Essendon offering cheap tickets for only home Friday night match
ESSENDON is offering thousands of extra $25 tickets and rare insider access in a bid to make the most of the club’s only home Friday night match this year.
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ESSENDON is offering thousands of extra $25 tickets and rare insider access for fans at the game and watching on TV in a bid to make the most of the club’s only home Friday night match this year.
The Bombers will make an extra 2000 general admission seats available and has granted Channel 7 changeroom access for their seemingly lopsided Etihad Stadium clash against premier Hawthorn.
Essendon is suffering in the absence of its 12 suspended players and sunk to the bottom of the ladder after a 79-point belting from previously winless Fremantle last Saturday night.
Seven will do its pre-game and halftime segments from inside the Bombers’ rooms.
Captain Brendon Goddard will be miked up for the entire match and coach John Worsfold’s halftime address will be telecast.
In what is believed to be a first, the insider experience seen by Seven viewers will also be shared with fans at the ground on the big screens.
Injured player Michael Hartley will be live tweeting the night from a player’s perspective — from the pre-game until after the final siren.
Essendon marketing boss Justin Rodski said the new ticketing arrangements were “a great result for fans, with more access to more seats at affordable prices.
“There is no bigger stage than Friday night football and we hope to see a huge Essendon crowd supporting the team against one of our modern day rivals,” he said.
He said the open door policy for media would “take our members inside the new Essendon and bring them on the journey of our next exciting chapter in our history”.
Neale Daniher, who will be at the club’s headquarters with Kevin Sheedy and Joe Daniher on Thursday, will be a guest at the chairman’s dinner as he starts a hectic weekend raising money for research into Motor Neurone Disease.
Essendon’s fans have stayed loyal despite the doping saga now wrecking a fourth season.
The Bombers this week ticked over 55,000 members, and their crowds are only a little more than 1000 down on last year — from an average of 41,725 in 2015 to 40,651.
Channel 7 will be faced by a similar challenge when Essendon takes on West Coast in a rare Thursday night timeslot in Round 15 at Subiaco.
Last Friday’s North Melbourne-Richmond match drew a combined peak audience of 1.046 million viewers for Seven and Fox Footy.
Across the board, AFL crowds are up by an average of about 1500 this year, from 32,241 to 33,755.
Essendon is expecting about 35,000 on Friday night.
Originally published as Essendon offering cheap tickets for only home Friday night match
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