IT’S the biggest week of the year in Australian footy: Grand Final week.
But with all the excitement and buzz around the AFL Grand Final comes much debate over the finer details of the big clash.
When should it be played? Which team gets the home title? Will it ever be played outside of Victoria? How are the umpires chosen?
The AFL Grand Final has always been played at the MCG.
The MCG has a whopping capacity of over 100,000, making it the largest AFL ground in the country.
It’s followed in size by Stadium Australia in Sydney (82,500), Melbourne’s Docklands Stadium (56,347) and the Adelaide Oval in fourth place (53,583).
As part of the BIG PORT SURVEY earlier in the year, portadelaidefc.com.au asked fans whether they think the grand final should be played in the state of the top ranked team, or keep it at the MCG.
The slim majority of Port Adelaide supporters (56 per cent) prefer the latter, but 43 per cent think the top ranked team should have home ground rights.
With Fremantle just one win away from taking on the Eagles in a first all-Western-Australian Grand Final this year, there was plenty of talk around whether hosting rights for the big clash should be moved away from Melbourne.
While the MCG’s rights to host the grand final are locked in until 2037, the rise of state-of-the-art stadia raises the possibility of making the Australian Football League further out of its Melbourne-centric final.
Of course, that discussion came to a sudden halt once the Hawks defeated the Dockers in the prelim last week.
There have been three non-Victorian grand finals in the AFL since 1990, the first being when the Power defeated the Brisbane Lions in 2004.
Sydney and West Coast played off in 2005 and 2006.
Most of you are on the same page in terms of when the Grand Final should be played, though.
While the Friday and Saturday night timeslots were the most popular for games during the minor rounds, almost 75 percent prefer to see the grand final played during the day, and only nine percent want to see it played at night.
The AFL have got it right, according to Port supporters!
The 2015 AFL Grand Final between Hawthorn and West Coast Eagles will be played on Saturday, 3 October at 2.30pm AEST at the MCG.
