Nothing even compares to going to the Rugby

My father loves Rugby. Not that other poor excuse for a game referred to as 'League' but the Rugby of his youth when he played in the rough and tumble of Parramatta first grade.

He used to take me to as many games as he could afford, the highlight always being when we played the All Blacks. The atmosphere as it whips up with the teams running onto the field. The Haka, the staring down, the whoops and cheers.

You can see the glint in his eyes when the Wallabies are close to scoring a try. He lifts his huge frame and starts yelling at the players. If they don't score, his exasperation is a most marvellous thing to behold.

It's a shame I don't really share the same level of passion for the game as he does. I like it and am always captivated by the spectacle, but take me to the theatre any day and I am just like my father at a Rugby match. Without the whooping that is.

After many years of not going to any Rugby matches with my father I thought it was about time for us to revisit something we had always done when I was a kid. So I went online and I got us some tickets to the upcoming Wallabies v All Blacks match in July.

I go onto the website, select the match and order the two tickets. I click next and go to the checkout. $280.

What?!

$140 per ticket, to not even sit near the half way line. In fact, we are down near the goal posts. Bloody miles away.

$140 for that?! And thousands of people pay this? In fact 83,500 people pay between $79 and $164 for tickets to a Wallabies match. We are talking about approximately $8 million in ticket sales alone. For one day.

Suddenly I find myself harking back for the days when that beautiful game was amateur... and cheaper.

Or maybe just harking for something that's the price of a theatre ticket. Who's the fool that said theatre was expensive? What rubbish.

Pick a night, any night this week and compare the prices between thirty blokes running around on grass with a football and some damn fine theatre.

$20 online ticket special to see the STC's Serpent's Teeth HERE.
$29 to see Toby Schmitz giving it his all at Belvoir St HERE.
$26 for a Beer, laksa and a show at the Old Fitzroy HERE.
$28 for D Reserve tickets to the Ballet HERE.
$30 for some comedy at the Darlinghurst Theatre HERE.

And you could see all of that in one week and still get change from one ticket to the Rugby.

Theatre affordability? It already is. (And there aren't any 'no alcohol areas')