Issue is that the leagues are too ingrained and a lot of clubs don’t want to embrace something different. Overlaid with this is they don’t want the AFL telling them what to do. The EPL comparison is an interesting one - it’s purely setup to make money for the EPL clubs. The FA still controls football across the UK.
The biggest issue the AFL and most major sports face is that the gravy train of billions of dollars from broadcast rights is going to end.
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How do you figure?
Edit: I mean, I’ve been wondering why the AFL hasn’t run their own broadcasting for years, but especially now in the age of Hulu and Stan and what have you.
So, yes, no broadcasting rights, because you’ve cut out the middle-man, and their profit margin.
They already own all the talent.
I assume they own the historical product.
No more lead-in to the news. They can run it whenever they want, against whatever they want.
For now it obviously suits them to licence to FTA, and Foxtel, and Kayo(?), but when that doesn’t stack up anymore, surely they’ll go it alone?
Who’s going to say yes to Stan but no to football?
I think you need a worldwide audience for the product to make doing your own broadcasts stack up against licensing to a commercial broadcaster.
Put more simply, there aren’t enough people in Australia who would take out a membership to make the venture more profitable for the league than selling the rights. I might be wrong about that though, but that’s my read on the numbers
How about when you get advertising revenue instead of the broadcasters?
With all due respect @SMJ, the AFL don’t need your thoughts on this. They are well aware of what they need to do to reach a worldwide audience.
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I reckon low scoring (despite the 9 rule changes) poor umpiring, and the increased waft emanating from HQ are more the problem.
People are turning off, and getting their entertainment through other channels.
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You may be correct. I have no idea how much investment you need to make to start it, but I guess WWE is a good example of how to do it. I am sure they are working on it, as most of the media outlet are hedging on paying such large sums for audiences that are waning due to the internet and other media types, hence dropping advertising revenues.
I can see AFL players making movies as well !!! Jake Stringer as the new XXX !!
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WWE has licensing arrangements with many networks both in the US and overseas. Their main weekly shows are all broadcast on TV. And the online only numbers are not great. Only about 2mil subscribers at present I think
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The production itself is the main barrier at the moment. Cameras, broadcast trucks, people to run them, etc. Would need to be a massive upfront investment to build their own capacity to deliver, and unless they straight up poach the expertise from Fox/7 there’s going to be a shtload of teething issues.
A wild guess at heir strategy for Thursday nights is to have that timeslot become a FTA staple while they quietly develop their own capacity to do one game a week (Saturday PM) exclusive to AFL Game Pass (or whatever) to get a couple of years practice under the belt.
Also FTA rights will take like 50 years to die. They’ll get a whole lot cheaper, but they’ll be around.
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You mirror my own thoughts.
Presenters would be a dime a dozen, seeing how much talent they already own, but the tech crew would obviously be different.
It’s going back a bit, and it may not be the same thing, but what was Broadcom? Or was it Sportscom?
My point is, could you not just hire production crews en masse?
Gamepass, yes. But they already have…that information and access through AFL and club memberships.
Anyway, it would take someone actually competent to run it, so no danger of it happening with this mob.
You know how they’re spending millions on AFLX?
And millions on the yearly “fact finding” missions to the superbowl?
And giving $10M to every AFL club every year, and chipping in for St Kilda’s 2nd new training venue in about 7 years and Collingwood’s 14th pool, and goodness knows how many millions to GWS and GC?
Is every one of those dollars well-spent?
There was one angle that showed Mayne’s finger going back pretty clearly.
Other angle didn’t show anything.
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Wow here is another crazy idea from the AFL:
AFL Commission considers proposal to backdate footy records to 1870
A radical proposal being presented to AFL club presidents today could rewrite the records of the game including delivering one foundation club six ‘extra’ premierships.
Mark Robinson, chief football writer , Herald Sun
A radical 24-page proposal to “reclaim the history’’ of the AFL is being presented to club presidents today and looks set to be accepted by the AFL Commission.
The landmark proposal calls for premierships won between 1870 and 1896 to be officially recognised and player records during the “foundation years’’ to be included in the official history of the game.
Since 1897, Essendon and Carlton have won the most VFL/AFL premierships with 16 and Collingwood is second with 15.
Including the foundation premierships, from 1870, would alter the flags leaderboard, putting Carlton on top with 22, followed by Essendon on 20, Geelong 16, Collingwood 16 and Melbourne 15.
The number of South Melbourne/Sydney premierships would double to 10.
The proposal, which has been obtained by the Herald Sun , is the brainchild of former commissioner and current Geelong president Colin Carter.
“I look at the history of football and it offends me because it’s wrong,’’ Carter said.
“I also find it an extraordinary story. It wasn’t as if our competition limped out of an era which doesn’t really matter.’’
How the historic footy records could change.
The VFL formed in 1897 after splitting from the VFA — the relationship between the two groups was reported to be toxic — and the VFL’s founding fathers eventually expunged records of the VFA era in about 1920.
“Our competition today stands on foundations created by our founders in those forgotten years,’’ Carter said.
“Ignoring the years of our VFA history is grossly unfair to the players and administrators of that time. It’s time to give them justice.’’
“We’re not the revisionist, the revisionists are the people in the 1920s.’’
Under the proposal, Australian rules would be identified as three distinct eras — the Foundation Era (1858-1896), the VFL Era (1897-1986) and The National Competition (from 1987).
It would recognise the competition began in 1870, which would mean next year (2020) would be its 150th anniversary of the oldest football competition in the world.
Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has previously dismissed Carter’s push, first mooted in 2011.
“I certainly don’t agree with it. We should just leave it where it is,’’ McGuire said in 2011.
But it is understood Commission chairman Richard Goyder, several other commissioners and chief executive Gillon McLachlan believe the proposal has merit.
Carlton’s 1896 team photo.
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The Commission invited Carter to present to his fellow presidents.
Former AFL CEOs Ross Oakley, Wayne Jackson and Mike Fitzpatrick, and AFL greats Kevin Sheedy and David Parkin, reviewed and support the draft proposal.
Historians Geoffrey Blainey, Mark Pennings and Greg de Moore, who have all published books on the history of the game, made contributions.
Officials involved at two of the oldest clubs, president Glen Bartlett and former CEO Peter Jackson at Melbourne and CEO Brian Cook at Geelong, are also supportive of the plan.
Player contributions in the founding years are currently ignored by official AFL records.
A sketch of Carlton champion George Coulthard.
Essendon legend Albert Thurgood.
Pennings writes: “There would have been no VFL without the contribution of famous players such as George Coulthard, Dave Hickinbotham, Jack Baker, Albert Thurgood and Peter Burns … these players were the heroes of men, women and children in the 19th Century as much as the Dangerfields, Hodges, Franklins and Martins are in our own time.’’
Essendon’s Thurgood is listed in the AFL Hall of Fame with only 46 games in the VFL. His prior 57 games with Essendon in the VFA do not count.
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Another Hall of Fame member, Carlton’s Coulthard was three times “Champion of the Colony’’ and was in Carlton’s 1877 premiership team but his games in that VFA era do not appear at all.
Most of all, Charles Brownlow, who had the game’s most prestigious medal named after him, is officially recorded as an administrator, but excluded is his history as a premiership captain with Geelong (1883).
Carlton won six premierships between 1870 and 1896, Geelong seven, including twice winning three consecutive premierships, South Melbourne five, Essendon four and Melbourne three. Fitzroy won the 1895 flag and Collingwood the 1896 flag.
I’d agree with that only if we could add in the flags won by the Essendon team playing at Windy Hill before 1897.
How many flags did the Essendon District Football Club win? Also wouldn’t this criteria mean we lose any flags won while playing out of the East Melbourne Cricket Ground, ie pre 1922.
AFAIK they were known as Essendon Association. Certainly won 4 in a row from 1891 to 1894.
And why would playing at East Melbourne negate flags as Essendon.
If we do that, we can remove any flags won by Hawthorn after they left Glenferrie.
The flags won in the 1890s would count as ours as its the same club. See below. My point was any flags won at Windy Hill at this time would be by a different club given the EMCG was our home ground from 1882 to 1921.
They may well take over their own webcasting stuff, but they are decades away from not being on FTA, . be it 7 or other suitors.
“Hey, look over there!!..”
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