The Australian Football League is one of the world’s most
popular national sports with booming numbers of both participants and
spectators alike. With each coming season, scores of fans tune in to matches on
sports networks, attend the blockbuster games and even watch online.
The 2014 season is set to be the biggest season for AFL yet
with huge ticket and merchandise sales leading the way. Let’s take a deeper
look into the statistics.
The average attendance for AFL games continues to grow year
on year making the sport one of the most popular spectator sports in the
country. In 2012, the total number of spectators for the entire season amounted
to a staggering 6,778,559 spectators through the 207 games played leading to a
season average of 32,747 per game across the board. The Collingwood Magpies
achieves the highest gross attendance figures with a total of 1,145,476 for
their 23-game season which averaged out as 45,819 per game.
The 2013 AFL premiership season gained extra fans with its
207-game season long attendance figure of 6,931,085. This averaged out at
33,484 per game. 2013 saw Richmond increase their fan base attendance with a
figure of 1,137,980 tickets sold for the season giving them an average of
49,477 per game.
With these increasing attendance figures, the sport has
grown in many different ways. Merchandising has become a huge growing sector
for the AFL with jersey sales increasing year on year. With all popular sports
comes sporting icons, and the AFL is no different. There are a few AFL players
who sell more merchandise than others thanks to both their commercial appeal as
well as their performances on the field.
Lance Franklin is one of those players who has achieved the
status of most popular merchandising icon, with the 2012 and 2013 seasons
behind him he managed to sell more jerseys, badges, t-shirts and caps by more
than double the sales of any other player. The percentage of jersey sales have
also increased year on year to end a booming year of 2013.
The highest number of jersey sales went to Essendon,
Hawthorn and West Coast, with Franklin’s team mate Cyrol Rioli coming in a
close second. Other notable shirt sellers include Carlton skipper Chris Judd,
with Brownlow medallist Chris Judd making the top four.
With spectacular sport on display at many of the AFLs more
popular events, you can see why this sport has captivated the imagination of a
nation. With a growing popularity year on year, many new household names are
being etched into the history books to make the Australian Football league one
of the biggest sports nationwide.
Image source: spectatorsportsonline, alivemobile, markdadswell
