While more than 650,000 Australians tuned in to see Melbourne Victory claim the 2014/15 season championship from Sydney FC, a much bigger audience worldwide was tuning in too.
A-League head Damien de Bohun says the global interest in the Australian competition is skyrocketing, with more than 54 countries streaming the match live.
“The global audience continues to grow, some 54 countries took the game live and another 50-odd countries on delay,” de Bohun said.
“Somewhere between 250 and 300 million people would have watched the Hyundai A-League Grand Final, which is a massive result for us.”
Melbourne Victory claimed a 3-0 clean sheet victory against Sydney FC, with Kiwi Greek Kostas Barbarouses scoring the second goal in between Besart Berisha and Leigh Broxham.
Almost 30,000 people packed the sold-out AAMI Park venue, creating a fantastic atmosphere, but complaints about the stadium’s capacity were still rife.
The AFL took up two stadiums on Sunday and was reluctant to give up the 50,000 capacity Etihad Stadium that was the FFA’s preferred grand final venue. Only 18,000 people ended up going to the Western Bulldogs v Fremantle match held there.
Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou labelled the whole fiasco as “ridiculous” and said as a growing code, governments will need to start building new stadiums to fit the demand.
“What’s going to happen is … governments are going to have to start building purpose-built rectangular stadiums that unfortunately AFL aren’t going to be able to use, because this is going to get bigger.”
De Bohun says he will work with governments and other codes to make sure “it doesn’t happen again”.