Crowd predictions - GWS v Swans

[Mug Punter]

geese there are a few boots being kicked into the Giants and their supporters........

I reckon its great for footy and great for sydney to have two sydney clubs, two academies.....and I love beating them

AFL is just the most wonderful sport for young boys and girls to play and it is bit by bit creeping up in numbers through out Sydney...........albeit slowly..........but the Sydney comps are improving significantly from 20yrs ago with their skill and fitness

I just think it is abundantly clear that there is not the level of interest at this stage to sustain GWS. For starters, most AFL fans in Sydney already have a team to support, they have been around for over 30 years and are called the Sydney Swans.

Therefore GWS need to secure a new untapped market. Now I don't think we have been that deficient in that area that there are 10-20,000 fans we have ignored so they need to create converts to the game in their own backyard where most people who are not AFL fans are either bolted on NRL or Western Sydney Wanderers fans.

They have massively misjudged how hard the Sydney market will be to crack.

I'd love to see two strong Sydney teams with strong genuine supporter bases. I certainly welcome the long overdue junior development of the Academies that we have been crying out for for years.

I think that conservatively that GWS will take 20+ years to be viable and to have a genuine supporter base. Is the AFL in for the long haul when you have short sighted muppets like Eddie McGuire holding such sway? I genuinely hope I am wrong but I can see a rocky road ahead for that franchise and I think an ACT relocation will happen at about the 10 year mark

[aguy]

I just think it is abundantly clear that there is not the level of interest at this stage to sustain GWS. For starters, most AFL fans in Sydney already have a team to support, they have been around for over 30 years and are called the Sydney Swans.

Therefore GWS need to secure a new untapped market. Now I don't think we have been that deficient in that area that there are 10-20,000 fans we have ignored so they need to create converts to the game in their own backyard where most people who are not AFL fans are either bolted on NRL or Western Sydney Wanderers fans.

They have massively misjudged how hard the Sydney market will be to crack.

I'd love to see two strong Sydney teams with strong genuine supporter bases. I certainly welcome the long overdue junior development of the Academies that we have been crying out for for years.

I think that conservatively that GWS will take 20+ years to be viable and to have a genuine supporter base. Is the AFL in for the long haul when you have short sighted muppets like Eddie McGuire holding such sway? I genuinely hope I am wrong but I can see a rocky road ahead for that franchise and I think an ACT relocation will happen at about the 10 year mark

I think you are quite right in a lot of what you have said. Mostly because we have seen this process once before. When the swans moved to Sydney there was a lot of fanfare and some initial success on field. However that died off and the swans languished for many years in the late 80s and 90s with low finishes and very poor crowds. I remember you would regularly see less than 5000 at the scg for home games. It has taken a long and now successful program of brand development in the Sydney market to reach the successes of recent years. Realistically it has taken the swans 20 plus years to reach sustained success both on and off the field

I have long said that gws are going to face a similar process. An initial few years of success which is essentially "bought" then many years of doldrums while they work on building grass roots support. That can be the only way they succeed and yes if the AFL hasn't realised that and isn't prepared to support them for the long haul then they will fail.

[Melb Blood Bro]

Comparing GWS to us in the 80's is a good example. We did have the small advantage though of being an established side. But GWS have the advantage of us already exposing Sydney people to AFL. It could also be fitting to compare them to the Brisbane Bears.

[aguy]

Comparing GWS to us in the 80's is a good example. We did have the small advantage though of being an established side. But GWS have the advantage of us already exposing Sydney people to AFL. It could also be fitting to compare them to the Brisbane Bears.

I think you've hit in something there. We all know that the problem for Eddie macguire isn't that there are too many teams but that there are too many teams in Victoria. So the Brisbane bears are a great example. When gws are struggling in 10 years and look like folding they could merge with one of the Melbourne clubs and become say the western Sydney kangaroos . Problem solved !!

[Doctor J.]

I think you've hit in something there. We all know that the problem for Eddie macguire isn't that there are too many teams but that there are too many teams in Victoria. So the Brisbane bears are a great example. When gws are struggling in 10 years and look like folding they could merge with one of the Melbourne clubs and become say the western Sydney kangaroos . Problem solved !!

Or merge with Collingwood, and become the Western Suburbs Magpies.

[aguy]

Or merge with Collingwood, and become the Western Suburbs Magpies.

Love it

[Swanny40519]

Love it

That would raise another Magpie fight with Eddie Everywhere as there is a club in the Sydney AFL - Western Suburb Magpies.

[barry]

GWS get about 8000 to most games, so rather than have a sook about the crowd, let's find out why more giants fans didn't come, and why more swans fans didn't come.

The weather was a contributing factor. So too the venue, IMHO. In combination, no one other than the latte sippers who live near the SCG was prepared to venture out on that cold and windy night. I suspect the rugby kept a few SCG members away too.

FWIW, GWS will be just fine once They establish a winning side.

[Swanny40519]

Sorry don't agree with your comment that people who don't live next to the SGC did not attend.. We have been members for many years and live in the west. The four of us have been sharing drives going to games for many years, and on the way in there were many swans fans waiting at bus stops. I didn't see and orange supporters anywhere.

Of that 8,000 I would suggest that more than half are the other teams supporters or AFL tragics who would see any game.

[Mug Punter]

Sorry don't agree with your comment that people who don't live next to the SGC did not attend.. We have been members for many years and live in the west. The four of us have been sharing drives going to games for many years, and on the way in there were many swans fans waiting at bus stops. I didn't see and orange supporters anywhere.

Of that 8,000 I would suggest that more than half are the other teams supporters or AFL tragics who would see any game.

Spot on!

Of their average 8,000 customers I'd say 3-4,000 are opposition fans living in Sydney, 2-3,000 are AFL tragics wanting to see a live game (I'm planning on seeing 2 or three games there despite my distaste for the club). That leaves roughly 2-3,000 as a supporter base.

At the very least they have a long tough road ahead....

[Auntie.Gerald]

i know a fair few GWS supporters who were Swans Supporters but are now GWS because their kids follow GWS and or have been involved in Aus Kick via GWS at school so go along with the kids to Spotless Stadium !

[Mug Punter]

i know a fair few GWS supporters who were Swans Supporters but are now GWS because their kids follow GWS and or have been involved in Aus Kick via GWS at school so go along with the kids to Spotless Stadium !

Anyone who has jumped ship was not a supporter in the first place but an AFL consumer.....

That's my point, they don't have real fans yet and it will take them many years (I'd say 30+) to get anywhere near the support we have now.

I just don't think the AFL will have the stomach to go the long haul here. It doesn't bother me too much either way to be honest, I just think they are a bit if a joke....

[barry]

Seems the RWO concensus is that a poor crowd can never be the swans fault. Lets go with that.

[ernie koala]

GWS get about 8000 to most games, so rather than have a sook about the crowd, let's find out why more giants fans didn't come, and why more swans fans didn't come.

The weather was a contributing factor. So too the venue, IMHO. In combination, no one other than the latte sippers who live near the SCG was prepared to venture out on that cold and windy night. I suspect the rugby kept a few SCG members away too.

FWIW, GWS will be just fine once They establish a winning side.

Once again, full of non factual talk, with a splash of inverted snobbery.

The facts were:

It was a cold windy night game, against a team that no one gives a toss about. In a game the Swans were always going to win comfortably. That's why there about 27k there.

[Beerman]

I was at the Port game and the Freo game, but I skipped the GWS game and I suspect many other swans supporters were the same. It was too cold, too late for the kids and at the end if school term, everyone was too tired.

I believe the AFL are absolutely in this for the long hall. Maybe they haven't done everything perfectly, but I think they realise that it will be a generation before GWS have a solid fan base. I don't think they're ever going to get 60,000 to their games but they could have a solid core of about 20k.

As Andrew Dunkley(?) once said, Swans crowds used to be so small that when they kicked the ball out of bounds, the players had to get it themselves :-)