Crowds & Fixturing

[scott]

With one round remaining, I think it's worth reviewing the draw this season and discuss what's gone right, what's gone wrong and what can be done better in the future.

On average, 26 fewer people have attended each match this season compared to 2016 (2,289 vs 2,314), but feel that's more the result of the SANFL shooting itself in the foot.

The program this season was widely considered to be better than last season's, but still not great given last year's was just awful. The SANFL listened to things such as reducing the saturation of Sunday games and inreasing Friday night matches, but should learn a lot from this year too.

Please leave the AFL bashing to the other thread.


Just some of the things I could quickly think of running through the fixture...

Things that worked
* 3,323 - Norwood twilight game v Adelaide in Round 8 or 9. Having attended this match, I thought the atmosphere was strangely good for a Ravens game. The unique 4:10pm start and 6:30pm finish before it got too cold seemed to provide enough incentive for a decent turnout.

* South v Adelaide at Encounter Bay on Easter Sunday. 2,357 turned up, and the ground was chockers. At least 1,000 more than what they would have got at Noarlunga. South should bring one of their games against Adelaide to the GSFL/SFL each season, because they'll struggle to draw over 1,300 at Noarlunga. There's nothing to lose. The Fleurieu area is so big. Capture the interest of the people. Shit, take a game to Kangaroo Island.

* 2,000 - South v Port as a standalone Sunday game. A big crowd by South's standards and a far cry from the 980-odd in that diabolically-scheduled corresponding match the year before.

* Norwood playing five Friday night games in the first eight week at an average of almost 3,700 per game. It's not unique, but it works. I'd be great if every round for the first eight or so weeks had a Friday night game.


Things that almost worked
* Round 1 opening with three Friday night matches. Almost half of this season's Friday night matches in one night was a downer. Two's company, three's a crowd (or lack of). Two matches collected over 3,500 each, the other just 1,701 in what was probably a saturation of an otherwise good thing. Stick to the two.

* Glenelg hosting Sturt on Good Friday with 4,799 attending. This was a great result make no mistake, and granted it was 1,500 up on their corresponding clash in a regular timeslot the year before. But South went from having 3,900 v Glenelg on Good Friday last year to 1,600 in a regular time slot this year - a drop of 2,300. People will turn up on Good Friday regardless of opposition, so with all due respect, Glenelg would be better hosting a lower-drawing team such as South on Good Friday and getting a decent crowd, and leave the higher-drawing matches to regular season timeslots that'll get a big crowd anyway. It's win:win. Except for Sturt not playing on Good Friday. At least not against Glenelg.

* 2,906 - North hosting Good Friday against Centrals. Not the worst crowd all things considered, and apparently there was an error in the figures, but given Elizabeth hosted the corresponding game the year before with 4,500, it would have been disappointing.


Things that didn't
* Not related to crowd numbers specifically, but radio. This live stream is great, but isn't going to get people to games. Get the footy back on the radio. People listen to it at the ground & in their cars. Just get it back on.

* Round 13 - four games going directly head-to-head against a Saturday afternoon Port AFL game at Adelaide Oval. An average crowd of 1,651 between those games. If we must have split rounds, this is the perfect round to pick - one game at most on Saturday, and one or two on the Sunday.

* Round 15 (week 2) - AFL Showdown on the Sunday, no free-to-air AFL to compete with on Saturday afternoon. So we've scheduled just two matches for the entire round. If five games should ever be scheduled at exactly the same time, this is the round.

* 1,897 - Glenelg v Norwood as the only Saturday night of the season. Granted, crap conditions didn't help, but it was in the middle of winter.

* 1,348 - Adelaide v Port 'SANFL Showdown' at Woodville. I mean, shit. Take these games to the country. Clare worked. Mannum worked. Woodville didn't. Why not play it as a curtain raiser to an AFL showdown? It'd actually make sense.

* 2,641 - North hosting the Queen's Birthday match. Maybe this is the start of the teams sharing the hosting duties, but this was comfortably the lowest crowd for a Queen's Birthday match as far back as I could be bothered going (2011).

* 1,400 - Bordertown game. All the time, money and effort put into bringing this match to the country was completely undone by pitting it head-to-head with a Crows AFL away game live on Seven. As if Crows supporters don't attend league matches already, there was absolutely no chance this was going to improve it. The Crows AFL team were playing in Melbourne - imagine scheduling this for the Saturday instead. Firstly it's not clashing with their AFL team, and secondly you might entice a bunch of their supporters to the game while on their way over to Melbourne. Yeah it probably would have clashed with the local league and Sunday was the best of a shit sandwich, but then why was it scheduled in this round in the first place?

[Spargo]

You raise some excellent points.

[Booney]

You raise some excellent points.

3:41am...

[Spargo]

You raise some excellent points.

3:41am...

Doesn't everyone start work at 4am?

[Booney]

You do indeed raise some very good points, Scott.

The split rounds, teams playing twice in 1 round across two weeks, some weekends with only 2 games of footy, time slots all over the place, reduced media coverage, some of this related to the streaming service as Life and RPH no longer advertise their call of the game all week which might encourage people to think "hey, I'll go to that one", going head to head with AFL home matches ( Port had an AFL home game up against Port v Centrals at Elizabeth - Adelaide the Bordertown game ) etc.

I think the SANFL should seriously consider moving to 2:20 Sunday time slots and sticking with it. The two AFL sides rarely get noon Sunday games in Adelaide, senior amateur league players are freed up. I understand that Sunday is junior footy day, perhaps people in the younger age groups could play and then head to the footy with parents, it would only really be the U17's who would miss out, I know it doesn't work particularly well for presidents luncheons, past players days etc but are we catering to an elite few or trying to get bums on seats? Oh, hang on....drop the price of entry to $10, keep kids under 18 free and perhaps the SANFL should employ @Phil H to promote each round across the media outlets. When he, and his Eagles comrades hold a special event ( granted the lightning carnival helped numbers ) the crowd figure is reflective of the effort he and his team puts in.

[Wedgie]

I went to two games this year, the least I'd been to in 45 years. Theres only one reason I didnt go but you dont want that discussed.
It doesnt matter if games were free, North were top, there was a greater choice of beer and food, if beer and food was cheaper, better facilities or no byes i still only would have attended two games because IMHO the SANFL has no integrity because of the thing you dont want discussed.
Looking from a glass 2/18ths full point of view though, why did i go to two games?
Game 1 was because it was Good Friday, its the most suitable day for footy as nothing else is on. The SANFL can capitilise on this by having all teams playing every Good Friday.
Game 2 was because I wanted to catch up with my daughter so theres not much the SANFL can do about that.

Just goes to show fhey should have had Good Friday footy sooner and possibly forever. Its the only thing the SANFL did that got me to a game in a compromised competiton.

[Dutchy]

Another positive this year has been the excellent weather which has boosted numbers compared to recent years.

[BD1]

Not too bad a total in Round 17 - 14,955, the 2nd biggest for the season, behind the 16,260 in round 2. From what I hear, was boosted by big efforts for Woodville Oval game.

[PhilH]

Excellent weather ?? Yes for the start of the season to about mid July absolutely no argument at all, but Eagles 3 biggest drawing games v Sturt, Norwood & Carnival were all rain affected.

Agree with a lot of this Scott .... the Crows v Port crowd at Woodville, a showdown close to home in awesome weather with a good cause to support was a true sign of how many of the 130,000 combined Crows/Power AFL members actually want to go and watch their reserves .... about 1%... the country SANFL Showdown games means it allows for a new audience to come along, works in some places not others ..... Naracoorte or Mt Gambier would be the place in the South East but extra travel required. Bordertown area only has population of 2,900 so for that venue to work it needed a lot of people to travel ... and a lot didn't.

I think the Encounter Bay game needs to be an annual Easter event so it becomes a tradition down Victor way.

I especially agree with not going head to head with Crows games it is a double whammy as many SANFL fans become conflicted about who to watch..... hosting Port when Power on not much better..... from a crowd perspective it is doomed to fail.

Interestingly best increase in crowds this year were at Alberton, that said coming off a low base where even the Eagles beat them for numbers last year. Flip side Central who had the biggest rise last year had biggest drop this year (Getting and losing a Good Friday game was probably about 70% of the reason).

There also needs to be work done on how the scanners manage at the big games .... Good Friday at Prospect, ANZAC Day and Eagles Carnival Day are 3 of the biggest on the year and all reportedly has scanner issues.
... from feedback only the Carnival Day had a backup process to ensure all entering were captured (in a crowd figure sense, we did let the kids go after their games ).
eg Apparently it was free entry for ANZAC Day game prior to 12 noon which I understand but surely those entering early should still be counted in the figure.

Very much agree with a Friday night game every Rd (when no Crows / Power in that time slot) until end of May.

[FlyingHigh]

You do indeed raise some very good points, Scott.

The split rounds, teams playing twice in 1 round across two weeks, some weekends with only 2 games of footy, time slots all over the place, reduced media coverage, some of this related to the streaming service as Life and RPH no longer advertise their call of the game all week which might encourage people to think "hey, I'll go to that one", going head to head with AFL home matches ( Port had an AFL home game up against Port v Centrals at Elizabeth - Adelaide the Bordertown game ) etc.

I think the SANFL should seriously consider moving to 2:20 Sunday time slots and sticking with it. The two AFL sides rarely get noon Sunday games in Adelaide, senior amateur league players are freed up. I understand that Sunday is junior footy day, perhaps people in the younger age groups could play and then head to the footy with parents, it would only really be the U17's who would miss out, I know it doesn't work particularly well for presidents luncheons, past players days etc but are we catering to an elite few or trying to get bums on seats? Oh, hang on....drop the price of entry to $10, keep kids under 18 free and perhaps the SANFL should employ @Phil H to promote each round across the media outlets. When he, and his Eagles comrades hold a special event ( granted the lightning carnival helped numbers ) the crowd figure is reflective of the effort he and his team puts in.

It's an interesting thought that deserves serious consideration. Obviously the VFA had a niche in the old days, NSWRL was Sunday arvos, and there was a Sunday comp in WA back in the WAFL heyday.
Not sure what I quite think. If it could attract that niche of Saturday amateur footballers and families looking for a relaxing Sunday arvo, it might raise the profile and $$'s for players and help retain talent. Unfortunately I can probably see the opposite happening given the current football landscape - just another reason for likely SANFL footballers to go to the country/amatuers to be able to enjoy their Saturday nights as well as the $$'s and less training.

[RB]

drop the price of entry to $10

This. It's so obvious, yet the powers that be just don't appear to be interested.

[saintal]

Love your work Scott.

So despite the generally favorable weather, improved fixturing and a top 5 that features Sturt, Norwood, Glenelg and Port, the average is still down on last season’s record low (albeit by 1-2%). At least the drop isn’t as significant as previous years I suppose.

Did read on bigfooty a few weeks ago that TV ratings were also marginally down on last year, which would be disappointing given all games have been shown on the main channel this year and not 7mate.

Has the digital pass impacted on crowds, particularly the number of supporters going to away games, I wonder? Perhaps nothing too substantial. Having said that on a couple of occasions I chose to watch a game online at my leisure rather than squeeze in attendance around other commitments. Perhaps last year I would have made more of an effort to attend the game as the option to watch it online wasn’t available.

Sunday footy has a place. For South I think an optimal spread would be 5 Saturdays, 4 Sundays (ideally against the Bays, Sturt, Port, Nwd) and 1 Easter Sunday game down the Fleurieu (in the years where we don’t host Good Friday). From memory this is close to what we had this year. A night game would also be ideal, but can’t see the club re-investing cash we don’t have back into the lights.

[VALE PARK]

Perhaps the SANFul thought no radio coverage of games would increase crowds.
Wrong!

[heater31]

Perhaps the SANFul thought no radio coverage of games would increase crowds.
Wrong!

The same could apply for the inflexibility of programming all games on a Saturday afternoon up against local competitions and the odd AFL fixture

[Psyber]

Perhaps the SANFul thought no radio coverage of games would increase crowds.
Wrong!

The same could apply for the inflexibility of programming all games on a Saturday afternoon up against local competitions and the odd AFL fixture

Spot on!
I've usually been too busy with other things to go to many games, but I used to go to the odd game most seasons when I could maintain my interest in SANFL,via the SANFL site and radio, when I was working interstate.

This year it has been difficult to do that, and I've just come back from 3 months working in WA.
So, I find this year I've lost touch entirely have almost forgotten the games are on as a result,