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Port Adelaide Football Club is hoping to make it "match day" in more ways than one for its fans this season, launching a dating service during its home games.
Key points:
- The Power says it was inspired by popular dating TV shows
- It matches fans with similar interests based on a questionnaire
- Winners meet up on game day before deciding on a second date
The AFL club is already being inundated with requests from lonely hearts for the Perfect Pear online matching service, which will give potential couples the chance to meet and mingle during the Power's games at Adelaide Oval.
The concept was inspired by popular TV dating shows, and aims to provide Power fans who have similar interests with a football-based alternative to apps like Tinder.
"First it was The Bachelor. Then it was Married At First Sight. And now it's Port Adelaide's Perfect Pear," a tongue-in-cheek YouTube ad for the idea states.
The club's head of events, Helen Hobbins, said as far as she was aware, it was the first time a major sporting club had decided to run a blind dating service.
"We're trying to keep up our innovation around game day, so I think we are the first club running our own dating program," she said.
Ms Hobbins said 22 individuals would be selected over the course of the season to form 11 couples, who would first meet one another during separate Power home games.
The winners will be treated to a corporate box and then appear on the oval's big screens at three-quarter time to make a decision on whether they wanted to meet up again for a second date.
"The feedback's been phenomenal, everyone's quite excited," Ms Hobbins said.
"We're hoping we will get a range of applicants who want to participate.
"We've had over 100 applications so far … so we're going to be in no shortage of finding people to participate and hopefully we can match up some perfect pairs."
An alternative to Tinder?
Applicants fill out questionnaire forms with information about their interests, hobbies and preferred age range, Ms Hobbins said.
In recent years, some of the darker consequences of online dating have been highlighted in reports about sexual predators resorting to Tinder and other hook-up apps to find victims.
But Ms Hobbins said Port Adelaide's game day team — not computer algorithms — would be responsible for selecting couples.
"Behind the scenes here, we'll make those matches for people to enjoy the date, and it is in a safe environment at the football," she said.
"This isn't behind an app or messages, they get to experience what each other is like at a football game in a social environment.
"It will be up to the choice of those two people at that game whether they want to continue with [another] date."
Fans from other clubs have wasted no time in providing their own commentary on the idea.
"The only bad date a Port fan has had is 29th September, 2007," one wrote on a popular blog, in reference to the Power's 119-point defeat at the hands of Geelong in the AFL Grand Final.
"I thought it was illegal for Crows and Power supporters to get married anyway," satirist Titus O'Reily said on ABC Radio Adelaide.
The club is also planning a singles event for its final game of the home-and-away season.
"It may grow. We may move into weddings after this," Ms Hobbins joked.
Topics: australian-football-league, sport, relationships, community-and-society, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, social-media, internet-culture, aboriginal, port-adelaide-5015, adelaide-5000, sa, australia
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