Memberships

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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Article in the HUN

AFL facing backlash from fans over cost of fully ticketed matches with empty seats galore

Club members and the AFL Fans Association are demanding answers from CEO Andrew Dillon after fans were forced to pay extra for reserved seats to ‘fully ticketed’ games that weren’t close to selling out.The AFL Fans’ Association will demand AFL CEO Andrew Dillon for more “transparency” around fully ticketed matches this AFL season.

It comes after footy fans expressed outrage over select matches being classified “fully ticketed” games.

Club members must pay extra to secure a reserved seat for fully ticketed games and no general admission tickets are made available.

On top of the price of their membership, fans were charged as much as $70 for a single seat at the front of level four to watch Carlton-Richmond at the MCG on Thursday night.AFL Fans’ Association President Ron Issko said there were “questions to be asked” of the AFL as to when and how they decide a game becomes fully ticketed.

Three games – St Kilda-Collingwood, Carlton-Richmond and Essendon-Hawthorn – have been fully ticketed games in the first two rounds.

Issko said fans “have a right to complain about it”.

“Fans have got their memberships for the year and at a big game they’re being forced to pay extra on top of their membership to get in because they’re calling it a fully ticketed match, which should be a sellout,” he said.

“I can see lots of gaps (in the stadium) and you sit down and you think, ‘I paid extra for a fully ticketed game and I can see lots of gaps, this is not a sellout at all’.

“This is a way to make more money - someone’s making more money out of forcing people to pay extra.”

Three games have already been changed to fully ticketed which occurs due to expected high demand – however the Richmond v Carlton and Essendon v Hawthorn games both attracted smaller-than-expected crowds at the MCG.

The traditional Carlton versus Richmond match on Thursday night drew 74,313 – the lowest figure for a match between the two since 2022.

Essendon-Hawthorn attracted just 71,394 people at the MCG on Friday night, more than 9000 less than the corresponding fixture last year.

Co-host of the ‘Hawk Talk Podcast’ Nick Mason said he was “shocked and pretty annoyed” after he paid an extra $84 for three seats ($28 each) on level four.

“Money is tight for a lot of people so when this stuff happens it feels like I’m being blatantly taken advantage of,” Mason said.

“(When you see) massive pockets of the Ponsford Stand that are not filled, that is not OK.”

When asked if he would trust whether fully-ticketed games would be sold out, Mason’s response was blunt: “Hell no.”

AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said on Saturday the issue was “at the front of our mind”.

“It’s something that we’ll look at because the forecasts were slightly above the (actual crowd numbers),” Dillon said on SEN.

“We weren’t expecting the same numbers that we had the year before because … of a number of factors going into it.”

Issko said the fans’ association would ask for clarification on those specific factors.

“You’re asking members to pay more money to see a game and if we’re getting 71,000, not 95,000, well, then I think you’re squeezing extra money out of fans and that’s taking fans for granted,” Issko said.

“The AFL Fans’ Association are going to ask Andrew Dillon for more detail about how you determine when a game is a fully ticketed match and we will then provide that information to fans.”

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I did notice the number of empty seats last night and had decided to write Andrew Dillon myself to thank him for making it a fully ticketed game as it saved me from watching that train wreck live.

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Its the home club that makes this decision, that is correct isnt it?

Fk all these clubs who do it then. Its disgusting. Money is tight. Footy isnt a luxury anymore for struggling families

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I renewed my overseas membership the other day but the club didn’t t send my Watch AFL code until this morning. I guess I should thank them for ensuring that I couldn’t watch the game.

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Well, I sounded the alarm on this a week ago and didn’t get much feedback on the stupidly of it until today.

I predicted swathes of empty seats in the top tier of Stands and that it was never going to sell out.

In the end, it’s not just our club. Carlton did it Thursday night and Collingwood did it late last year against the Hawks in a game that only drew 63,000!

Clubs are lying about ‘due to o overwhelming demand’ and screwing fans to maximise yield. In the end, 10,000 don’t go and this impacts the stadium revenues on the night so they get waked there

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Yes, the home club makes the decision and sets seating prices.

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I kinda…kinda get the pies/saints. That was built up big

All the others though, terrible decisions

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Seems this issue is finally getting some media traction which will require HQ to make a response. Since multiple clubs are involved there seems little doubt the practice has been greenlit by the AFL but they’re unlikely to want to admit any responsibility for it.

Seems only club members have been impacted. The AFL members area had reasonable walk-up available for all 3 games that were otherwise “fully ticketed”. Assume MCC walk-up was similarly unaffected.

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I sent an email to the club about it to:

[email protected]

Attention: Tim Roberts CEO

cc: [email protected], [email protected]

We’ll see if anyone responds.

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An update on fully ticketed upgrades.

Clubs in control, AFL to intervene (get involved) moving forward to ensure the right thing is done.

Greedy practices went too far.. Don’t kill the golden goose!

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Of course when there’s a club-driven “initiative” Essendon is one of the clubs involved.
They really don’t deserve a cent from anyone…

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What the club fails to grasp is the easiest way to generate profits is to the win the farking games they are playing. Not that hard to workout.

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Well done @dmaplestone for calling this issue out two weeks ago when the game was first announced as fully-ticketed.

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Thanks mate.

I also sent a note to the clubs membership email and also sent a few responses to journos when they called out the problem.

It was a greedy profit grab that unashamedly took advantage of a game that they thought had maximum attractiveness however at no stage was tracking towards a sellout which is the only circumstance a game should be upgraded.

It backfired on them and I still think 10,000+ decided not to go which would’ve cost them plenty in terms of stadium match revenue like food, beverages, merch etc.

I hope they’ve learnt a lesson.

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Well old Scotch, AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said today that the ticket pricing and making games “fully ticketed” this year is an AFL decision.

I suggest you give him a call and straighten out that he got it wrong.

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He’s misleading you and you’ve fallen for it. Hook, line and sinker.. They might have ultimate oversight but the home club drives the decision and makes the call. The AFL clearly supported the clubs decision on upgrading the game.

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So he is lying is he ? Didn’t change it quick enough; you think he looks at BBlitz and you will get a please explain ?

In any case, the cost of going to the Footy has become outrageous, even for folk who can afford it. I promised to take all the Grandkids to a game together this year, and if I want to get 7 seats together it will be at a huge cost.

AFL and Foxtel, Kayo and Channel 7, don’t care about bums on seats.

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I think the AFL do.
But the rest do not.

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Dillon is from Xavier I believe. He spoke at an old scotch dinner I was at and from memory he said he went to Xavier.

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Yep Dillon is a good Catholic lad and went to Xavier.

I was referring to the Gold Coast Guru as Old Scotch. You Scotch boys have always hated those Jesuit boys as they always towelled you up in all sports.