So how should we compare if not crowds or on field success?
You went to a Suns game ?
Haha
We don't need to compare.
but we were too , as a gauge:
We know that NRL is the most watched sport by ratings but for the sake of making things easier we can say they're even across the country.
However the AFL attendance is amazing as the nature of the sport is best in person , better crowds than even the NFL.
On the equal footing to RL, attendance is around double that of RL across the nation on average.
So if AFL was as big as NRL on the gold Coast it would need to be double.
Titans 15k will show 30k AFL in attendance on an equal support with all things equal but they're not.
The Suns are going great and in Honeymoon faze, so we'd have to go to when the Titans were going good in the Honeymoon faze.. they were more around 20k average.
So if the Suns were as popular as the Titans, you'd expect to see around 40k average and they're about a 3rd of that.
The Gold Coast I have at about a 70% NRL 30% follow AFL.
That doesn't account for the amount of expat Kiwis and Islanders on the GC. If you could get Television ratings for the GC, I'd bet my last dollar that the Warriors get better ratings than the Suns and so will Tonga v Samoa.
It's no contest.
AFL crowds give a false sense of popularity.