There’s nothing quite like the roar of the crowd after a goal in the AFL.
That surge of energy, that spine-tingling explosion of shared emotion — it’s one of the most visceral, authentic sounds in all of sport.
So why, in the name of Meat Loaf’s Grand Final set, are clubs insisting on drowning it out with a 10-second burst of canned music?
Let’s be blunt: playing music after every single goal is ruining the atmosphere, not enhancing it.
What started as a novelty has now become an annoying, repetitive, and tone-deaf trend. The kind of trend that feels more like an idea from a club marketing brainstorm gone wrong – somewhere between “What if we hand out thundersticks?” and “Should we bring back Kiss Cam?”
It’s artificial. It’s overproduced. And worst of all – it’s completely unnecessary. Footy fans don’t need a Spotify playlist to know when to get excited.
The AFL isn’t the NBA. We don’t need a DJ spinning beats every five minutes like we’re at a rave sponsored by Sportsbet. Footy is tribal, raw and unfiltered.
It’s built on the noise of the masses — the cheer squads belting out the club song, the drunk bloke in Row E yelling “BALL!” at anything that moves, and the swelling chorus of fans rising as one when their team nails a goal from 50. It’s chaotic, messy, passionate — and it should be left untouched.
When you pump in music straight after a goal, you’re essentially saying: “Let’s replace all that with Thunderstruck again.” Or worse, whatever royalty-free garbage is being played at some grounds now — the same bass drop used in 40 other sporting leagues, all desperately trying to be cool and failing miserably.
At some venues, you honestly can’t tell whether you’ve just witnessed a great bit of play or walked into a suburban gym class.
Let’s be real: no one came to the footy to hear Sweet Caroline after the home side kicks their eighth goal. The crowd should be the soundtrack. The human noise, the euphoria — that’s what sells the experience. Not some top-40 throwback that was already played to death in 2011.
Clubs argue this post-goal music “adds energy” or “engages younger fans.”
But here’s the thing — kids are smart. They get excited by moments, not marketing tricks.
You want to impress a young fan? Let them experience the deafening roar when a goal goes through in the final minute of a close game. Let them hear their dad scream with joy, the stranger behind them start a chant, and the collective surge of passion ripple through the stands.
That’s what they’ll remember.
Not that Uptown Funk started playing after the third goal in the second quarter.
Even worse, this trend steamrolls the natural emotional flow of a match. Footy is a game of rhythm — not just on the field, but in the stands. When a team kicks a goal and starts getting a run on, the crowd builds. They feel it. The anticipation rises.
You don’t need to break that tension with a jarring track from a club-produced playlist. You just need to let it breathe. Let it build. Let the fans take the moment and make it theirs.
And what about the players? Let’s not pretend they care about this circus. They don’t need Cold Chisel or Seven Nation Army blaring every time they do their job. What they want is the pure, unfiltered reaction of the people in the stands. That noise, that wall of sound, that feeling of being part of something bigger — that’s what fires them up.
Not the audio equivalent of a YouTube ad.
If anything, the post-goal music is disrespectful to the moment. It hijacks it. It pulls focus. It tells the fans to stop and listen to the club’s version of celebration, instead of making space for the people to create their own.
It’s not organic — it’s pre-packaged emotion. And it’s a poor substitute for the real thing.
Here’s a better idea: let’s strip it back. Save the music for the pre-game, the quarter breaks, the celebration after the final siren. Let it frame the event — not override the best parts of it.
Because what we’re losing here isn’t small. It’s the essence of what makes footy so damn special. That moment when a goal is kicked, and there’s a brief pause … and then the crowd detonates. That’s the gold. That’s the moment. That’s the sound you can’t fake.
The game doesn’t need gimmicks. It never has. People go to the footy to feel something real — not to sit through a club’s iPod shuffle on loudspeaker. We’ve got enough commercialisation in the game as it is.
Do we really need to turn every goal into an opportunity for a music cue? What’s next — goal celebrations with pyrotechnics and laser shows? Actually, scratch that — don’t give anyone ideas.
It’s time clubs trusted the product. Trusted the crowd. Trusted the emotion that’s already there. Because nothing — and I mean nothing — beats 50,000 people losing their minds when a ball sails through the big sticks.
And no chorus, drop, or guitar riff is ever going to top that.
