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An article on The Roar a few days ago brought up the argument that Victorian teams have an advantage because the AFL grand final is held in Melbourne at the MCG.
It has been argued that the contest should be moved to the home ground of whichever team finished higher in the ladder.
The Hawthorn Hawks supporter in me screams no to that. But the more logical side thinks there is one major reason you can’t have the grand final at any other ground.
Let’s forget that the AFL has a contract with the MCG to hold the grand final there until 2037. The reason I don’t see the grand final moving is capacity.
The MCG can hold 100,024 people and the next closest is ANZ Stadium which holds 83,500. So that’s about 20,000 less seats. After that the next closest will be Perth Stadium at 60,000 (with the potential to increase to 70,000) – that’s 30,000 to small.
The only way that you could see interstate teams end up with a home grand final for finishing higher on the ladder is if they have access to a 90,000-capacity stadium. Sadly, at the moment, there is no state that has anywhere near the required infrastructure.
Another idea is for the grand final to go to a stadium selected at random, like the Super Bowl. Again, however, there needs to be a stadium in each state that can hold minimum 90,000.
I’m sure that some would say that the capacity argument is wrong, but let’s look at a possible scenario. Say the grand final is between the Brisbane Lions and Greater Western Sydney Giant, where the Lions finished higher on the ladder. They get the home ground advantage, so the game is played at the GABBA, which has a capacity of 42,000.
The AFL gives 17,000 grand final tickets to its corporate backers, then 21,000 to AFL members. The next 7000 tickets go to non-competing clubs. Now at this point, we are short 3000 tickets and we have not even got tickets for members of the clubs that are playing in the grand final. The idea fails.
It is a fair point but as we all know the AFL is a business. So until you can get grounds in each state that can hold at a minimum of 90,000, I don’t think you will see the game move from the MCG.
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