Post by Banjo on Sept 30, 2011 22:24:07 GMT 7
Battlers left out in the cold
IT'S getting too hard for average footy fans to afford a ticket to the AFL grand final, writes Graham Cornes.
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WHEN I was six, my father took me to a VFL grand final. We jumped on a train, paid at the gate and sat in an old grandstand where the southern stand now is. There were 80-odd thousand in the crowd that year.
Try doing that today. How many dads can take their six-year-old to an AFL grand final in this day and age?
Last time I looked, you had to buy a "package" to get a grand final ticket. Those packages start around $1100. It's a disgrace that the AFL endorses such unethical scalping of those tickets which should be for everyone.
According to yesterday's Advertiser, some of the AFL-approved agents hadn't been able to sell all their packages. What sweet justice.
The AFL and its agents prey on the desperation of footy fans to see their teams compete on that one special day of the year.
The real fans - those who buy memberships and support their teams through the good times and the bad - rarely get a chance to see them on the day that matters most.
Only 14,500 of Collingwood's 70,000-plus members will see them this afternoon. A further 10,000 of them, who were smart enough to be AFL members, will be there as well, but it leaves 50,000 who were dedicated enough to buy a membership to support their club who won't be able to get in.
Very few will be kids. Don't they all deserve a chance to be at their team's grand final?
The basic cost of an AFL grand final ticket is $170. Travel agents package them with accommodation or a few pieces of dried toast and soppy salad leaves passing as breakfast or lunch and charge 10 times that amount.
The AFL and the Victorian Government make a feeble effort to legislate against scalping, but the clubs and the AFL's own accredited agents are the worst offenders.
The clubs, in particular, need to be hauled into line over these practices.
The increasing pressure of raising revenue and meeting their bottom lines has interfered with their moral compasses.
They turn a blind eye to practices that are ethically unsound. Worse, they actively join in. Just for once, stop and look in the mirror before you charge $1500 for a grand final ticket that costs you nothing.
Football was once a working-class game. The battlers always had a chance to attend. Today it's an event, used as a vehicle to promote, endorse and socialise.
Too many of today's crowd won't really care about the result. They just want to attend - to see and be seen. Perhaps it's justice again that the weather today will take the shine off the glamour.
There is only one fair way to allocate grand final tickets, and that is to allocate almost all of them to the members of the teams who are competing and hold a ballot to distribute them - at face value, of course.
Not everyone will get a ticket, but at least they will all have the same opportunity.
Incidentally, that grand final all those years ago was the only one that Footscray ever won. It should have inspired me to barrack for the Bulldogs, but all I remember was a fight on the wing.
www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/battlers-left-out-in-the-cold/story-e6frecj3-1226154403552
IT'S getting too hard for average footy fans to afford a ticket to the AFL grand final, writes Graham Cornes.
----------------------------------------------------
WHEN I was six, my father took me to a VFL grand final. We jumped on a train, paid at the gate and sat in an old grandstand where the southern stand now is. There were 80-odd thousand in the crowd that year.
Try doing that today. How many dads can take their six-year-old to an AFL grand final in this day and age?
Last time I looked, you had to buy a "package" to get a grand final ticket. Those packages start around $1100. It's a disgrace that the AFL endorses such unethical scalping of those tickets which should be for everyone.
According to yesterday's Advertiser, some of the AFL-approved agents hadn't been able to sell all their packages. What sweet justice.
The AFL and its agents prey on the desperation of footy fans to see their teams compete on that one special day of the year.
The real fans - those who buy memberships and support their teams through the good times and the bad - rarely get a chance to see them on the day that matters most.
Only 14,500 of Collingwood's 70,000-plus members will see them this afternoon. A further 10,000 of them, who were smart enough to be AFL members, will be there as well, but it leaves 50,000 who were dedicated enough to buy a membership to support their club who won't be able to get in.
Very few will be kids. Don't they all deserve a chance to be at their team's grand final?
The basic cost of an AFL grand final ticket is $170. Travel agents package them with accommodation or a few pieces of dried toast and soppy salad leaves passing as breakfast or lunch and charge 10 times that amount.
The AFL and the Victorian Government make a feeble effort to legislate against scalping, but the clubs and the AFL's own accredited agents are the worst offenders.
The clubs, in particular, need to be hauled into line over these practices.
The increasing pressure of raising revenue and meeting their bottom lines has interfered with their moral compasses.
They turn a blind eye to practices that are ethically unsound. Worse, they actively join in. Just for once, stop and look in the mirror before you charge $1500 for a grand final ticket that costs you nothing.
Football was once a working-class game. The battlers always had a chance to attend. Today it's an event, used as a vehicle to promote, endorse and socialise.
Too many of today's crowd won't really care about the result. They just want to attend - to see and be seen. Perhaps it's justice again that the weather today will take the shine off the glamour.
There is only one fair way to allocate grand final tickets, and that is to allocate almost all of them to the members of the teams who are competing and hold a ballot to distribute them - at face value, of course.
Not everyone will get a ticket, but at least they will all have the same opportunity.
Incidentally, that grand final all those years ago was the only one that Footscray ever won. It should have inspired me to barrack for the Bulldogs, but all I remember was a fight on the wing.
www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/battlers-left-out-in-the-cold/story-e6frecj3-1226154403552