A capacity crowd of 60,000 fans crammed into the new Perth Stadium, heaving in anticipation of an engrossing contest and, in the raucous spirit of West Australia's uber-parochialism, a historic home town victory.

Perth Glory coach Tony Popovic, who conquered Asia but not quite Australia with the Wanderers, returning from ignominious European exile to attempt to win the domestic title that slipped from his grasp in three previous grand finals.

The class of Glory striker Diego Castro, the potentially romantic conclusion to Sydney FC skipper Alex Brosque's wonderful career, Socceroos Chris Ikonimidis and Rhyan Grant making an imprint on the local competition rather than taking their talents elsewhere.

Befitting a weekend of season finales, there is even a guy called Brandon playing a key role in a pivotal battle despite having spent time in a wheelchair (Sydney FC's Brandon O'Neill, who suffered a debilitating hip condition as a child).

While the title "marquee event" is eye-of-the-beholder vague, this Sunday's A-League grand final between Perth Glory and Sydney FC reeks of big game status.

Perth Stadium is expected to be close to capacity for Sunday's A-League grand final. ( Supplied: Perth Stadium )

That's important because, as of this week, being considered "non-marquee sporting content" could be disastrous for those Australian sports which have milked the Fox Sports rights money cow dry.

Reports that Fox Sports is considering cutting its Australian sports budget after suffering significant losses have sent tremors through those administrations that have not delivered audiences to justify their relatively lavish deals.

In the plush corporate suites in Perth on Sunday, the now serially beleaguered FFA executive and its new-ish chairman and board members will be pointing toward those packed grandstands and painting a picture of the A-League's supposedly bright and viewer-friendly future.

Yet given the diminishing crowd and viewing figures that show the A-League is at best in a holding pattern and at worst in serial decline, the one-off sugar hits of grand finals and Sydney and Melbourne derbies become less compelling by the season.

Even an entertaining finals series has not done much to boost the A-League's stocks with the Fox Sports executives, who are likely to have their rights-buying budgets slashed.

Finals viewing figures only highlight the pitfalls of an A-League season when the battle to compete with the AFL and NRL TV juggernauts, along with the absence of meaningful free-to-air promotion, has hit hard.

Adelaide United fans enjoyed the elimination finals, but the excitement was not reflected in TV viewing figures. ( AAP: Sam Wundke )

On elimination final weekend, a combined average audience of just 53,000 (Fox Sports 22,000, Ten Bold 31,000) watched Melbourne Victory-Wellington Phoenix on a Friday night and 111,000 (Fox Sports 54,000, Ten Bold 57,000) watched Adelaide-Melbourne City.

For last weekend's semi-finals, the figures were equally modest — 94,000 (Fox Sports 45,000, Ten Bold 49,000) for Perth-Adelaide on Friday and 115,000 (Fox Sports 54,000, Ten Bold 57,000) for Sydney FC-Melbourne Victory on Sunday.

TV ratings can be sliced and diced more ways than the onions during a MasterChef immunity challenge.

If you don't like the "average", "the peak", the "reach" or the "five city" figures, you can — as A-League boss Greg O'Rourke did recently — challenge their validity due to the disruption of streaming services and the alleged unreliability of the small sample sizes.

But by any estimation, A-League viewing figures are unsustainable for a network with an eight-figure investment and sobering for a game relying on TV revenue not only to run the peak competition but to sustain the sport itself.

Grandstands have been far from packed this A-League season. ( AAP: Craig Golding )

The FFA at least has a buffer, the four years remaining on the six-year, $346 million deal that might now seem like a massive windfall given the viewing figures the league has produced.

Although it should be remembered the FFA had hoped to get an even better deal by attracting a major free-to-air network to provide meaningful coverage. In that context, claiming the current A-League rights contract is a triumph is like getting $5 for something that should have been worth $8, running it so poorly it is now only worth $2 and then telling everyone you are $3 ahead.

Beyond the triumphant scenes in Perth on Sunday, how does the FFA improve its reach sufficiently to convince Fox Sports — or an alternative platform — it is "marquee"?

The inclusion of two new teams, Western United and Macarthur FC, symbolise an attempt to reconnect with the wider football community and, you would hope, a realignment with the expectations of those fans who feel the pulsating atmosphere that was once the A-League's point of difference has been unnecessarily suppressed by heavy-handed security.

That disillusionment was symbolised this week by the widespread sympathy for Sydney FC fan Rory Carroll, who was kicked out of an A-League semi-final with his family, he claims, after insisting on inspecting a bathroom in an adjoining area to where he was ticketed to see if it was fit for use by his disabled daughter.

But regardless of its future strategy, the A-League's main problem is that, like rugby union, it is trapped in the catch-22 of Australia's pay TV-dependent sports that rely on Fox Sports money to survive but can't gain sufficient exposure on that limited forum to grow.

Fox Sports has provided record rights fees, terrific production values and caters wonderfully well for baked-on subscription-paying fans.

But while Fox Sports does a great job showing marquee sports events like the A-League grand final, it simply lacks the reach to create them.

Catch up on all the results and issues from the sporting weekend on Offsiders at 10:00am on Sunday on ABC TV.