AFL targets stadium deals, expansion

Brian - btw - go to a Doggies vs North game at the 'G and there'll be a paltry MCC members turn up. Trust me. I've been to enough of those games. whose membership figures include MCC members??? People who pay the premium price for AFL membership DO get to nominate their club and a financial slice goes to the club and those members get included for their nominated club. MCC members don't go to anyone. As Pip said, theres a variety of membership packages available. Basic GA only is the cheapest. You get the option of Home only or H&A You get the option of reserved seats at for example the MCG and/or Docklands. You get the option for higher level premium memberships that ensure 'access' to a Grand Final ticket, I look back relieved that I'd bought my premium packages back in '96 and '99, and was able to attend North Melbournes last 2 premierships. How many members each year are willing to trade away the potential their club might make the GF?? That may guide what proportion are more likely to buy a premium package. You could do your estimates based on that. Remember too, those clubs with 40K members - - it'll be first in first serve even for those clubs higher level packages and they have 'internal' quotas. WCE and Crows have waiting lists to just get a regular membership. Actually, the Sydney Swans, some folk forecasting doom forgot that they had to restrict their membership sales over the last couple of years with reduced capacity due to construction. btw - Docklands members?? what, the Medallion club?

Cheers Kurt :) enjoy your time over there. Always one of my favourite places to visit - while you're there try and catch an EPL game - you won't regret it.

Jimbo Actually I'm in Oxford today - the really old one with dreaming spires, students on bicycles and all, not Oxford, Alabama. I will occasionally peruse your posts, mostly when I'm in need of a good chuckle. On the subject of TV audiences I will say only one thing - they are all complete and utter bollocks unless they are the product of a highly structured & clearly defined audience measurement system. And that goes for all sports, not just soccer. 'Estimated' audiences are based upon various wild assumptions whilst different sports use completely vastly different approaches based upon whatever they think will present themselves in the best light. For example FIFA and the IOC both claim that the world cup and olympics are the most watched TV sporting event. And the funny thing is they're both right, if you accept the assumptions and methodologies they choose to use. Which of course means they're both wrong too...

Hi Kurt, How’s the weather in London, USA? Seems like you’ve taken a bit of a shine to me. :) I’ll bet you’ll be reading all my posts with interest from now on. You aren’t Mastro or The1andOnlyWhatever in disguise are you? You all sound very similar with your pro-AFL anti-football bias. One newspaper has estimated a worldwide television audience of one billion viewers for the first leg of the ACL final: http://www.goal.com/EN/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=948847 The A-League grand final was shown live across Britain on Sky Sports and live across Asia on various networks, so the estimates are probably a bit conservative. If you have any other sources on the topic would love to read them.

Brian, I think your clutching at straws with membership, quoting Melbourne Demons members for a start, their crowd numbers would have been substantially down in 2008. Examples of dominance? perhaps, but every other football code is trying to replicate what the AFL have, it is real and huge. There is a table in today's Herald Sun revealing AFL club membership levels compared to last year, incredibly, despite the GFC or maybe becuase of it, most clubs are up substantially or about the same as last year. There is no spin that the AFL sporting competition has the 3rd highest crowd averages in the world, the high members numbers contribute to that. If you understood jsut how mnay no member fans there are which each of the maor clubs you understadn where the increase in crowd numbers come from year to year. This year look to Collingwood, Richmond and Carlton, unfortunately Essendon look about the same as last year. I think the Crows, Eagles and Lions will also see a lift in crowds. Redb

It's true that the membership figures include a wide diversity of "categories" - the very cheapest, being the U15 memberships for pretty much all 22 games, along with the interstate memberships that allow you to watch 5 home games. But all these categories appear on the one membership form - they are all memberships - some are valued less than others - but I'm struggling to understand how that is relevant at all.

Simmo My ponit is they don't pay - the membership figures include interstate members, junior members, MCC members etc who all pay peanuts for their membership and get included. Melbourne has MCC members who pay less than $70 a year, Hawks have Tasmania members, Lions have Melbourne members, PA has Darwin members. My point is the membership figures are not fully paid members. The figures are impressive but to quote them as examples of AFL dominance only fully piad members should be counted otherwise we're just talking spin

Brian - simple re your 50,000 member question. A. not all can attend every game. Obviously a lot of people work and play themselves. B. not all have 22 round memberships. You can get home game memberships only, and even 5 game country memberships. C. not all actually want to attend every game. D. some members really can't attend, but, buy a membership as a glorified 'donation' E. those with only home memberships are loathed to attend 'away' games and pay into the pockets of the opposition club or the pockets of the private operators of Docklands It's not like all the North supporters live in the suburb and can walk/tram to the local ground on match day. Simmo - turning up on the day does matter - especially re agreements with the caterers. If North get X * 100,000 over the year, then they get a 'bonus' discount on the stadium deal as the stadium operators will have an agreement onto the caterers.

Agree with Simmo - the point is that AFL fans cough up their coin for memberships. I'm a member of the bullies, but I'm lucky to see two games per annum. In the example of NM vs the bullies - only the memberships of the home team count for admission.

Does it matter? If they pay up front for a membership then it's irrelevant if they do or do not front for the match, no?

Redb Obviously there's more than a passive interest, all I am saying is that there are MCC members who keep their membership because you can't get it back, because their great grandfather had it and so they pay and go to four games a year where otherwise they would go to none. Likewise with AFL memberships you end up seeing more games than normal because so many AFL games are played in the same venue (unlike any other league I can think of). How is it that when NM plays WB they have 50,000 members between them yet they never manage to draw a 50,000 crowd? Sholdn't they get the majority of members turning up - never mind the fans who just come on the day Again AFL the biggest game in Melboune by far but the numbers seem inflated by the ever successful AFL marketing machine

Brian, People buy AFL/MCC/Medallion Club memberships becuase of the footy you cannot discard them as bystanders who just happened to be around on match day. An AFL membership costs roughly double a normal club membership, the MCC have a waiting list on a timeline in the decades and the Medallion Club will cost you anywhere from 2 to 5 grand for a single seat. Membership has its priviledges and the AFL features prominently in the rationale behind buying one. The AFL had 574,000 people as club members in 2008 that is why the crowd numbers are high, that is more than passive interest by the fans. Crowds swell when non members turn up in big numbers, the number of non member fans is 3 or 4 times higher than those who actually take out club membership. Redb

You gotta love Jimbo, never one to let facts get in the way of his argument. Only 750 million for the ACL final Jimbo? Surely you can come up with a more ridiculous figure than that - how about 2 billion? 5 billion? Why not a figure greater than the entire population of the planet, which is generally the claim made by FIFA for the combined world cup audience. I remember in the lead up to the A-league GF a soccer propagandist mentioned a 'potential' TV audience of 85 million. Pretty soon the jihadists had picked it up and were boasting online about an actual TV audience of 85 million. That potential audience includes pretty much every one who just might happen to have access to a live broadcast of the game. On that basis I can now confidently state that the British TV audience for the AFL NAB GF will be 40 million. How so? Well, it is being broadcast on Setanta Sports which is available via pay TV. Pay TV penetration in the UK is (I think) about two thirds of the population, meaning I will assume everyone with Pay TV in the UK will be glued to their TVs for the big clash between the Cats and the Pies. About as likely as any statistic Jimbo quotes.

Well regarding TV audiences it would have been around 4am in China when the 2006 WC Final was played so I imagine the moajority of the 1.2bn (+ 1bn Indians 2am) were sleeping. Now as for the AFL it does need to be remembered that AFL crowds are boosted heavily by MCC & Docklands members. Essentially every game at the MCG 25,000 can get in for free. So if you get 35,000 to a game often the paying crowd is about 20,000 (especailly when Melbourne Demons play). Also I am not sure how membership figures are calculated but the Kanagaroos has 33,000 members last year yet never 33,000 of their own supporters at a game. I don't know how AFL, MCC and junior members are counted but I suspect they are used to inflate the figures. What can't lie is the financial figures and the AFL certainly do better than anyone else, it will be interesting to see how they go the next time the TV rights come up, I suspect they will get ess than the current $156m per year. Having said that unlike other sports it is much easier for them to reduce the wages bill. Chris Judd can't go play in the UK

Dave, all TV ratings are estimates, even in the “Audited” systems, because you can’t check every single household in the world. Their ratings are very conservative and based on number of households, TV sets etc, but in countries in Europe, Africa and Asia where they watch in town squares and villages, there may be hundreds, even thousands of people watching one televised event together. I too am sure the TV audience for the FIFA WC final would have been a lot more than 250M. The potential TV Audience in China alone is 1.2 billion.

Towser Interesting point about TV viewership of big sporting events. For the last WC FIFa's chosen marketing company originally said the audience for the final was over 1 billion, but after much scrutiny they finally agreed the figure was closer to 760million. The quoted figures above are from another company who only go on firm figures not estimates in places like Asia and Africa where firm figures arent available. FIFA factor in some estimates whereas this firm called Initiative Sports Futures only use audited measurement systems. The same company said 34million watched the 2007 Rugby WC final world wide and less than 100m for the Superbowl. So even the cut down football figures are miles above anything else.

One must remember that the AFL;s crowd figures are helped by the fact that 10 teams are from one city(include geelong). This means two sets of fans can attend games. Granted the NRL is more or less the same with 10 teams in the Sydney vicinity, but everyone knows melburnians are a bigger sports loving people. I dont think any other country has a league that has so many teams from one city such as we do in Australia. I think London has 5 premier league clubs.

Woody Warambel And the bottom line is TV is way overated if the WC, of the worlds biggest sport, the top rater only got 260 million out of a 6 billion world population. What were the other 5,740,000 doing that day? But then again,maybe sport is overated in capturing the imagination of the planet.

Geez Redb a coupla hundred million more per season and the AFL would be earning as much as Manchester United!! :)

On the oft chance that Jimbo is serious here is an article about the 2006 world TV audience: "The Times December 28, 2006 New markets push World Cup to the top of television ratings John Goodbody ever has the domination of football as the world’s most popular sport been better demonstrated than by the global television viewing figures for 2006. Not only were the ratings for the World Cup final between Italy and France far higher than for any other competition, but the average audiences for 32 of the 64 matches in Germany were better than the Super Bowl, the next most popular event. Initiative Sports Futures, the leading agency for collating television viewing figures, has calculated the audiences from 54 markets, representing more than 90 per cent of the world’s television-owning households. Kevin Alavy, its head of analytics, said: “Football has traditionally been the most popular sport in Europe, South America and Africa but over the last decade it has shown its strongest growth in North America and Asia/Pacific. “One of the most notable features of the global audience for the 2006 Fifa World Cup was that more women than ever before watched the tournament. Women accounted for 41 per cent of the global audience for the event.” Alavy pointed out that the attraction for sponsors of the five most-watched properties grow ever stronger compared with all other events. Apart from football and American football, the Winter Olympics and Formula One predictably were well clear of any of their rivals. One international event that suffered in 2006 was the Tour de France, of which only 15 million people watched the final day. Alavy believes that the repeated drugs scandals that have hit cycling and the Tour in particular have been partly to blame. In golf, the final day of the Masters attracted higher ratings than either the US Open or the Ryder Cup. Alavy does not expect any ratings from the present Ashes series to approach the top ten, explaining that the matches are only of sustained interest in two countries, and in Great Britain the games are screened live in the early hours of the morning. Viewing for the masses Global viewing figures of leading sports events in 2006 Football: World Cup final: 260 million (average), 603m (total) American football: Super Bowl: 98m, 151m Winter Olympics: Opening Ceremony: 87m, 249m Football: Champions League final: 86m, 209m Motor racing: Brazilian Grand Prix: 83m, 154m Motor racing: Daytona 500: 20m, 47m Baseball: MLB World Series (game five): 19m, 55m Golf: The Masters (final day): 17m 59m Tennis: Wimbledon men’s singles final: 17m, 69m Basketball: NBA finals (game six): 17m, 48m Total viewing figures includes anyone who watched for at least three minutes Source: Initiative Sports Futures" I would be very surprised if any Australia Soccer Club teams achieved a world audience of any more than about half-a-million.