i won't write us off yet. Once you're in the Finals anything can happen like last year v Adelaide when we were hit pretty hard with injuries

----

ON TOPIC NOW

The preliminary finals are the best matches for atmosphere, both teams have all their fans out making a noise to get their boys' over the line, thats the best feelign everywhere

I must admit the FA Cup altohugh i only saw the end, when the crowd was chanting Rockin All over the World, that was an awesome sound.

The NRL is somewhat different. There is a pre sale for all teams season ticket holders. There are a bunch of seats at Telstra set aside for corporates. This year there are about 14,000 tickets available for fans of competing teams come Grand Final week.

This year season ticket holders nearly got all of the initial allocation, and genuine fans ought to get the allocation from the GF week.

More football fans than corporate dickheads.

Arsenal and Barca had only 15,000 each for the Euro Cup final back in May. That's 50,000-odd neutral fans. It was a sh*t atmosphere for the most part.

Same goes for pretty much every game at the World Cup.

I was at 16 Matches at the World Cup and i must disagree.

Although tickets were allocated to sponsors at the end of the day they got into the hands of fans and very few neutrals were in the stadiums.

Its a UEFA policy to give at least 70% of Tickets to fans i doubt there were only 30 000 seats allocated and 50 000 neutrals.

Were you at the Aus-Bra game? That was f***ing disgrace for ticket allocation. As was the Japan game. The Cro game had the highest proportion of actual fans there (maybe 70% in total, but the official allocation to fans was only a few thousand each and the rest had to be scalped). That's the problem. The bigger the match, the the lower the allocation to the fans of the teams involved and any shortfall is made up by touts and scalpers. That's the f***ing point.

Go back and watch the 2006 UCL Final. Look at the crowd, listen to the atmosphere, it was the ultimate corporate wankfest. 70% of tickets to fans does not mean the fans of the clubs involved. It was a dead match. A huge disappointment.

From todays HUN (by coincidence yet again) -

Grand Final's our top event

AFL Grand Final is Australia's most important sporting event. And Ian Thorpe stands as the hottest sponsorship property.
The trends are revealed in the Sweeney Sports Report, Australia's definitive sports industry study.

Footy's last Saturday in September was endorsed by sports fans as the nation's ultimate showpiece, topping the Melbourne Cup, Australian Open and Albert Park Grand Prix. The Grand Final was backed by a quarter of sports followers as the nation's biggest event, giving it a seven-point lead over the race that stops a nation.
The Cup, which eclipsed the AFL Grand Final as the country's biggest sporting spectacle in 2002-2003 and 2003-2004, received 18 per cent of the vote. The Australian Open, widely regarded as the world's best Grand Slam tennis tournament, was supported by 12 per cent to place third. Five per cent of fans went for the NRL's State-of-Origin series and Grand Final, while the Formula One Grand Prix, Bledisloe Cup and Bathurst motor race attracted 3 per cent of the vote.

Yes the same Sweeny repot that was doen prior to the world cup.

Also the same Sweeney repot that AFL media types were dissing yesterday because it said that football is only just behind Aussie Rules.

why dosnt th AFL put a twilight clause on corporate tickets......
yes let them have first option to RSVP to the offer but a month 2 weeks before the game all non RSVP tickets go back to the market or to club memebers, to alow them another shot.
i understand why they dont want to put them out on the market as a CEO dosnt want to sit next to a disgruntled employee.....chances are it would happen

I think its time for the AFL to go to Night or a twilight type time.

It would make the event far greater and

Don't keep us in suspense!

MELBOURNE TV viewers made a resoundingly clear choice on Saturday night when Paul Hogan's 20-year-old flick Crocodile Dundee outrated the Richmond-Brisbane Lions clash at Telstra Dome.
Pictures Round 19 photos

Even Mary Poppins, a timeless family feel-good movie, gave the AFL a run for its money.

The AFL ratings for the first half of the season were similar to records set last year. But Saturday night's clash underlined the need for in-form teams to be scheduled in prime-time slots.

AFL boss Andrew Demetriou said ratings for the Tigers-Lions game were understandable.

"Saturday night's game, particularly with where the teams were positioned on the ladder at this time of year, probably did not carry as great an interest as it would have earlier in the year," Demetriou said.

Richmond belted the Lions by 82 points in a match that had no bearing on the final eight.

Crocodile Dundee, on Channel 9, was at least the 12th free-to-air broadcast of the movie, made famous by Dundee saying to a New York mugger: "That's not a knife, mate. Now, that's a knife."

It sure put the knife into the AFL, averaging 320,000 viewers against footy's 287,000.

Even the sequel, Crocodile Dundee 2, topped the AFL between 9.30-10.30pm.

Mary Poppins, on Channel 7, rated solidly throughout the evening (234,000 average) while The Bill, on ABC TV, topped the footy in the 8.30-9.30 slot.

It was worse for the AFL in Brisbane where an average of 70,000 sets tuned in, just 10,000 more than SBS.

St Kilda - Officially written off...

You really should not listen to Melbourne media...

Check the AFL thread - I wrote off StKilda two weeks ago. Meanwhile, not only is this years Grand Final seemingly certain to be yet again have non-Victorian clubs, but there's now even the distinct possiblity of it being an all Sandgroper affair.

I read and even re-read CarlosA' last thread, trying to find any relevancy at all to this Grand Final thread about the ratings of the low ladder Rich v Brisbane game, which was a dismal game, all over by quarter time and I for one didn't bother watching when I could have. Tried to see some remote connection to this topic, but no, there was none at all to this thread.

Would Victorians be in mourning if it was an ALL WA Grand Final?

Stadiumking would be happy...seeing his first Western Derby and it being the Grand Final

I doubt it will happen though, a distinct possibility that they will have a derby final series.

If fremantle wish to run themselves silly prior to finals well than thast there stradegy. Noticed though that St kilda sent in 5 underdone players and had little intention of winning the game.

Cragi Starcevich is building the teams fitness forthe finals.