If you look at the very rapid drop down of Tahs' and Brumbies' crowd numbers in recent weeks, and to your reference to the (AFL) Lions above, isn't it now clear that Aus fans simply say: if it's not attractive to watch and the local team's not winning, I'm not paying and taking the trouble, period. The old pattern of enduring, tribal loyalty where a solid core of game-attending-always fans is rapidly decaying, and (at least) the football brands can no longer rely on it. The other fact that IMO MUST be accounted for: HD TV on a big plasma (60" versions can now be purchased for say $2-3k, and 50" a lot less) is, in all its impressive, immersive quality, likely taking fans away from live, and/or making fans say 'oh well, why bother to trek to a game and all the cost if my team's not doing well and I can just watch bits on HD TV if I need to'. But once the live spectacle improves and the consistent victories come back, the fans will very quickly come back as there's nothing like seeing exciting wins live (especially btw in a well sited rugby-friendly stadium like Suncorp).
You might have heard Link say this week that he was more than ever thinking hard about how the Reds must deliver a 'good crowd spectacle' as the Gold Coast AFL and a potential other NRL team in Brisbane were big rugby crowd-sapping threats...people only have so many $s to attend games. An interesting feature of the new QLD Link is how often he talks of the essential need for the Reds to entertain well and thus pull crowds, etc. He clearly has become much more attendance-and-fan-joy centric as a key metric in his thinking than he was in the NSW version. Partly to the credit of the very good new Reds CEO I suspect, and having a team with good natural rugby flair for an expansive, running game style (subject to winning).
