eight of these 11 have been the lowest attended games at the Docklands so far this year. In the first 20 Etihad games last season, just eight of them involved an interstate team. So that’s a problem.

The other problem, and I don’t like picking on teams, is that St Kilda have played in six of the 20 games, with five of these as their home game. The Saint had the lowest average crowd for a Melbourne side in 2013, and have historically been one of the lesser drawing teams in the competition. So far in 2014, St Kilda’s average home crowd of 21,000ish has been the third lowest, behind just Gold Coast and GWS.

Ot’s also important to remember that Geelong played a bunch of early season games at Etihad last season, and these games had an average attendance of 40,000+. What I guess I’m saying is that there are a bunch of issues at play.

Ok so there’s some mitigating factors at play here.

Yeah so I guess what I’m saying is we can’t rush to judgement too quickly. The “small sample size” argument has a bit of merit, too. I think we should wait to see another couple of rounds of games before we jump all over the AFL here. At the same time, it’s a bit duplicitous for the AFL to “blame” the scheduling for lower crowd numbers when they themselves set the schedule.

Speaking of the schedule, there has been a degree of unusualness about this year’s match fixtures. There’s been a number of Thursday night, Sunday night and Monday night games in 2014, which have all drawn fairly substantial crowds – although perhaps a bit disappointing from the AFL’s perspective.

So if that’s the case, should we care about this “fall” in attendance?

Well, I’m here answering your questions, so I think its something that we should be worrying about.

For the Melbourne clubs, attendances are pretty crucial. Footy clubs still rely reasonably heavily on match days for their profitability, even though the “business” side of the AFL generates a pretty reasonably chunk of revenue for all clubs these days.

So that’s things like broadcast deal distributions, merchandising, sponsorships, functions and appearances and those arguably “non-footy” revenues. In Melbourne, gaming revenue also plays a role. Broadcast money is the main game.

But pulling a crowd not only influences all of these things in one way or another – ok, maybe not the slot jockeys – gate revenue has to cover the cost of “keeping the gates open”.

My concern would be that dwindling crowds, combined with rising stadia costs, means that some clubs may be forced to increasingly rely on distributions from the AFL to be financially viable. A good crowd builds atmosphere, and probably plays a (likely small) role in the success or failure of a side. So on that basis, we should be at least aware of the potential for this to be a problem.

Yuck. How about this variable ticketing business – is that playing a role?

You know, it could be. That’s certainly been the line of the newly-formed AFL Fans Association. The idea behind variable ticket pricing is rooted firmly in economics: a business can maximise its revenue by charging prices which are the absolute maximum a particular buyer is willing to pay. Certainly more so than if there’s a flat rate charged regardless of who is purchasing the ticket.

This is the way ticket pricing is done overseas, particularly in the US. Until this year, the AFL had a flat rate policy.

This makes a lot of sense – in theory. But what actually appears to have happened is that the AFL has used the introduction of variable pricing to increase the price of some games or seats, and kept the price of others unchanged. They’ve done it in half measures.

Are the AFL just trying to make more money from the punters?

You could say that. Variable pricing, if done “purely” would mean that some lower drawing games (say, St Kilda v Gold Coast at Etihad) have ticket prices that are lower than the average. But to my knowledge, this hasn’t occurred.

The AFL’s communication of the changes has also been quite average. They won’t admit it openly – who would – but you get the feeling they might have rushed the introduction this year, rather than trying to bring the public along with them in the process of change. That, and some of the negative sentiment surrounding last minute decisions regarding AFL members in so called “A-Reserved” games earlier in the season, and its no wonder the footy public is a bit sceptical.

Sceptical indeed. So, where do we go from here?

Well, for mine, there’s a couple of things I’d like to see on the agenda.

The first is a bit boring. I think the AFL needs to fully embrace variable ticket pricing – by which I mean ensuring that the ‘B’ and ‘C’ class games are actually cheaper than the ‘A’ class games. This would be an effort to drag more people, kicking and screaming (not), through the gate. Bring back the walk ups on a Saturday afternoon. And actually communicate what you are doing, and why.

Dare I say, give the people what they want.

Second is the stadium situation in Melbourne. Now I’m from the West, where we’ve got a single stadium which is used by two tenants in West Coast and Fremantle. Both clubs manage to effectively sell the place out week in week out, and everyone is happy. For the Eagles, good luck actually getting a ticket to the game unless you’re a member or know one.

The issues surrounding Etihad are well known, so I won’t revisit them here. Other than to say the best way to counter a high fixed cost is to either make more money (thereby spreading the fixed cost over a larger base) or try to hack into it. I’m uncertain the AFL has the power to do either of those things. And, the agreement between the AFL and the stadium owners gazettes some 45 or more games per year for the stadium. So what I’m about to say is a moot point.
But hey, why not.

The AFL should look to purchase a suburban Melbourne ground, develop it, and turn it into a “boutique” stadium.

Wait, what?

Sounds crazy right? Hear me out.

Boutique grounds kind of died in the AFL’s drive to become more corporatised and professional in the 90s and 00s. The last game played in Melbourne that wasn’t at the MCG or Etihad was in 2005. Up until that point, one or two or more games were played in Melbourne at a variety of venues – its been done before.

The AFL takes ownership of Etihad Stadium a dollar in 2025 (they paid $30 million in 2001 for the right to do so, by the way), and there is talk that the league and the owners of the stadium are getting closer to an “early buy out” figure, thought to be in the vicinity of $250 million.

Instead of that, why not use a chuck of that to create a world class boutique venue, and use the remainder to renegotiate the Etihad stadium deal?

This would still give the AFL ownership of a venue, which gets a big tick. They can control everything associated with the match day experience. Food & drink vendors. Security. Advertising and media. Fan access. Corporate hospitality.

These are all things that the AFL effectively “outsources” to the stadium owners at the present time. It would also mean they are able to do their own accounting tricks and keep prices low.

But, it means the AFL could cater the fixed cost base to crowd sizes of around 20,000 to 25,000, and would mean that some of the lesser drawing sides could remain profitable even though their crowds aren’t as massive as some of the larger clubs. You wouldn’t see Collingwood play Carlton at a boutique stadium any time soon, at least, but maybe North Melbourne could take on Port Adelaide (that game had a crowd of 19,111 on a Sunday afternoon).

The biggest benefit, for mine, would be the fan experience at a ground like this. The AFL would be in a position to build something from the ground up (literally). Anything would be possible, and you could truly cater to the wants and needs of the average punter in a way that isn’t viable under the current split ownership structure.
Pipe dream? Probably. And there are a few downsides no doubt – whose home ground would it be, for one. And what do you do when you take over Etihad in 2025 anyway?

But new Chief Executives do always like to put their stamp on things, so who knows?

I think you’re nuts.