I thought the Broncos preferred Sunday arvo games? How does today's sh*thouse crowd support that argument when compared with their Friday night crowds?
I'll break it down nice and simple for Sam I Am: there are approximately 1.5 million people in Brisbane, 2 million if you add in Logan, Ipswich, Caboulture, and Redcliffe (I add these places because people normally add Penrith and Campbelltown to Sydney). There is one NRL team representing this region, with a crowd average of 38,000 (according to Sam). 38,000/2,000,000 = 1.9 people per 100 attending each game. Sydney has a population of approximately 4.5 million (including Wollongong), and 9 teams representing the region. That gives an average of 500,000 for each team. Let's again err on the side of Queensland and say the Sydney crowd average is 10,000. 10,000/500,000 = 2.0 people per 100 attending each game. Now in reality, the Sydney crowd average is (much) higher and the Broncos lower than stated. The point is, the attendances for club games in NSW and Qld are pretty comparable when the respective populations and number of teams are taken into account.
What is really embarrassing for the Broncos is that their crowd figures are dwarfed by those of the Adelaide Crows and West Coast Eagles, both which have direct competition in their local area and represent a smaller population base than the Broncos. Perhaps more embarrassing is that the Brisbane Lions draw 28,000 on average in a supposed League heartland, and haven't made the finals since 2004. The Swans average by way of comparison is about 32,000.
Of course, while we fire missiles back and forth at each other over what are in reality historically high crowd numbers overall, the AFL still rapes us by more than doubling our overall average. Of course their crowds are also historically high.
Some more figures:
Year League Average AFL Average
1958 9,462 22,172
1968 12,854 20,216
1978 10,087 22,916
1988 10,071 20,082
1998 10,935 34,768
2008 15,591 36,996
