Matt Finnis is fascinated to see what the home of the Mardi Gras will do with the AFL's second Gay Pride match.
More than anything, the St Kilda chief executive longs for the day when having such a match theme is no longer necessary.
Sydney and the Saints, having started the pride game last year, will continue it this Saturday night at the SCG.
"Who knows what the Pride Game, Sydney-style quite looks like? I think we're all interested to see what that's going to involve," Finnis said with a grin.
It emerged during Wednesday's media conference that some Saints' fans had cut up their membership cards in protest last year at the match.
But Finnis said they were dwarfed by the number of fans and members who backed the club.
"Too many times, we heard that conversation about 'why do we need a Pride Game? It's political correctness gone mad. When's the Single White Male round?'," he said.
"If we are to be Australia's game, then we must be a game for all Australians.
"Unfortunately, for too long, that hasn't been the case.
"We were heartened by the fact that people said they were comfortable in going to the footy and hold their partner's hand, when they perhaps haven't felt safe doing so in the past."
Finnis added that research had showed another effect of the first pride game was that people were more comfortable calling out homophobic abuse.
But he'd love even more that the concept was unnecessary.
"Some would say the ultimate success is that we don't need a Pride Game, because it's just a natural piece of inclusion," he said.
"Statistics would say we still have a fair bit of work to do.
"In Australia right now, we're having a pretty difficult conversation with ourselves, aren't we? And football is no different."
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