I love football and can’t imagine my life without it, but the whole exercise of going to a game and supporting my team is quickly being outweighed by the inconvenience and exorbitant prices.
Stadium deals are crippling teams unable to draw crowds larger than 20,000 people and the AFL are doing very little to persuade me to get off the couch.
While the atmosphere of a blockbuster clash or a historical rivalry will draw fans through the gates, regardless of influencing variables, it is the dead rubber fixture fillers which are the bane of AFL clubs.
The past decade has been marvelous for the AFL in financial terms to become Australia’s most financially secure league but this is not reflective of the wider AFL community.
Traditional blue-collar fans have been hit hard from economic turmoil and the cost of living increases have not been reflective of the job market across the majority of this past decade.
As someone who attends maybe half a dozen games per year, the cost of the exercise is leaving me disillusioned and of the belief the number of games I attend annually will only decline as I get older.
For a game at the MCG, an adult ticket will cost at minimum $36 to sit on the ground floor with a general reserved seat where the atmosphere is best soaked up and the view is good.
General admission tickets are $20 but you are required to sit on level three and seats are first come first served.
Then factor in getting to the game and back. I once drove to the game and after that, I decided never again.
Parking a car there costs $10, which is very reasonable but the amount of time it takes to exit the car park is not. Catching the train is more convenient, better for the environment and more responsible.
Metro have given the AFL an enormous boost by making daily public transport on weekends $3.50 for adults, so that covers getting to the game and back.
Catching the train to the football is a big part of the experience because it’s rare to find a common interest amongst people in such a confined area.
When teams are announced and Joe Blow echoes the late changes, murmurs begin in the build-up to the game.
A typical AFL game will last three hours from the time you take your seat to the time you head for the exits. In those three hours, a man gets hungry! Thirsty too!
Well organised individuals can be spotted with their ham sandwiches and juice boxes but the greasy boxes of fried food, scorching hot meat pies and plastic cups of beer are all ingrained into what I know as ‘the footy experience’.
Throw in the foul mouthed old lady sitting two rows in front of you and nothing less was expected.
Over three hours, two beers at $6.60 a pop would be considered responsible (not just to your wallet) but budgeting for four is more realistic. (The food and drink prices used in this article are from the 2012 AFL season.)
A bucket of chips normally suffices as a mid-game snack and if one bucket is enough to satisfy you over three hours, $5.30 isn’t too bad.
If you need a meat pie to warm the hands or just want to be traditional, it’s another $4.50.
A ‘football’ dinner would comprise of a bucket of chips and meat pie for $9.80. When dining out, you’d be lucky to find a meal for that much.
Throw in the two beers and you’ve spent $23.00 on dinner, which doesn’t actually sound too bad. Once you factor in the $39.50 it took to get access to that meal, it’s a bit worse.
If you factor in an additional two beers, the cost of dinner and drinks balloons out to $36.20. And this is under the assumption beer is your poison. Wine is $8.90 per glass and mixed spirits are $9.50.
So over the course of a three hour game, the cost of the football experience for one person is:
Admission: $36.00
Transport: $3.50
Food and drinks: $36.20
For $75.70 I can experience the thrill of a live AFL game while appreciating the atmosphere and experience.
It’s nice to get out of the house and spend a day with the boys at the footy, but it’s a costly exercise.
The worst is when you do all this and you get a bad game off football.
The ability to watch every game live from the comfort of our homes, which are resistant to harsh weather and resistant to wallet-draining food prices, has become a bit too convenient.
It’s no wonder stadium deals are crippling the smaller clubs.
Fed up
Guest
Don't drink, don't eat, just sit there and clap - sounds like a great arvo. As someone suggested before, how about Gazza and the administrators take a hit and reduce the cost for 'working folk' who just want to watch some footy. I can't understand why I have to pay so much for drink and some food at the footy whilst some 18y.o rookie playing for the Greatest Southern Suns or whatever contrived team, is picking up $100k a season. These hacks should be playing VFL (where the admission and drinks are much cheaper)
Pot Stirrer
Guest
Yes but what if you have a wife and kids?
langou
Roar Guru
Seriously, pack your lunch, don't drink and you have a really cheap three hours of entertainment.
Kasey
Guest
Punt road Oval??? you're having a lend. do yourself a favour and check out Google maps sattelite view, Widening of Punt Rd over the years has turned Richmond's 'oval' into more of a 'triangle' Theres no way known to man you could fit 36 elite athletes plus umpires and runners/trainers onto that field and produce a decent game of AFL footy. Although if it was Melbourne hosting GWS, how many people would care or expect anything greater than ammos div 5 level? http://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=punt+road+oval&hl=en&ll=-37.822184,144.988348&spn=0.002237,0.003428&sll=-32.010396,135.119128&sspn=74.822486,112.324219&hnear=Punt+Rd%2FBridge+Rd&t=h&z=18
Arm
Guest
Why not get a club membership or AFL membership and pack some food?
warren
Guest
Fox and 7 did not pay $1b plus for the rights to the AFL for people to go to the game. I am a passionate RL supporter but I rarely go to a game as it is cheaper for me to get Foxtel for all the games and pay something like $30/week. This becomes even better as I get to watch all the AFL games which in the main I enjoy all included in the price. I understand there is more to it than this but plain and simply as the article suggests there has to be some a real benefit for you to pay nearly $80 a week to support your team.
Floreant corvi
Guest
Which particular magpie do you want to flourish? Perhaps that particular cygnus? Don't you mean Floreant picae?
Martin
Guest
I reckon that the AFL should broaden the qualification to gain a concessional ticket. How about making concessional tickets available to the working poor too. That is, people who are in low paid jobs earning less than say 50k for singles, and say 80k for couples.
Floreat Pica
Guest
I agree they need to reduce the intrusion of forced-atmosphere. Never needed it before, nor now. At least they have stayed well clear of fireworks and cheerleaders!
Nostradamus
Guest
I was at the Swans game the other day and couldnt wait for the game to start to stop the ads and"music". It was an assault on the senses and now I know why people go to the bar before the game...Excruciating..
Alfred Chan
Expert
Hey Sailosi, All the AFL teams are linked to a stadium where they play their home games. They are tenants of the stadiums because the AFL do not own them and neither do the clubs. The MCG, Etihad Stadium and AAMI Stadium have been the biggest problem for AFL clubs because the clubs have to pay the stadium owners to play games in them. The clubs pay their rent through crowd attendances. For the AFL club to break even, they need roughly 22,000 people to attend. This can be made up of members and general public. The more general public tickets sold, the better. Memberships are structured so that even if members do not attend all their allocated games, they are still accounted for as an attending member. The smaller clubs have immensely struggled due to declining crowd figures which have been affected by the smaller clubs performing badly on the field. It has prompted Port Adelaide to move from AAMI Stadium to Adelaide Oval because their lack of members and supporters can no longer justify playing at AAMI Stadium if they are losing money for each home game that they do not meet their attendance quota. Melbourne have been struggling to fill the MCG lately but all the other tenants are fine. Etihad Stadium however is becoming a problem for the Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne, especially when they are playing interstate teams who have such a small supporter base in Melbourne. It has prompted the Western Bulldogs to 'sell' some of their home games to Darwin so that they can avoid paying one week of rent to Etihad Stadium. North Melbourne have been looking into Ballarat and Tasmania over the past two years to ease their financial problems. This had prompted calls for redevelopment of a "Boutique Stadium" to be developed at either Princess Park or Punt Road which the AFL would own outright. If the AFL own a stadium, they can avoid the long term rent increases which are not reflective of crowd attendance trends. Under the current deal, stadium rent increases regardless of whether or not crowd attendances do. I hope that explains it a little.
vocans
Guest
The AFL seem to think that noisy 'music' and hyper-hoopla is all they need to give us our money's worth. All that passes for quality at the footy (other than the game). All that mostly fractures the crowd atmosphere, and works against the development of a soccer-like tribal feel, which thrives on crowd focus. That would make going to the actual game absolutely essential to a real footy experience.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Haha, and here I was nabbing tickets for a game in Melbourne and thinking "wow, these are cheap, they don't even have extortionate ticketek charges for a wonder".
The Pivotonian
Guest
Spot on. I'm 27 and have been to about 300 games. I would have bought food at a handful. Eat lunch before you go and eat dinner afterwards.
Anthony
Guest
AFL is cheap compared to other forms of entertainment. Have you eaten out lately, Alfred? Australia is sky-high compared to the rest of the world, even in the US with their taxes & tipping - yet I see so many people eating out, even for breakfast. But if you want AFL really cheap - get a club membership & don't buy food at the ground. Not sure what prices are for NRL - but I have seen similar complaints from Sydney RL fans.
Matt Young
Guest
Could not agree more. Cricket worse though. I have lived in Qld for 20 years now (ex Vic-Geelong) and been to maybe 4 games on that time plus cricket 3 times. Feel like an overworked prostitute being screwed over by AFL (Suns & Lions) and caterers. I spent $100 on mainly beer at cricket one day and it was that watered down I could have driven a bus 100 klms home. Very disappointing when AFL just got over $1 Billion in TV rights. Question??? Where does it all go? To pay for Gazza and other poorly administered clubs.
The Umpire Strikes Back
Guest
You sound like a smart guy so why are you complaining? Beers at a local pub / bar are about $5 a schooner. So its $1.25 more at the game - not too bad and nowhere near as bad as the races ($9 a bottle). Maybe drink a slab before you go, take a sandwich and coke inside the ground and you're up for $23.50 on the day (admission + transport). Avoid buying merchandise like caps and guernseys as well !!
Sailosi
Guest
Could somebody please explain the stadium deals? -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download it now [http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/the-roar/id327174726?mt=8].