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I bought an Ashes ticket. I’ll be at the Gabba for the first day’s play Brisbane, and I’m looking forward to an enjoyable summer of Test cricket. But watching Australia pummel Sri Lanka on TV yesterday, I couldn’t help but lament the sterile atmosphere in the stands.
There was a time when one-day cricket was the hottest ticket in town, with raucous crowds cheering on the likes of Michael Bevan, the Waugh twins and Shane Warne across the country.
But with Cricket Australia cramming more games into the schedule, a golden generation of players retiring and our ever shortening attention spans bombarded with alternatives, suddenly Australia’s favourite summer pastime began to lose its lustre.
The advent of Twenty20 cricket has done little to whet my appetite, while the media-managed players of today are a world away from guys like David Boon and Merv Hughes who I grew up watching.
In short, I struggle to get enthused about much of the cricket played nowadays, and were it not for a virtually sold-out Ashes series papering over the cracks, this could have been a nightmare summer for Cricket Australia.
I was pondering that fact as Australia went through the motions against an already celebrating Sri Lankan outfit yesterday, and it struck me how lacklustre the whole affair seemed to be compared to Brisbane Roar’s pulsating 4-0 win over Adelaide United on Saturday night.
I watched the game down at Suncorp with a few mates, and it was the first time I’ve experienced lines of fans waiting patiently to get inside the ground.
Brisbane’s decision to allow kids under fifteen free entry clearly paid dividends, and while the season-best crowd of 13,248 was still some way short of Brisbane’s 2007-08 average attendance of just under 17,000 fans, it shows that the club is starting to reconnect with fans.
The Roar’s decision to hike ticket prices last season was a shocker, and by the time the club slashed prices in response to fan anger, they’d already been abandoned by thousands of formerly loyal supporters.
As the cost of living in Australia continues to rise, ticket prices are becoming an increasingly important consideration for fans who have the choice of going to a game, or watching from the comfort of their lounge chairs.
That’s a lesson Brisbane Roar learned the hard way, and the fans out at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night will surely have been impressed by the atmosphere, even if it also helps that Ange Postecoglou’s side are playing some of the best football ever seen in this country.
With some supporters suggesting the A-League season kicked off too early this year, one wonders whether there’ll be a time when football challenges cricket as Australia’s dominant summer sport.
We’ve already seen impressive attendances turn out for games during the Christmas-New Year holiday period, and matches such as Adelaide United’s clash with Sydney FC at Adelaide Oval and Central Coast’s hosting of Melbourne Victory on New Year’s eve are likely to continue that trend.
Some say a decent turn-out has little bearing on the football played on the park, but I’d argue that a raucous atmosphere helps to inspire the players – look at Matty Smith’s goal celebrations on Saturday night – and the fact remains that every sporting event looks better against a backdrop of packed stands.
We see that in the smash-and-bash dash that is Twenty20, and if Cricket Australia is marketing games for their brevity, then surely the FFA could do worse than remind casual summer fans that football matches are over in ninety minutes.
I hope I have a grand old time at the Ashes, and I doubt I’ll ever turn my back on cricket completely.
But when it comes to my summer sport of choice, these days I’ve only got eyes for the A-League, and I know plenty of others starting to make a long-term commitment as well.