The AFL says it will not be swayed from their belief in the future of the code in western Sydney, despite less than 20,000 fans turning up to Saturday night's elimination final at ANZ Stadium.
With the AFL hell-bent on introducing a second Sydney team in 2012, a crowd figure of 19,127 to see the Swans beat North Melbourne by 35 points was seen by many as little short of a disaster.
It was the smallest crowd for a VFL/AFL final since 1924.
"Obviously it's disappointing," the AFL's chief broadcasting and commercial officer Gillon McLachlan said today.
"But just as three 60,000 crowds last year (for Swans games) at ANZ Stadium didn't mean we had cornered the market, one poor crowd doesn't mean we pull out, either."
In contrast to last year's big Sydney crowds for regular-season games against West Coast, Collingwood and St Kilda, it was a different story on Saturday night and the timing could not have been worse.
"We know have a lot of work to do to make the western Sydney concept work," admitted McLachlan, who is the AFL's second-most senior official behind CEO Andrew Demetriou.
"It is too big a market, too big an opportunity for us not to put everything we can into the project."
Demetriou told a pre-match function: "I know there will be some questioning of our strategy in light of tonight's crowd.
"We know it is not going to be easy and we know we are in for a battle for the hearts and minds of the Sydney people."
The pre-game marketing, or lack of it, was a major talking point in Sydney in the past week with AFL officials claiming to have made promoting the game their top priority.
Swans coach Paul Roos said if there was an advertising blitz on television, he hadn't seen it.
By Thursday alarm bells were ringing in the Swans camp, with only 16,033 tickets pre-sold. Finals matches are hosted by the AFL, not the home club.
Roos had offered to spend his Saturday afternoon driving around Blacktown, where the west Sydney team will be based, handing out free tickets through his car window.
"If I was running the AFL and you want a second team in Sydney ... I would have thought you'd do everything you possibly could to have 60,000 people there," Roos said on Thursday.
After the match Roos said the crowd was extremely disappointing and the wet weather may have been a factor.
"But hopefully we had a lot of people watching at home with the heaters on and hot chocolate and a little bit of chicken soup would have been nice back sitting in home," he said.
North Melbourne coach Dean Laidley added: "To play only in front of that many people is really disappointing too.
"I'm just really disappointed for football in this state tonight."
The three NRL games in Sydney last night at Cronulla, Parramatta and Penrith drew a combined crowd of 18,245 in wet conditions.
