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For the past two weeks, much has been made about the drop in the average AFL crowds across the country. Many attempts have been made to explain it. However, Michael DiFabrizio summed it up for me with a single comment.
“The Suns playing out of a small venue creates 11 games where it would be impossible to meet the league average, and that’s if you overlook the fact they are playing out of a smaller market and should not be expected to draw that many anyway.
Throw in the fact their lack of history means less fans at away games too and it’s perfectly natural for crowd numbers to dip. The same thing will probably happen next year with the GWS Giants.
Now, does this account for the entire 5.6 per cent? Maybe, maybe not.”
Read the last line again: “Now, does this account for the entire 5.6 per cent? Maybe, maybe not.”
N.B. It’s not actually five per cent.
2010 Avg: 38,417 2011 Avg. 34,950 = 10% drop.
So what else can account for the 10 per cent drop? Come to Brisbane.
Eight years ago, AFL took up a strong supporter base here off the back of three premierships. AFL had been accepted as a code Queensland plays, and was developing a strong grassroots support.
When the Reds went shitfaced in a big way, a lot of people turned to AFL. The Lions enjoyed a few successive years whereby strong membership numbers meant they had a very strong supporter base, the crowds would show up consistently and once a new financial manager was hired, the code in Queensland was starting to profit in a big way.
And this is evidenced by the members and home crowds from 1997 to 2010:
Year: Members: Avg. Attendance position
1997 16,679 19,550 8th
1998 16,108 16,675 16th
1999 16,931 21,890 Prelim. Finals
2000 20,295 27,406 Semi-Final
2001 18,330 27,638 Winner
2002 22,288 26,895 Winner
2003 25,578 31,717 Winner
2004 30,941 33,619 Runner-up
2005 30,027 33,267 11th
2006 26,459 28,630 13th
2007 23,072 28,848 10th
2008 23,079 28,128 10th
2009 26,324 29,172 Semi-Final
2010 29,014 29,908 13th
And so, looking at the statistics from 1999 to 2010, it can be seen that the Lions recieved steady support in their early years, and then really hit the big time from 2000 to 2005.
In 2006, numbers where down a bit, but by no means alarmingly down.
And even though they struggled to get anywhere near the finals from 2005-2010, apart from the one semi-final stage in 2009, membership numbers where still strong, even when the team performed badly.
Now look at this statistic:
Year Members Avg. Attendance
2011 20,792 20,459
Forget everything else, the question to be answered is, how on earth, given that with previously poor seasons they did not lose anywhere near as many members, did the Lions lose 8200 members and their average attendance drop by almost 10000, which is by the way, 33%.
The answer is rugby union has got its act together.
When a whole lot of people headed off to other sports in the early 2000s, even later 2000s, it seemed Queensland rugby was dead. Even major sponsor, BOQ ditched the Reds for the Lions.
And now the Reds will pay back the favour.
Queensland rugby fans had nothing to say that was positive for ten years, losing every game until 2008 in a dour way, then playing entertaining in the two years after that and still losing.
Fans bailed, following other sports, and after ten years, it was a legit excuse to say: “look, they are terrible.”
When the Reds came back in 2010, the crowds piled back.
In 2011, they got stronger in a big way, in effect, smashing the Australian crowd record three times in the one season, and upping their crowd average by 8000.
Fans in Queensland aren’t fickle, just rugby is taking back what it used to own.
And the Reds are set to continue to take it up more levels. With the premiership this year, they are targeting some very big crowd averages next year for rugby.
All of a sudden, the QRU is making a monster turnover and is going to pay it’s debts off relatively quickly – with the help of an ex-AFL man, Jim Carmichael.
And if the AFL doesn’t get cracking soon, the Roar (football team) will join in, and the Broncos crowds are only going to go up at the rate they are going this year.
The AFL needs to pump a lot more money into Brisbane as soon as possible, otherwise they could be on the wrong end of an embarrassing loss.
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