First-round attendances the smallest for five years Stephen Rielly
From: The Australian
March 29, 2011 AS anticipated as it was, the opening round of the AFL season drew an average of less than 40,000 a game for the first time in five years.
Not since 2006, when the MCG was unavailable because of the Commonwealth Games and a match was scheduled at Launceston's Aurora Stadium, where the capacity is 22,000, have fewer fans attended the eight matches of a first round.
With disappointing turn-outs on the opening two nights of the round, in particular, the aggregate crowd figure came in at 317,628, or an average of 39,703 per game.
The season opened on Thursday night with the now traditional first-up encounter between Richmond and Carlton at the MCG that in the previous three seasons drew crowds of 72,010, 86,972 and 72,552. This year, the number was 60,654. Carlton had anticipated a crowd of 70,000, understanding that the 2009 high was driven by Ben Cousins' return to the game.
The following evening, Geelong and St Kilda, both top-four teams last year, met at the MCG before a relatively meagre crowd of 42,869.
Further, Collingwood appeared to get no bump in attendance for its premiership victory last year, drawing close to its recent average attendance against Port Adelaide in Melbourne of a little more than 35,000 at Etihad Stadium on Saturday. While other sports chase figures half as good, the AFL places considerable store in attracting its biggest crowds of the season over the four days of the opening round and the round of matches played on Anzac Day and through Easter.
AFL spokesman Patrick Keane described the weekend's figure as "solid without being outstanding".
"We were happy with four or five of the crowds. Any time we get past 300,000, it's all right, and we've ended up just short of 320,000 but we would have liked in excess of 340,000," he said.
"On a couple of the weekends in the season, we budget to be well past 300,000 and the Anzac Day/Easter round is one of those and round one, the opening to the season, is one of those. Any other time of the year and 320,000 is fantastic but for round one, we would have liked to see a figure closer to 340,000 or beyond."
Keane said the league did not see a trend in the fact the opening-round numbers have been declining for the past five years, from an average of 45,568 in 2007.
He said adverse weather and a live broadcast of the Richmond-Carlton match was an issue on the Thursday night and traffic problems beset Geelong-St Kilda the next night for which the league had expected at least 10,000 more. Two of the four lanes in each direction on the West Gate Bridge, between Geelong and Melbourne, were closed.
"On the Thursday night, we thought weather -- it rained a lot of the day -- was an issue and with a live telecast, we think it probably cost us at least 5000," Keane said.
"On the Friday night, our view was that the number of (train) cancellations and traffic issues between here and Geelong was a significant factor. We would have liked another 10,000 at a minimum for that game."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/first-round-attendances-the-smallest-for-five-years/story-e6frg7mf-1226029700660
