Has the attention span of Australian sports fans shrunk?
Tickets for rugby union's Sydney Sevens World Series leg sold out three weeks ago, at the same ground - Allianz Stadium - the NSW Waratahs failed to fill once in Super Rugby last year.
In a season where Waratahs made the semi-final, the average Super Rugby crowd in Sydney was 22,709.
Almost double that mark is expected for each day of this weekend's competition.
But rugby union fans are not alone in getting enthused about the fast-paced, abbreviated - seven minutes each half - form of their game.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
In rugby league the NRL Auckland Nines are also being played this weekend.
It's an event without Johnathan Thurston, Greg Inglis or Sam Burgess, and where the 122-kilogram Sam Kasiano will likely share some of the playmaking roles for the Bulldogs.
Yet big crowds are expected after over 40,000 people turned out to each day of the event in its first two years.
Meanwhile, the NRL's New Zealand-based Warriors have pulled a little more than half of that figure only twice over the past two years.
But it's not just the carnival format the brings the people in droves, as this summer's Big Bash League (BBL) demonstrated.
An average of almost 29,000 people attended BBL games, an increase of 5000 on last season.
It made the competition the biggest crowd-puller in each Australian capital city, outdoing day-one Test figures at every ground.
Nowhere was that clearer than in Hobart, where on three occasions Hurricanes matches were better attended than the entire three-day Blundstone Arena Test against the West Indies combined.
