Today’s AFL Grand Final pits, the two AFL teams with the longest AFL Grand Final droughts against each other in a match-up set to break one long-suffering team’s drought Roy Morgan has taken a look at the fans of The Crows and The Tigers.
“Saturday’s AFL Grand Final is a battle of the ‘droughts’. Richmond haven’t been in a Grand Final for 35 years – since 1982 when the competition was known as the VFL, and haven’t won a Premiership since 1980 whilst Adelaide are looking for their first Premiership since going back-to-back in 1998.” Gary Morgan, Executive Chairman, Roy Morgan Research commented.Of the two teams Mr. Morgan explained that the Crows have the edge in total supporter base with 541,000 fans enough to place the club fifth for total AFL supporters in 2017. The Crows support is heavily concentrated in their home State of South Australia (76.5% of Adelaide supporters). Their opponents the Tigers are no slouches with 442,000 supporters around Australia, but have one of the AFL’s best conversion rates of supporters to members – ranking fourth and converting 16.4% of supporters to members in 2017. Morgan added that Richmond are clearly adept at attracting younger supporters with 18.2% of Richmond supporters under 25 compared to only 12.5% of Adelaide supporters – an impressive statistic considering the unsuccessful Richmond teams of recent decades.
Mr. Morgan also said that The age profile of the respective supporter bases underlies why more Adelaide supporters (63.5%) watch the AFL on TV than Richmond supporters (59.8%), and also, conversely, why more Tigers supporters (11.0%) actually play Australian Football compared to only 6.4% of Adelaide supporters. The Roy Morgan figures bear out the old axiom that Adelaide is the ‘City of Churches’: a clear majority of Adelaide supporters (62.4%) consider themselves religious compared to only 49.6% of Richmond supporters.