The AFL thinks its fans will put up with anything. The AFL is wrong | David Penberthy

The AFL’s corporate greed, incompetence and Victorian bias are clearly inferior to the alternative, writes David Penberthy.

In the midst of a cost of living squeeze, it is not surprising that so many businesses and organisations are facing rugged public and media criticism over claims of price gouging.

Some price increases have been inevitable; others look like a cynical try-on, or invite cynicism by being poorly explained.

They include businesses we have never loved such as health funds and banks and petrol, gas and electricity companies, others we used to love such as Qantas, and even some organisations we still adore despite the growing cost of it all, such as the Royal Adelaide Show.

In an environment where you feel like you can’t leave the house without losing fifty bucks, we should pay tribute to one organisation which provides value for money which is almost unique in 2023.

It’s an organisation which belongs to all of us and has a long and proud history in this state – the SANFL.

It seems absurd in 2023 that an event as big and entertaining as last Sunday’s SANFL Grand Final can be completely free for a large percentage of its 33,000-plus crowd.

As is the case all season in Australia’s best football competition, everyone under the age of 18 could rock up at the world’s best stadium to enjoy the biggest game of the year.

Adults needed to pay a miserly $32 to attend and seniors and concession card holders just $24.

In pictures: 2023 SANFL Grand Final

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For the first three weeks of the finals, ticket prices were only up marginally on the minor round, with adults paying $20 and concessions $13, compared to $18 for adults and $11 for concessions in the regular season.

In a sporting sense, this is the cheapest fun you can have anywhere in the winter months.

But it’s something which goes beyond sport as a genuine community-based event.

I am sure that some people (especially younger people) might regard this as sentimental tosh written by a misty-eyed Sturt-loving tragic who still has a bottle of unopened 1976 commemorative port in his study.

The numbers show that a growing number of people agree with me, and are either rediscovering SANFL or getting into it for the first time.

SANFL chairman and former premier Rob Kerin revealed in his pre-game speech at the official grand final function last Sunday that attendances for 2023 are up 13 per cent.

I know that’s coming off a low base, but an increase of that magnitude is significant in any context, suggesting that in tough economic times, people know value for money when they see it.

I’d go further though in extolling the virtues of our local code.

The AFL has become so resolutely corporate.

Its official functions are always off limits to kids. Its marquee game, scheduled for Saturday at the MCG (in near perpetuity), is less a day for fans and families than a giant schmoozing exercise for the well-off.

The fact that a 100,000 capacity stadium can only find room for 35,000 genuine fans says it all, with 17,500 permitted from each participating club, letting the AFL focus on the more important business of divvying up tickets between sponsors, media, senior business executives, politicians and AFL officeholders.

SANFL Captains James Battersby (Sturt) and Max Proud (Glenelg) with the Premiership Cup and fans in Rundle Mall. Picture: Brett Hartwig

Thanks also to Twitter user Andrew O’Leary who tagged me in on this jaw-dropping fact this week about the “special package” the AFL has put together so that Aussies living overseas or on holiday can watch the game live online.

The cost of the package – $46. Or $94 if you want to “save” money by buying a digital pass for the four weeks of the finals.

With AFL club memberships increasing in 2024, you can’t help but think that the identity of organisations are defined by those who lead them, with the AFL being led by one man who recently had an unfortunate fall off one of his polo ponies, the other also being the chairman of Qantas.

Now, you can’t help being insanely rich, but there isn’t what you’d call an innate common touch at the upper echelons of AFL House.

Indeed the business model seems to be based on a presumption that people love the game so much that you can almost get away with anything, be it a $13 pint or a $46 password to watch the match of the year on a six-inch telephone.

I read the interview this week which Gillon McLachlan did with Robbo in the Herald Sun where in the vainglorious manner synonymous with AFL House, McLachlan declared that nothing in the world came close to the AFL for excitement and atmosphere.

I’d beg to differ.

I’ve been lucky to attend a couple of soccer World Cups and at the risk of exaggerating, being in Mexico City in 1986 and Johannesburg in 2010 seemed to have the edge as mind-blowing global events, versus a niche sport played in one country and managed largely for the betterment of clubs in Victoria.

The AFL’s claim to being a world’s best practice sport is of course also undone by the terrible events of Round 23 this year, where the wrong team made it into the finals thanks to its own slothfulness and ineptitude.

And speaking of umpiring, how nice to be standing in the outer at Unley and watching games being under-officiated by the men and women in pink, none of whose names we know, or will ever know, who blow their whistles sparingly and keep out of the way of what’s happening on field.

So that’s it AFL. I’m out.

If you’d like to join me and the growing army with that extra 13 per cent of attendees, I’ll see you in the outer at Unley, the Bay, the Parade or Prospect or Alberton next year, my kids by my side having entered for free, nibbling on a modestly priced pie or perhaps a sneaky Red Can at three-quarter time if the Blues are travelling well.

The AFL says it’s time to be part of greatness. I don’t know what that means. My advice – be part of something smaller.

Originally published as The AFL thinks its fans will put up with anything. The AFL is wrong | David Penberthy