IT HAS nothing to do with the team losing back-to-back matches and a fear of supporters abandoning the ship, it's just a way of allowing members to revive dead money and attracting the biggest possible crowds to home games.

That's the logic behind the Swans' scheme to let members "lease" their seats back to the club if they are unable to attend a home match. The reserved seats can be re-sold, and the member gets "membership dollars" - $25 for an adult grandstand seat and $18 for a concourse seat - which can then be used to reduce the price of next year's membership fees.

The scheme has proven popular this season, with the redevelopment work the SCG is undergoing on the site of the old Hill.

"We feel the scheme is important in a period when part of the SCG is undergoing redevelopment," said Sydney's chief executive Myles Baron-Hay. "So far this season, all seats that have been leased - and it is leasing, the members do have ownership, some have sat in the same seat for 25 years - have been sold.

"It's about minimising the inconvenience for people who want to come to watch us play, and it's an incentive for members who can't make it on match day. It's a system we have used previously, it's working, and there has been a lot more interest this season with the work going on at the SCG.

"We get about 75 per cent of members coming to our games. We know that Sydney is a city of choices where there are other things to do, so this way we give our members not only a chance to get a financial benefit from leasing their seat, but the knowledge that someone else will benefit by being able to go and watch the team play."