ALL VERY TRUE, Good Post.
To add to that I've been a season ticket holder and i've attended 95% of my team's home games since about 2009. I said i wasn't going to renew my memberships last year but I ended up doing it anyway. I don't know what it is but I'm just not enjoying the footy games as much as I used to nor am I seeing any value in going to the footy anymore. In my eyes nothing has really changed much in terms of ''your experience at the footy" taking into account crowds, atmosphere, food, halftime shows etc etc
This has all remained the same for the last 10 years quality wise with the exception of price as everything has almost doubled. In 2010/2011 the most expensive Cat 1 tickets reserved Diamond seats at ANZ were $35/$40, now they're $70 at the gates. This is pretty much for exactly the same product.
Lack of game-day experience is a big one relative to the exorbitant amount you pay on the day (not just the ticket price, which I've crapped on a lot about in the past, but other things at the ground such as food and drinks).
I remember back in the 1990s and early 2000's during the RL season, waiting in eager anticipation for the Knights next home game on a Sunday. I couldn't wait to wake up on Sunday, kick the ball around outside, watch The Sunday Footy Show and then my dad would drive my mum and I to stadium. Sunday's were always an occasion. Back then, it was common for the reserve grade team to be playing infront of 20k+ (on some occasions, 25k+ when the Knights management shut the gates early). What a moment it was for those reserve players to also be cheered by a large home ground, something that many who never made the first-grade side will never forget. Over the past decade, I and most others I know don't care so much for the lower grades and simply just turn up 15-20mins before the first-grade game. Lower tier footy has been butchered in Australia (largely due to the likes of Dennis Fitzgerald who pushed for the scrapping of it), and the elevation of the U20 comp/Holden Cup in place of it has expanded the gap further between the elite and the upcoming rising stars of the future. The ARLC have taken steps to bridge the gap, but it's going to take many years to get the standard in the lower tiers that existed 15-20+ years ago.
Also, lack of half-time entertainment. I remember during the SL year (1997), the Knights had a kick for goal contest. A random person who entered it was drawn from the barrel, and had to take 3 conversions from the 20m/30m/40m, for....$50,000! That don't offer those sort of prizes anymore. In the early 2000's, the Knights had a catch the ball one, where I got selected one time and won $100 (caught 1 out of 3. I had a finger injury from cricket the previous week which hampered my efforts, but the 25k in attendance that day and the sun right in my eyes didn't deter me). The catch the ball contest was replaced by a Knight's trivia contest they had on the field in 2004 (won $400, got 4 out of 5 questions, 4 of them were dead easy, the one I got wrong was Robbie Tew being the only Knights pointscorer in their debut match in 1988, which I obviously don't remember since I was less than 12 months old at the time). Also, my dad won a Playstation 2 in 2006 in a karaoke sing-off against someone else on the field, singing "Born to be Wild" by Steppenwolf infront of a sell-out crowd of 26k. The people in charge of the PA system tried their best to sabotage him by fiddling around with the sound quality of his microphone, but the crowd still voted for him in the end.
In all the half-time comps they had, the crowd who still remained were mostly very supportive and got involved. Sadly, by 2008 or so, the comps ceased. I know footy tipping offers much more money, but nevertheless, $500 for a then-high school student was very satisfying, let alone random people in the ground applauding, congratulating and talking to you as you walked back to sit on the hill.
The value of the major prizes on The Footy Show and many other tv game shows have declined a lot over the past decade. Still feels like yesterday when The Price is Right offered an apartment on the Gold Coast as the major prize! I know Australia is experiencing a bit of a downturn in the economy, but as the cliche goes in Australia, "everyone loves a winner", and prizes and competition are a very big incentive and something that needs to be incorporated back into the game-day experience to get fans more involved.
