GOLDEN TICKET

AFL will always kick on while it’s affordable for families

WHEN Charlie Bucket found that final golden ticket to go on a tour inside Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, it made his dreams come true.

Venturing onto the confectionary floor with Grandpa Joe was everything a little boy could desire.

He could smell the candy, try experimental bubblegum or swim in a chocolate river. He could do what every kid wanted to do and that’s experience something amazing.

But for kids these days getting a tour of a lolly shop isn’t a dream because you just have to hit aisle six of your local supermarket to get a face full of sweets.

Are we losing touch with life’s great experiences because so many things are at our fingertips?

Let’s put this thought in the context of sport because all this talk of lollies is making me hungry.

If a dad wants to take his daughter to an NRL match in Sydney this Sunday it will cost him $90.

That is an awful lot of money for a suburban family to pay each week.

So the fact that crowd numbers hover around 6000 for a match should not be surprising.

The excuses used are modern world related.

The aisle six of sports broadcasting is watching the game on TV now. It is so much easier and way cheaper than getting into the ground.

You don’t have to battle public transport, or battle to find a park or battle the queue for some hot chips.

You just flick your remote from the comfort of your lounge room and the game is right in front of you.

But I think the NRL is making a huge error in forgetting about the experiences you can have at the game. Instead they’ve been too heavily focused on the digital accessibility of the sport.

Crowd numbers? Who cares! NRL is a TV sport. Well that’s how they justify it.

But this is where the AFL is still giving out golden tickets.

It understood a long time ago that the game of Aussie rules is all about the experience, the adventure of the day, not just the number of people watching it on an app or on a TV.

Kids getting in free on Sundays is brilliant. It creates the family atmosphere. It gets kids hooked on the game. Embedding this in their souls from such a young age, at no cost to the parents, will be of huge benefit in the future.

The AFL has been really clever, keeping prices down and affordable.

Last weekend 88,000 people turned up to the MCG to watch Richmond play Collingwood. Now, it is always a clash that gets the crowds through the turnstiles and it was only broadcast on Foxtel, which not everyone has.

But the fact that so many people went along to watch a game of footy on their Saturday afternoon is fantastic. I reckon everyone walking in thought they had the golden ticket. The best ticket in town for the great adventure to unfold right before their eyes.

The TV market and online applications for watching sport is set to boom even more.

But what the NRL doesn’t seem to get, or perhaps it has flat out ignored, is that the game may look good on TV, but if no one is going to the games then in two generations’ time no one will have fallen in love with the League experience. No crowds will mean no players.

So next time you go through the gates at the footy, scan your ticket, your golden ticket, and soak up the experience that our games gives you.

You’re there when the high marks are taken and the goals after the siren are kicked.

You can put yourself in the story of that game.