The AFL’s 15 best blockbusters in league’s new era of attendance

Gone are the days of the traditional afternoon slots, here is the blockbuster-isation of football. JON RALPH ranks the AFL’s 15 best blockbuster fixtures in a new era of sports attendance.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 20: Patrick Lipinski of the Magpies celebrates a goal with the crowd during the 2024 AFL Round 06 match between the Collingwood Magpies and the Port Adelaide Power at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on April 20, 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

The Tasmania Devils versus the Melbourne Demons in a midwinter Hobart clash to coincide with MONA’s Dark Mofo festival?

A festival of Perth football with a home games for both teams leading into the WA Day public holiday in the first week of June?

And a Victorian stand-alone MCG clash on the Sunday of Opening Round to add some traditional flavour to the celebration of northern-states football.

If you think the AFL has run out of ideas to turbocharge an AFL fixture that two years ago was on its knees, think again.

Welcome to the Blockbuster-isation of football, a concerted bid by the AFL to cash in on the changing face of sports attendance.

This code once kicked off with a suite of 2pm Saturday clashes before experiments with Sydney’s Sunday afternoon contests and North Melbourne’s brief ownership of Friday night football. And yet as the AFL knows – from detailed surveys and anecdotal evidence – fans now want major events on a grand scale.

Blockbusters and massive crowds have been a feature of 2024. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Call it the Taylor Swift effect, which had middle-aged men more accustomed to Triple M’s soft rock spending countless hours fruitlessly hunting MCG concert tickets over summer for their kids.

Mix in a little of the Instagram generation, where an event didn’t happen if you didn’t post about it with perfect lighting and a snappy caption or hashtag.

Then add a dash of the post-Covid fog lifting as families experiencing cost of living pressures still spend prudently on experiences for their families that missed out on so much across that harrowing time.

It is remarkable to think that exactly 24 months ago football’s average attendance per round had dropped to 30,522 fans in June 2022, down from 35,122 in pre-Covid 2019.

Amid talk of an attendance crisis, Gillon McLachlan was desperately hoping “show rates” would improve as the league surveyed fans on their reluctance to actually go to the football.

Two years on the AFL has already crashed through its record round attendance of 400,000 fans three times this year.

Gather Round has made a splash in Adelaide, Opening Round hit the mark and the King’s Birthday eve clash between Essendon and Carlton looks a fixture for years to come.

As AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon told this masthead on Friday: “When I visited all the clubs last year, there was a strong desire to continue to build marquee matches and events. The numbers over the last couple of seasons have shown there is a real appetite from fans for them, whether that be with big crowds in stadium or watching on broadcast.”

The Blues and Bombers are trying to create the AFL’s newest fixture staple. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

“There is opportunity everywhere, and the concerted effort by both the AFL and clubs to build the match day experience is delivering fans more of what they want.

“Tomorrow’s Essendon-Carlton blockbuster is a recent example, with 90,000 expected at the G, and then with Monday’s Big Freeze 10, we are continuing to see big matches and events developed all around the country and it is something we want to continue to build across both the AFL and AFLW competitions.”

One bizarre side effect from the new events-like feel to games?

Venues are reporting less crowd violence, less scuffles, and a better-behaved fan base at this contests. Long may it continue.

The new beachhead for the AFL is the Saturday afternoon twilight fixture, which is delivering massive ratings for Fox Footy and huge attendances for families who are, by that stage, finished with morning sport. And yet the challenge for the AFL is that the blockbuster nature of this fixture only adds to the haves and have-nots in football.

The Western Bulldogs remain without a genuine marquee contest, the Kangaroos have only Good Friday, while Hawthorn has Easter Monday and is building on its early-season clash against Essendon.

Essendon’s Ben McKay, who did not play in a single game with an attendance above 60,000 last year, can boast the experience of round 1 (Hawthorn, 73,805), Anzac Day (Collingwood, 93,644) and Dreamtime at the ’G (Richmond, 79,359) with Sunday’s clash with Carlton to come.

St Kilda chief executive Carl Dilena helped bring about the Good Friday clash in his time as an administrator at North Melbourne and admits it is a challenge to bridge the gap.

“Good Friday took a long time to come to fruition as a regular date in the calendar, but it’s about having a regular marquee date that fans want to turn up to – it’s a signature match and it’s good financially for the club as well,” Dilena said.

“Those games have traditionally been the domain of the bigger clubs so if we can continue to work at it it’s a good way to even out the structural inequities of the competition.”

St Kilda will again ask the AFL for an early-season home clash at the MCG against Collingwood next year, having had those discussions with the league’s fixture team.

“As a general rule, the fixture is structured for the biggest clubs and broadcast media to maximise revenue. It means the smaller clubs miss out on some prime-time slots. The irony is the whole industry is structured to maximise revenues and that, in turn, perpetuates the divide.

“It keeps growing. You can never solve it unless you find ways to get rid of the structural issues. You can’t do it all at once, you have to chip away at it.”