Mate, fair dinkum the people who dont give a stuff about Melbourne, LIVE IN MELBOURNE!!!!!
3rd worst crowds in the comp, despite the fact they are into their 3rd straight grand final.
4th worst according to Big League, not far behind the Dragons & the Sharks. 12,474 admittedly not the greatest, but then we do have the smallest capacity ground in the NRL as well as a sub-par home ground. I can't wait til we move into a state of the art, made for RL home ground in 2010.
4.5 million dollar operating loss last year.
Source?
Media boycott of anything to do with them, Newpapers? NO. TV, yes at 1am. Want to know about RL in Melbourne? Forget it.
Regular coverage in the News Ltd owned Herald Sun, one page most days, during the finals that has increased to an average of two or more pages per day. Also, reasonable coverage in The Age (not owned by News Ltd). Journo's are Dave Donaghy in the Herald Sun and Stathi Paxinos in The Age.
TV? Well, blame the NRL's sh*t FTA TV contract negotiations partly for that and Gallop's lack of balls in enforcing said contract. Not sure where you get 1am from, most games started around midnight. The final against the Sharks was shown on 1 hour delay and won it's timeslot.
Bitch about Sydney all you want but the reason for the Storms pathetic support (which is best illustrated by footage just on the footy show showing only a couple of hundred people at their Grand Bloody Final Fan Day), the reason for the Storms pathetic support, all resides in Melbourne.
A couple of hundred? And the rest, I was there and there was easily four or five hundred. During the training session we were spread out over three bays and once the training session finished the queue for signatures stretched at least 100 metres. I never bothered queuing up.
