Locker Room: Brumbies and Raiders family ticket and food costs revealed for 2023 Super Rugby and NRL seasons

So the price of a pie is coming down by a dollar. Is that enough to get you back to Canberra Stadium this year for the ACT Brumbies or Canberra Raiders games?

Time will tell, with the Brumbies hosting their first game on Saturday night and the Raiders returning to the capital next weekend.

The ACT government has dropped the price of five footy favourites by $1 to bring them under the $5 mark, which will be somewhat of a relief to families feeling the pain of constant interest rate hikes and the rising cost of living.

But how much will it cost you to take the family to the footy in Canberra this year?

We're going to base this estimate off the cheapest general admission ticket options for a family of four to both Super Rugby and NRL.

For the Brumbies, you're looking at $65 for tickets, then add two pies ($9), two buckets of chips ($7.80), a water ($5), soft drink ($3.80) and two beers ($18.20) and we're at a total of $108.80.

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For the Raiders, tickets will set you back $95 for the family of four, so adding the same food takes the total to $143.80.

Of course, there is the option to take your own food, and membership packages bring prices down again.

There are also more expensive premium food and ticket options, and parking is $10 (or $5 if you get the early-bird discount).

The Brumbies are hoping their clash against the Queensland Reds will be one of their bigger crowds in recent years and they've tried to make it more attractive by keeping tickets at 2009 prices.

"We're on track for our biggest opening crowd - and potentially biggest crowd - since COVID," Brumbies commercial operations general manager Gavin Hunt said.

"We're well in front of where we were at the opening game last year. We pulled our pricing down for the 2020 season, that off-season is when we ripped the guts out of our membership pricing and game day ticket pricing."

At the NRL you do pay more, but you also get to watch three games on the same day if you're that keen.

It's still much cheaper to go to the footy in Canberra than it is in Sydney, and cutting food prices shows there is some wiggle room in terms of making it more affordable.

The most criminal part? A sausage roll ($4.70) costs more than a pie ($4.50). What sort of world are we living in?

The food price cut prompted more conversation about the future of Canberra Stadium, or a new venue in Civic.

There are those in Canberra who are still confident ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr will reconsider Civic as an option, despite his preference to work with the Australian Sports Commission to rebuild at Bruce.

We hear rumblings that there will be some tangible movement on the decision-making front this year, but don't get excited about breaking ground.

A new location at Stage 88 in Commonwealth Park has been talked about quietly in the background now for several months, and there is legitimate space to make it work. Could it be viable? Time will tell.

There's a lot on Barr's infrastructure agenda, and community sports are expected to get a boost when a new plan is announced. But the stadium is still on the tip of everyone's tongue even after more than a decade of ideas and changes.

The Canberra Racing Club hopes the ACT government will sit up and take notice of their attempt to integrate the community into the biggest weekend on Thoroughbred Park's calendar as tensions simmer between the two parties.

As the government wheels food trucks into the city for Enlighten, the racing club is wheeling local vendors into Thoroughbred Park to capitalise on a crowd they hope will exceed 10,000 on Black Opal Stakes day.

An anti-racing sentiment has bubbled along for months after the club was left to fight calls from the Greens to end funding to racing, and they felt stung by a lack of promotion from government officials after being omitted from a "what's on" events graphic on social media.

The club has extended invitations to members of the ACT government to attend the Black Opal Stakes. Some have responded, plenty are yet to do so.

The Canberra Capitals endured the season from hell in terms of injuries and results this year. And they had an unwelcome guest moments before their end-of-season awards as staff prepared the court following their final game of a forgettable WNBL season.

A magpie snuck inside an open emergency exit door out to Constitution Avenue, making its way to the shot clock above the net at the far end and leaving a few messy deposits on the court as it flew around the arena. Organisers eventually came up with a plan to get the bird to leave, switching off every light in the arena until the magpie flew towards the light and out the door.

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