If you are a traditionalist and an idealist like myself, you will appreciate that there is no better way to enjoy a Saturday afternoon in the middle of winter than being able to trundle down to the nearest footy venue to watch a game of footy. Anyone who hasn't had the fortune to experience what I'm talking about, give this article a quick read:
At one time in the past, it really didn't matter so much if it meant driving your car up to the boundary line and watching your local footy team play, or getting up early to watch the schoolboys run around, or even going down to the nearest suburban stadium to watch the big boys play. In all reality, they would all cost more or less the same in terms of time, money and commitment.
But things have obviously changed. Big bucks in TV deals, national expansion, corporate stadia and mutli-millon dollar marketing strategies have put an end to that once and for all. But again, there could be argument for counting what this expansion has cost us and asking if the game has lost something in its never-ending thirst for market domination.
This week some friends and I decided to go and watch the Swans play the Bombers. This was a unique opportunity - not to watch the swans play, which is great, but rather to watch them play at the old fashioned time of 2:10pm on a Saturday afternoon. The AFL in its flailing drive to cement the game in Sydney usually pushes Swans games being played in Sydney to Saturday night or Sunday aftenoon, these time percieved as being the most attractive for local broadcasters and families alike.
So the chance to get down to the SCG and watch the boys play when footy should be played was too big an opportunity to resist. I remember a time when I lived in another state and gaining access to said game would have not been any hurdle. And for most games in Melbourne, this is still not a problem. One of my earlier blogs outlines a trip I had to Melbourne and successfull watching 4 games in 3 days - and at all games I was able to purchase a ticket at the gate. Cheap tickets sure, but still good honest seats, either behind the goal or right on center wing, albeit in the nosebleeds.
Well, you can forget about such pleasentries when you go to a swans game at the SCG. I attempted to purchase the tickets online, but found that I was not able to choose the location of the seats in the stadium that we would have (i.e., center-wing, forward pocket and so on). So I ventured into a Ticketek office to get the attendant to give me a diagram to see the layout of seats and their respective prices.
There are many types of seat prices as you can imagine. And there are some rules that I have that will rule out some seats. For instance, I will not buy a seat with an obstructed view. i will not buy seats unless me and my friends can all sit together. I will not pay more than $50 to go and see a game of AFL. This is not, after all, Radiohead at the Enter-center or even the Wallabies v All Blacks at ANZ.
With this in mind, you may begin to appreciate my dismay when I realised that the 'Bronze' tickets, which sell for $20, are limited to 3 bays in the entire stadium. Only 3 bays, probably aorund 800 seats for the most affordable tickets.
Now to me, but a game that is loosing its foothold in an already slippery market, could not be doing more to bring less grassroots fans to the game. The majority of seats are of the 'silver' type, about $35, or nearly double. The cost of 4 mates going to the footy skyrockets from $80 to $140.
There are possibly several outcomes from this scenario. Firstly, crowd numbers are down. Sure 20,000 people to a game at $40 a ticket will generate more money than 30,000 at $20 a ticket. But with numbers down, the atmosphere drops off, the game looks shit on TV, and I'm sure you'd find the players want to play in front of more people as well. And big-crowd atmopsphere is one of the big things that this sport has over so many others in Australia.
With elevated ticket prices, my expectations go up as a spectator as well. If i get the sense that the players aren't playing to the best of their ability, or if the entertainment isn't up to scratch, or if my beer is flat and my pie cold, then you can forget about me going again any time soon.
But at the local footy match, my beer comes in a can straight from the esky with ice still clinging to the sides, and I can decide if my sausage sandwhich has onion, or egg, or tomato sauce, or barbeque sauce or none at all. I might even get one for free if I share a joke with the bloke serving it. Sure, maybe the standard of footy isn't super-quick, but there is something romantic about watching an 18-stone bloke at full forward taking a classic chestmark with 3 blokes hanging off him. Or watching the local butchers son, young Johnny, cheeks flush with pimples, playing his first game of senior footy at age 16, and hey, even getting a few touches.
In contrast, once at a game at ANZ stadium, my friends and I made the mostake of also believing the ticket agent that there were no tickets left in the 'bronze' section. Once inside the stadium, having purchased our 'silver' tickets for $60 (whcih were shit), we actually found that most of the 'bronze' seats were vacant.
So what have we decided to do this week? well, I think we've actually decided to through caution to the wind, try the old-fashioned approach, and elected to purchase our tickets (shock-horror) on the day at the gate. Even if we can't get 4 $20 tickets together, we may well be able to purchase them as singles and find seats together anyway. Or we might even be able to find that oldest of spectator vantage points - standing room. Although I think the fun police may well and truly put a stop to that as well...
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