Footy teams don't have "season ticket holders" - they have "members"...

And "members" are closer to "stockholders", the way the NFL's Green Bay Packers do it. Green Bay, the only community-owned football team in the US, has some unholy number of stockholders - I want to say over a million, but I've no idea if that's true or not. And most of them don't have tickets to games, of course, and what they get for their holding of stock is mostly unclear to me. Prestige? Maybe. I'm not sure if there's any dividend payback like "regular stock", but I don't think there is.

Anyway, in Australia, the teams have membership drives, and if you're a member of the footy club, you not only have the equivalent of season tickets (depending on how much you pay, I assume), but road game privileges as well (a certain number of seats are set aside for your opponent's members at games), team "swag", and voting rights for the team's budget and direction. You really ARE a member of the team.

Here's a report on the membership drives for each of the eighteen teams, but I'll write a quick synopsis of the numbers from 2014 so you can get a feel for what each team has for resources - because memberships equal money for an AFL club!

2014 AFL Membership numbers
1. Collingwood                      80, 793
2. Hawthorn                         68, 650
3. Richmond                         66, 797
4. Essendon                          60, 646
5. West Coast (Perth)          58, 529
6. Adelaide                            57, 500
7. Port Adelaide                    55, 508
8. Fremantle                         48, 777
9. Carlton                               47, 485
10. Geelong                           43, 803
11. Sydney                              40, 126
12. North Melbourne           39, 060
13. Melbourne                       35, 911
14. Western Bulldogs           31, 814
15. St. Kilda                            30, 138
16. Brisbane Lions               24, 032
17. Gold Coast                        13, 480
18. Greater W. Sydney         13, 258

A couple of thoughts about this - the big Melbourne clubs sit in spots one through four, followed by the western four teams (Adelaide and Perth/Fremantle) in spots five through eight. The two newest teams are mired in last with just 13,ooo members each, which hampers how fast they can grow. Even as bad as the Demons have been, and as badly as their fans have deservedly treated them, their status as an original Melbourne club keeps them afloat with 35,000 members, while the two east coast teams (Brisbane and GC) together barely surpass that total despite both being significantly more successful. 

Translation - Footy is still a Melbourne (state of Victoria) sport, no matter how enthusiastic the supporters in the other states are at times. The big money is going to be in Victoria.