Dockers members have vented their fury online at the prospect of having to fork out up to $3000 to secure a seat at the new Perth Stadium when it opens in 2018.
The Dockers, who are languishing at the bottom of the AFL table without a win, recently sent members the following question in a survey from sports management company Gemba: how likely are you to purchase the option to pick your reserved seat first at the new Perth Stadium for the one-off price of $3000 plus the annual price of your membership?
At the moment Dockers members can pay anywhere between $315 to $815 for their annual membership, while a family of four can be slugged up $2625 a year to watch Fremantle home games.
Fans took to the online football forum group Dockerland on Monday, threatening not to renew their memberships if forced to pay thousands to watch Fremantle at the 60,000-seat stadium at Burswood.
"Oh well, there goes the membership," one person wrote.
"Looks like I'll be picking which games are worth watching from a half empty luxury stadium. I suppose it's pointless asking the AFL to have some of our games on Saturday afternoon?"
"My bet is that we will lose membership," another posted.
"Bad timing to be a s***e team in a state being hit by a recession going into a stadium with a s***e load of spare seats."
"What a depressing survey," a member lamented.
"So it's basically going to be a stadium for the elite where the 'stunning city and river views' will only be available to those who purchase the 2 grand a year memberships."
Another Fremantle member who completed the survey said it looked like his membership would go up another $250 a year.
The Dockers have a tick over 50,000 members at the moment and would be hoping to beef-up their numbers to pack out the stadium.
But given only 20,000 turned out for Dockers' clash against Richmond on Saturday night, the new home of WA football could be half empty if Fremantle remain near the bottom of the table.
Fremantle's general manager of strategic projects Brad Paatsch said the prices mentioned in the survey were just "hypothetical" at the moment.
"The survey was formulated by Gemba, a sports management company that is conducting the survey on behalf of the club to examine various aspects of the new Perth Stadium, including members' preferences for seating, hospitality and other services," he said.
"The prices mentioned in the survey are hypothetical and were formulated by Gemba to assist the club in its planning for the new Perth Stadium, including member options."
West Coast's communication manager Gary Stocks said the Eagles had no plans at this stage to slug members a fee to secure a seat at the venue.
"The financial model has not even been discussed with stadium management so product pricing is unknown," he said.
The Eagles have a membership of 61,000 which means not all the members can squeeze into the 40,000-seat capacity Domain Stadium.
But the club should have no problem packing out the new 60,000-seat stadium, with 13,000 people on the Eagles membership waiting list.
Premier Colin Barnett didn't rule out people wanting to secure a stadium membership having to pay an upfront fee on top of their membership.
"We don't rule anything in or out... we want to make sure the stadium maximises revenue but on an equitable basis to everyone," he said in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon when questioned by Labors spokeswoman for transport Rita Saffioti.
"Obviously Dockers and Eagles memberships are going to translate into seats and notionally we are preserving 10,000 seats for general admission."
He said the Dockers charging its members up to $3000 to lock in a seat at the new ground was up to the club.
"If they choose to structure premiums seats in that way, that's a matter for the clubs," he said.
Mr Barnett said the exact number of stadium memberships offered up the public had yet to be finalised.
"The stadium operator wants more of those, but I want less of those," he said.
