The Essendon Football Club has decided its round nine match against Hawthorn should remain at Colonial Stadium and has communicated this decision to the AFL.

Essendon Football Club gave serious consideration to swapping its round nine match against Hawthorn from Colonial Stadium to the MCG. It was a swap that would have seen the club’s round 16 match against the Kangaroos moved from the MCG to Colonial Stadium to ensure the club fulfilled its seven-match obligation to Colonial Stadium. However after much deliberation the club has decided that the Hawthorn match should remain at Colonial Stadium.

While the Essendon v Hawthorn crowd looks certain to meet our expectations, it is possible the Essendon v Kangaroos match will not meet our original expectations. Any shortfall could have been underwritten had the Hawthorn game been transferred and a larger than budgeted crowd attended the match. But our decision was based on the responsibilities and expectations of all interested parties – Essendon Football Club opted not to take an opportunistic approach to this issue.

The obligation Essendon Football Club has to Colonial Stadium was obviously a key factor in this decision. Both parties entered into a commercial arrangement at the beginning of 2000 and as such both parties should reasonably expect to benefit from that arrangement. Swapping the Hawthorn match to the MCG would clearly have advantaged the Essendon Football Club but equally disadvantaged Colonial Stadium. Essendon Football Club supports the view that Colonial Stadium needs its fair share of games with near capacity crowds. If big games start being transferred to the MCG on a regular basis, Colonial Stadium will be severely disadvantaged.

Channel Seven’s commitments were also taken into account when making this recommendation. If the round nine match had been moved to the MCG – the match would have been played on Sunday, May 27th. Given that Channel Seven has interstate commitments on that day – namely Port Adelaide v Melbourne and Sydney v Fremantle – it would have effectively lost the ability to telecast the Essendon v Hawthorn game. In addition this would have meant limited exposure for our sponsors and any supporters unable to get to the game. As it stands, the delayed telecast of our Saturday night game could fit in with the programmed West Coast v Western Bulldogs match from Perth later that night.

A live broadcast of our match from Colonial Stadium on the Saturday night rather than a delayed coverage is something the club is prepared to accept.

Another factor taken into account when making this decision was the crowds that Essendon and Hawthorn games have attracted in recent times. Since 1993 these games have attracted an average crowd of 46,567. The average crowd at the MCG in that time has been 49,876 – numbers that would comfortably be accommodated at Colonial Stadium. We do recognise that Hawthorn’s form this season has been excellent, however the average Hawthorn crowd this season has been 30,410. Excluding Hawthorn’s two interstate games, this figure is still only 36,075.

Finally, a recent poll on our club website indicates the majority of our members and supporters are happy for the game to remain at Colonial Stadium. In excess of 4000 votes were collated in the past week, 2390 (60%) voted for the match to remain at Colonial Stadium.