For the first time since 2017, North Melbourne will host Fremantle at Marvel Stadium, and there are concerns as to how many fans will attend.
SEN Chief Reporter Sam Edmund reports that while members will surely rock up, the public sale numbers have alarmed some at AFL House.
“The public sales aren’t the only barometer given members can just turn up, so it’s not unusual for them to be low, but they are very low,” Edmund told SEN’s Whateley.
“There’s some concern at the moment over the attendance that we might get on Saturday on a weekend that has the Australian Grand Prix and a week before the Good Friday clash that perhaps some North fans are saving themselves for.
“You’d think some early-season optimism would count for something here, but at this stage that’s not the case.
“Roos fans, get along, first game in Melbourne for the year – there is some worry that this could be right on the low end.”
The Roos average crowd in 2023 was 20,765 for home games, including matches at Bellerive Oval in Tasmania.
Round 1 was an enormous success for the AFL, with 413,405 fans through the gates, beating 2017’s record number of 400,401.
