Reggi about the Pie crowds

[omnipotent]

whether we like it or not, this article seems to suggest you are wrong about saying their crowds get exaggerated. I wish we had as many fans.






Riding the Collingwood wave
9:10:05 AM Fri 22 August, 2003
Paul Gough
afl.com.au
Related Content:

How the clubs shape up

Is it any wonder every AFL club wants to play a home game against Collingwood each season?

A check of the AFL?s crowd figures over the first 20 rounds of the 2003 season reveals just why clubs are so anxious to get a home game against the ?Black and White Army?.



In these days of the home clubs keeping all the gate receipts, a home match against Collingwood is fast becoming a licence to print money and for many clubs can mean the difference between making a profit or a loss come the end of the season.

However each year only 11 of the 16 clubs get that opportunity, due to the nature of the 22 round home-and-away season, but competition for that right is set to become even more intense, ahead of the release of the 2004 fixture, thanks to the complete dominance of the crowd figures by Collingwood this year.

On Saturday night when the Magpies take on Sydney at Telstra Stadium in what is set to be the biggest ever attended AFL match played outside Victoria ? and a financial goldmine for the Swans ? the Pies will pass the one million crowd mark for the season.

And that is despite the capacity of their home ground ? the MCG ? being reduced from 96,300 to 70,000 this season due to re-building works.

But that figure alone does not reveal the true popularity of Collingwood compared to its rival 15 clubs.

Over the first 20 rounds the Magpies have attracted 131,452 or more than 6,500 people more per game to their matches than their nearest rivals ? Essendon.

There have only been four matches this season which have attracted crowds in excess of 60,000 and the Pies have been involved in all of them ? against Richmond in round one, Essendon on Anzac Day, Melbourne on Queen?s Birthday and Brisbane in round 19.

All of those matches were played at the MCG while the Magpies also created a new attendance record for an AFL match at the Telstra Dome this season when 53,312 fans saw their round 14 clash against the Kangaroos.

The Roos are one of six clubs, the others being Brisbane, Carlton, Essendon, Melbourne and Richmond ? which have recorded their biggest attendance of the season against the Magpies.

Such is Collingwood?s popularity that its recent MCG clash against Brisbane - a non-Victorian club with only a small supporter base in Melbourne - attracted more than 20,000 more people than last week?s MCG game between traditional Victorian heavyweights Essendon and Richmond ? the AFL?s second and third most popular clubs based on total crowd figures.

In 20 matches this season the Pies have only failed to hit the 40,000 mark on two occasions and one of those was the round four blockbuster against Brisbane in Queensland when the Gabba was filled to its 37,000 capacity.

Even Essendon has only attracted 40,000 plus to 13 of its 20 matches while at the other end of the scale Port Adelaide, Brisbane and the Bulldogs have only played before 40,000 plus crowds on two occasions in 2003.

However for some financially-struggling clubs, the dream of a massive pay-day against the huge-drawing Magpies is just that - a dream.

Of the Pies? 11 away games in the traditional 22 round season ? several are already set in stone and unlikely to be changed in future seasons while their hugely-successful trips to Brisbane and Sydney (this coming Saturday night) are also likely to become annual events.

And with the Pies already guaranteed return matches against traditional rivals Carlton, Essendon and Richmond each year plus Melbourne?s annual home game against Collingwood on Queen?s Birthday that already accounts for six of the Pies? 11 away matches.

That leaves the other nine clubs ? West Coast, Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Fremantle, the Bulldogs, the Kangaroos, Geelong, St Kilda and Hawthorn to vie for the other five Collingwood away games.

And if there is any further doubt about the financial importance of obtaining a home game against Collingwood each season then consider the club which has suffered the biggest fall in its home crowds this season ? Hawthorn.

The Hawks? home crowds are down by an average of 14 per cent in 2003 and it is no coincidence that Hawthorn was one of the four clubs that was not allocated a home game against Collingwood this season

[liz]

One weakness in this article is that it fails to recognise that Collingwood made the GF last year and many of its supporters were (are) expecting a repeat performance, if not one better.

I do not dispute that Collingwood are a heavily supported team, but I wonder what the comparisons with Essendon would look like over the 1999-2001 period when the fortunes and expectations of on-field performances of the two clubs were different.

It also ignores the fact that the Crows would probably be up there in 60k+ crowds if they had a ground that could hold that many, and (as someone pointed out in another thread) the fact that opposition supporters make up a large proportion of their crowds (especially compared to a team like Adelaide).

[TheHood]

Eddie has negotiated games the others have not:

ANZAC Day
Queens Birthday
now he is going for Bye Round

Good for him, done well but I am not comfortable with hogging the Bye Round (we are the other potential beneficiary) when say the Dogs or Saints or Dees need the dough as much as anyone else if not more. I know we should grab it with both hands and when it is our turn, yes! However if it were us on the sideline then I would be crying foul.

Back to the point, Lizz is spot-on, they made the Grannie, the ANZAC, the Betty 2 Stroke clash, cumulatively this makes the Pies a much watched club (sadly).

[Joel]

Originally posted by lizz


I do not dispute that Collingwood are a heavily supported team, but I wonder what the comparisons with Essendon would look like over the 1999-2001 period when the fortunes and expectations of on-field performances of the two clubs were different.



Cannot be compared due to the fact that the MCG is being redeveloped.

[Joel]

Originally posted by TheHood
Eddie has negotiated games the others have not:

ANZAC Day
Queens Birthday
now he is going for Bye Round



Actually you are bit off the mark there. The Anzac Day game was negotiated before Eddie's time. The idea was actually Kevin Sheedy's and he asked Collingwood. The first Collingwood V Essendon Anzac Day game was in 1995. Eddie did not become Collingwood president until 1999.

In regards to the Queen's Birthday game, that has been a traditional clash for a fair few years, and granted, Eddie has built on it.

BTW, I'm a Collingwood supporter, just stating the facts.

[Reggi]

Lizz is right in that regard.

Ain't a lot of facts in Gough's article are there?

The smaller Vic clubs love playing Collingwood because they can pull a crowd tht teams like Norff and Saints never can.

Collingwood has huge attendances because 1 The draw is rigged to make sure they do and 2 because they play in Vic more often more opposition supporters attend.

If we were playing West Coast for top 4 the hype and crowd would be pretty similar as in 1996 - 98 when Sydney vs Provincial clubs was pulling 60K plus in Melb.