Dear AFL Fans

Following the Geelong/Hawthorn game, there seems to be some confusion about the AFL’s new Variable Ticketing system.

Unfortunately, many of you seem to be struggling to understand how it works. Maybe we haven’t explained it well enough or more likely, many of you are a bit thick.

Either way, we need to sell it better.

To begin, the main problem seems to be the name. You guys don’t seem to like it. Perhaps we should call it something else that you would like.

What about ‘Roulette Ticketing’? No, wait, ‘Good Ticketing System.’ No, I’ve got it ‘Fan Friendly Ticketing.’

I’m just riffing here but I think these are all good suggestions and would solve all the problems.

Now many of you are confused about club memberships and variable ticketing. We've explained how categories work before but memberships are slightly different.

It’s really very simple.

Purchasing a club membership enables you to enter the ground sometimes and other times we charge you an additional fee to get a seat. On occasion some of you will buy seats for an extra fee and then we’ll let other members in at the last moment without the extra cost.

On occasion we won’t do that last bit.

I really don’t see where this is hard to follow.

The important thing you must remember, is that we’re keen to get as much money out of you as possible and still have you turn up. It’s a balancing act but hardly complicated.

Our Manager of Ticketing explained this reasoning very clearly when we announced this new system.

Now many of you say ‘But you Andrew, don’t have to pay for tickets.’ Not true. I took my family recently and paid for everything. It did not stretch my $3.8 million salary at all.

Of course there are many ways that you can have a greater say in how the AFL does its ticketing and game day experience.

To begin, you can be a sponsor. Just pony up a half a million or so and we can help you out.

The other option is do what Foxtel and Channel Seven did. Give us over a billion dollars. You’ll be surprised how seriously we’d take you then.

You give us TV deal type money and we’ll even let you decide when to play the game.

Anyway, this seems to be all sorted. Everything should be crystal clear now.

See you at the game.

Or not.

Andrew Demetriou