The crowd of 35,000 was a record for a VFL game and the league's takings amounted to £901. That's $130,000 in today's dollars.

Economist Tim Harcourt estimates the grand final is now worth $125 million to Victoria's economy. "And that's not even with the TV rights factored in," Harcourt said. "Soccer people have been predicting the demise of Aussie rules, but the economics of the AFL mean Australia's indigenous game will be around for a long time yet."

Of the 100,000 seats at the MCG, more than 20,000 went to sponsors and corporate ticket holders on Saturday. A further 23,000 went to AFL members and 4500 to AFL Medallion Club members. The league also issued 10,000 tickets to non-competing clubs, many of which ended up with corporate buyers.

And, of course, the MCC members still queued to get in free.

Feeding frenzy

One of the big beneficiaries on Saturday was caterer Epicure, which served lunch to 10,000 guests at functions and corporate boxes. Epicure employed 2200 staff, with the first shift starting at 4am and the final one ending at 1am on Sunday.

Epicure served 1.3 tonnes of Victorian lamb, 400 kilograms of Gippsland beef fillet, 200 kilograms of local prawns, 300 kilograms of chocolate and 15,000 scones to the corporate crowd. They also devoured 280 kilograms of smoked salmon, 220 kilograms of ocean trout and 400 dozen oysters, all flown in from Tasmania.

Koo Wee Rup's farmers also did well, providing 1600 bunches of asparagus. Let's hope Epicure contacted charity Second Bite, to help take the leftovers to the needy. 

Grin and beer It

Fans in the outer enjoyed their own feeding frenzy. Spotless Group sold 25,000 pies and sausage rolls, 4800 hot dogs and 26,000 serves of hot chips.

That was washed down with 50,000 litres of draught beer, while baristas made an estimated 10,000 coffees.

I've got a (brown and) gold ticket

Betting giant Tabcorp took 350,000 bets totalling $7 million on the match. More than half were on first goal scorer or the Norm Smith medallist.

"It's our biggest non-racing event for the year," said spokesman Nicholas Tzaferis.  The biggest bet was placed three days after Hawthorn's victory in last year's grand final.

A punter splashed $25,000 on a Hawks three-peat, to win $125,000, and had to wait more than a year for the result.

The Heckler

A nice whack from Mercedes-Benz Australia PR manager David McCarthy this week, after consumer warrior Choice picked a fight over the fuel efficiency claims made for the luxury car maker's GLA model.

It seems Choice put a family of four in a GLA, filled the boot with luggage, added two child seats, disengaged the "stop-start" fuel saving feature, turned on the "sport" driving mode, ran the vehicle through acceleration tests, and then complained when the GLA returned a fuel economy figure of 10 litres per 100 kilometres, not the quoted seven litres.

"Why don't you stick to something you're good at, like testing fridges," barked McCarthy at the Choice team. He was still unhappy when contacted by The Heckler.  "The car must have looked like the Griswold one out of National Lampoon's Vacation by the time they finished loading it," he said.

To cap it off, Choice reported 10 litres was "almost 30 per cent thirstier than its claimed fuel consumption" of seven litres. It's actually 42 per cent higher.

Maybe the Choice team should test their calculator.