By Ross Stapleton

Given the 1998 season is the benchmark for a record aggregate
AFL regular season attendance of 6,119,164,
what hope that the final three rounds of 2005, will now smash the ’98 box
office? Well, how about a virtual
certainty?

After starting with the best opening round attendance on record, the league has continued to set a cracking
pace throughout the 2005 season, which when you consider that fans have never had greater access to AFL
games via television coverage is quite an achievement.

With league chief executive Andrew Demetriou himself tipping
a record breaking season, he’s also hoping for crowds of up to 330,000
turning up this weekend’s specially themed “Heritage” round – that
includes the local derbies in Perth
and Adelaide, Sydney v Brisbane, and the likes of heavyweight
traditional
enemies Collingwood v Carlton and Essendon v Hawthorn.

With the help of those intrepid statophiles at Footystats, we have been looking at this 2005 record setting pace and another
300,000 plus this weekend would be the seventh time this landmark aggregate has
been achieved this year. Considering
that before 2005, starting with ’98 and then 2000-01, and 2003, that landmark
was reached only three times in each of those years, these new benchmarks are a
remarkable effort.

It demonstrates just how effectively the AFL’s
planning for maximizing spectator appeal (with attention paid to producing high
yield attendances with the fixturing and marketing of specialist theme rounds) is
really paying off.

The full story is on the site here.