Greater Western Sydney coach Kevin Sheedy believes his AFL club shouldn’t be alarmed by the modest turnout for their first match at the revamped Showground Stadium.
Despite an intriguing subplot of Sheedy matching wits with James Hird, GWS attracted a crowd of only 11,887 to the 25,000-seat stadium at Sydney’s Olympic Park on Saturday night.
It was the Giants’ first home game in Sydney since April 15 and against Essendon, a team ordinarily capable of drawing a decent crowd – let alone when they’re in fine form and taking on Sheedy, a much-loved figure among fans for his 27 seasons of service.
While the Bombers’ supporters turned up – earlier in the week, 30 per cent of tickets were snaffled by Victorians – there wasn’t the sea of orange many GWS officials would have hoped for.
But Sydney is a city known for fickle sports fans who crave success, and Sheedy says it will take time for his club to prove themselves.
“We’ve got no right to come into Sydney and expect everybody to turn up because we have,” Sheedy said after his side’s 66-point loss.
“That’s the good part about building the club – earning respect. It will take a generation.
“We need people in Sydney following the Swans and the Giants and knowing that they’re the two clubs representing AFL.”
The AFL scheduling Sydney’s Etihad Stadium clash with St Kilda as Saturday’s twilight match was a major mitigating factor. With no buffer between the games, anyone with a major interest in the Swans’ fixture would have stayed away.
Matt F
Roar Guru
Quite possibly yes. As I said in an above comment it's quite common for sport teams to over-estimate crowd figures. Whether they're just clueless about the actual market (which is odd given they would see the current ticket sales rate) or whether they're just trying to drum up interest by making it seem bigger than it actually is, I'm not too sure. There are plenty of examples from almost every single sport of clubs/governing bodies talking up predicted crowde figures which far exceed the actual number
Mark Young
Roar Guru
It was Eurovision on SBS1 Saturday night, not Iron Chef #justsaying
Victer
Guest
Lol
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
"Giants’ chief executive David Matthews was hooping for a crowd of 18-20,000" ... are you suggesting the CEO of GWS has a poor understanding of the Sydney market?
Jaceman
Guest
The AFL are struggling and should reconsider their position - only 280K turned up to their games last weekend but the NRL (on the rise) drew less than 100K. Funny the weather in melbourne and Adelaide was wet and cold but in Sydney was reasonable but cold. Saints game on Pay between 2 of the codes biggest followings (but Parra struggling obviously but less affected by SOO) and no competing NRL game on but Giants game on FTA and Pay but still the same crowd numbers.
Jaceman
Guest
Link please ???
warren
Guest
GCS - this is a good point but will it be enough to stop the cash bleeding out of the AFL to support this team and the Suns. I watched the last few Suns games and the crowds seem to have halved in one year. I know the gold coast is doing it tough and they are not winning games but this must be a worry for the AFL who lost money last year for this first time for a long time. The other issue with expansion is not only the crowds but the quality of the games. This is where the NRL needs to be careful because there are only so many good first grade footballers out there and all this has done in my opinion is take away from the quality of the product.
Matt F
Roar Guru
I certainly never expected close to 20k. I always thought it would be about 12-15k which was about right. If other fans were overly optimisitc then that's their issue and probably shows a lack of understanding regarding the Sydney market
Jaceman
Guest
Mel grew up on the North Shore - Abott territory well not quite. Matt S froths about Seven cross promotion but obviously misses the Channel 9 cross promotion because (I have said this before) unless you watch 3 (or maybe 10 FTA channels 24 hours a day in at least 2 capital cities ) you cant compare cross promotion adverts. BTW I can still buy an SOO ticket for the Sydney game. - not sold out yet and they wonder why they take it to melbourne...Perhaps this why the papers are going overboard with the I was robbed scenario from NSW - no wonder people get sick of the circus /world championship wrestling gimmickry...
Matt F
Roar Guru
What the? 30% of all tickets that were sold were to fans in Victoria. There were 11,877 people at the game so 30% of that would be around 4k........... That being said GWS do look quite stupid with their estimates. It's very similar to the Big Bash League last summer. Opening crowds of up to 30k or so were very good, but CA's idiotic estimates of up to 60k crowds made them looks tupid. I'm not sure how anyone could have ever honestly expected 20k.
Michael/Brisbane
Guest
Again with the instant gratification, yes those figures are poor, but guess what - it's their 1st year buddy! Death-ride them all you like mate, it only shows that your a short-term kind of guy. Much like the NRL and the A-League.
warren
Guest
Patrick - it is not about this but the future growth of the area. No disrespect to Tassy but the population is not going to grow at the same rate as western Sydney. Furthermore there are no corporate dollars in Tassy that could match what is available in Sydney. I too feel sorry for the Tassy people but maybe they can get a side in the next time expansion is on the cards.
clipper
Guest
Yes, super G, I've been alluding to this from day one - it's very difficult to try and break a new team into such a working class league heartland and they should focus on calling them the Giants and do away with any mention of the west, as there is a large market out in the hills area who think they are anywhere but the western suburbs.
GCS
Guest
Well done, you've skewed the figures there to try and vaildate your argument, but I'll let you have your fun. If 7,500 Essendon supporters travellled up then that is pretty impressive. People say that no-one in Sydney cares about GWS, but now we know that at least 4,500 of them do.
Matt F
Roar Guru
It's no surprise that the avrage crowd is down when you have two new teams who don't get above the existing average. It's very similar to how the A-League average went down when it introduced GCU, Nth QLD and the Heart, who all average (or averaged) below the pre-existing competition average. Aggregate crowds however are up, like they were in the A-League, which is directly because of the extra games being played. Both figures are fairly irrelevant
warren
Guest
I agree mds to an an extent. The thing that must be considered is how many of this crowd where Essendon supporters. One of the real advantages the AFL has over the NRL is the set schedule for all matches. A lot of Essendon fans would have circled this game before the beginning of the year to have an interstate trip to Sydney. The GWS is a big punt for the AFL and good on them for having a go but at what cost is the question. If Sydney people were to have taken up Aussie rules as their preferred sport they would have done it by now given the Swans have been in town for 30 years (a generation) and RL almost ripped itself apart during the Super League wars. The fact is that they are coming into a very crowded sporting market and there simply is not room for everyone to make a buck out of it. The new western sydney A league team will take even further sponsorship dollars away.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
We can learn a lot from history. When 3 teams were introduced to the VFL in 1925, in Australian Football heartland no less, attendances dropped by over 25%. Here we are 87 years later, with two new teams placed in non-heartland areas, both getting around 7k to 12 k per home game, and overall atttendances are still averaging above 33k. I tell you what people, that's pretty good. History tells us that these numbers will increase, it's a solid base to work from. Don't worry about last weekend, or next week, or next year ever - think 154 year ahead - that's when we'll know for sure whether it was worthwhile or not.
mds1970
Roar Guru
If the Giants take the field wearing "freedom of speech" jumpers, we know the end is nigh......
NF
Guest
I recall AFL fans predicting there be 20k there due to the Sheeds vs Hird & his old team,etc,etc. Now it seems there doing some revisionist history.
JVGO
Guest
You carry on like a fool C, honestly. Maybe the NSW education department should put regular RL, RU cricket soccer and basketball et al back into schools as it was in the old days. They provide pretty much zero regular competitive sports for kids now, maybe some tunnelball once a week, or something the girls can play too, like netball or Aussie rules. This idea that AFL is any way superior to other activities is merely an obsession you have, an act of faith, it bears no relation to reality.