Conventional wisdom would have it that the average Pie fan is, well, dentally challenged, dressed by St Vinnies, and possessed of an interesting haircut – in short, that the average Pie fan is Joffa.
Then along comes the annual NAB data analysis of football supporters' spending habits to bust all those preconceptions.
Magpies' fans, it so happens, are near the top of the AFL ladder when it comes to shelling out their dough in luxury boutiques, behind only supporters of Carlton and the Sydney Swans.
The NAB data ranks members of all 18 clubs on their spending in 25 different areas including cars, international and domestic travel, technology, arts and crafts gardening, cycling, children's fashion and pets.
And if the survey destroys some stereotypes, it helps preserve others.
Melbourne fans, it found, spend more on antiques than other supporters, and are near the top of the ladder in expenditure on arts and crafts, international travel and "the great outdoors", which presumably includes the snowfields.
Adelaide fans are the most charitable, Essendon's the least. Crows and Power supporters love their cars the most, which may explain the preponderance of mullets, while Swans' fans love them the least, preferring to spend money on cycling, along with Melbourne, North, Brisbane Lions and St Kilda supporters.
Port Adelaide members won the wooden spoon in a range of categories, including spending on Apple products, concerts and festivals, luxury boutiques, international travel, arts and crafts, pets, online media and the great outdoors.
They also spent the least on "new mums", suggesting that teal may not be the new black, although they shelled out the most on kids' fashions.
Power fans, though, did spend up big on budget shopping and catalogue shopping – they and Bulldogs' supporters topped the ladder for the latter – and boating. The word "Port" may be a hint in this category.
Others at the head of the boating ladder were West Coast, Fremantle and Gold Coast, suggesting that proximity to water might be an incentive to splash out on water sports.
Bombers' members were the biggest spenders on video games, but near the tail of the field on boating – Moonee Ponds Creek not being especially conducive to sailing – as well as spending on new mums, gardening, arts and crafts and domestic travel.
Lions' fans spent the most on food and drink, Western Bulldogs' supporters the least. They also topped the ladder on spending on technology, but didn't spend as much on gardening, with all that sub-tropical profusion doing the work for them.
Doggies were the biggest online shoppers. Tigers spent the most on their kids' educations and Cats the least, suggesting that Geelong Grammar and Geelong College parents may not have been part of the survey. Geelong fans, however, love spending on the great outdoors and gardening and hate spending on technology.
Fremantle fans were the biggest spenders on books, but spent the least of all supporters on gardening. Surprisingly, they were near the top of the ladder on spending on the great outdoors, suggesting that typical Freo members may be reading all those novels under a tree planted by someone else.
* Please note, they may be Giants, but statistically the sample of Greater Western Sydney supporters was so small that they were not included on the ladders.
