A-League excites despite media indifference

Columnist

By Mike Tuckerman, 30 Apr 2009 Mike Tuckerman is a Roar Expert

Tagged:: A-League, football

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Carlos Hernandez of Melbourne Victory in action during the round one A-League match between Sydney FC and the Melbourne Victory in Sydney on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008. AAP Image/Jason McCawley

I’ve always thought that Channel Nine sports presenter Ken Sutcliffe would be a good bloke to share a beer with. Thirty years of covering everything from the America’s Cup to Wimbledon means he’s probably got plenty of tales to tell.

Admittedly my rationale isn’t based on the most scientific of premises.

One year for Christmas, my parents gave me a copy of Billy Birmingham’s “Still The Twelfth Man” on double cassette. It was probably the biggest mistake they ever made.

Aside from fostering a life-long love affair with comedy, it also fuelled an insatiable passion for sport.

And when you live overseas – as I currently do – it’s often necessary to check in with home base to keep up with the domestic sporting world.

But watching Sydney’s Channel Nine news after Newcastle Jets lost to Nagoya Grampus in the Asian Champions League last week, you’d think you’d tuned into an episode of the Benny Hill show.

“Soccer shocker,” promised our Kenny – as he and news reader Peter Overton salivated at the prospect of watching an Australian “soccer” player embarrass himself on the world stage.

The footage they chose to screen, naturally, was the poorly hit penalty from Sasho Petrovski that was comfortably saved by Nagoya keeper Seigo Narazaki.

That was it.

Just in case you failed to connect the dots, Channel Nine then screened Manchester United’s opening goal in their 2-0 win over Portsmouth, where “Ryan Gibbs” apparently crossed for Wayne Rooney to produce a “sublime finish.”

Rooney’s simple tap-in had Sutcliffe enraptured, prompting him to declare that his incredible skills were the reason he earned “billions.”

Gee willikers Channel Nine, you don’t hold exclusive TV rights to screen the National Rugby League or anything, do you?

The irony of Channel Nine’s archaic attitude towards Australian football is that I was watching their news broadcast via the free stream offered on website ninemsn.

And it’s the internet that makes Channel Nine’s news broadcast so redundant in the first place.

There’s not a single news story featured on any 6pm news broadcast that I haven’t already read about on the internet.

While large swathes of the Australian population are yet to be lured online, I’d venture to suggest that not many football fans are among them.

Having been driven underground by a mainstream media that at best fosters the perception that Australian football is “inferior,” and at worst seems to suggest that watching it is somehow “unpatriotic,” is it any wonder that Australian football fans turn to the internet for their news?

With so much happening in the world of football across the globe, Australian football fans are understandably net savvy.

That’s why Football Federation Australia recently revamped its website, not to mention the fact that football proves a consistently popular topic on The Roar.

Ken Sutcliffe may have played a starring role as the male model from Mudgee in “Still The Twelfth Man,” but the joke is on Channel Nine if they think that their old-school attitudes are going to win over young viewers.

As for the A-League, it clearly has the capacity to excite in the face of mainstream media indifference.

Two new teams, the high-profile capture of Robbie Fowler, the mysterious Vítězslav Lavička and speculation over the identity of new expansion clubs – there’s plenty to discuss if you’re a fan of an A-League club, despite the fact that the new season doesn’t kick off until August.

And with the Socceroos on the verge of booking a ticket to South Africa in 2010, football’s popularity is once again set to boom.

No doubt it will encroach on the more established winter sports in the process.

I won’t hold my breath for Ken Sutcliffe to learn our national coach’s name – presumably he’ll always be “Tim” Verbeek to Channel Nine news – nor do I expect to sink a beer with Sutcliffe any time soon.

But it would be nice to see Channel Nine stop treating Australian football fans as second-class citizens.

Over to you, “Benny.” The ball’s in your court.

Follow Mike on twitter @Mike_Tuckerman

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The Crowd Says (386) | Page 1 of Comments

Billo said | April 30th 2009 @ 3:30am | Report comment

But let’s face it, the A-League isn’t the best, and no amount of ageing former Premier League stars like Robbie Fowler can make it so.

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Ryan Steele said | April 30th 2009 @ 5:41am | Report comment

A quality league or not, there is an obvious lack of association football media coverage throughout the country. State-specific news (say the local Sydney or Adelaide broadcasts) are obviously the worst; when Kawasaki defeats the Mariners 5-0, you don’t hear about it outside New South Wales, and if Adelaide beat Kashima 1-0, you don’t hear about it outside South Australia, et cetera. On an hour long weekend edition of Channel Ten’s Sports Tonight, there is only two minutes of football coverage, which reports just the one match: Manchester United’s 5-2 comeback against Tottenham Hotspur. AFL and rugby are given almost half an hour each.

Not to mention the ignorance of so many reports that actually make it to the news desk. Perhaps the lack of coverage merely comes from a lack of actual football writers within the broadcasting ranks.

While SBS continues to be the number one media broadcaster for football, it’s only able to cover so much of the game, around its other regularly scheduled programming. The other media broadcasters – both televised and in print – need to step up their game, and actually cover sports as a whole, leaving the dark ages behind.

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andrew said | April 30th 2009 @ 6:03am | Report comment

Great article!!! Keep it up. It is through work like this that the traditional media channels will realise that they can’t actually see the world because they have too much egg on their face.

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midfield general said | April 30th 2009 @ 7:02am | Report comment

A columist for the Age, Catherine Deveny, referred to execs who run Channel Nine as middled aged `Bogans in Bomber Jacket’ which just about sums up the demographic it caters to, and the people who work for Channel Nine.

what about channel 10 with the new digital channel? Surely if they can show netball, baseball and poker(!) …..Seeing only about 30% household has payTV the next step for the FFA must be to negotiate a free to air rights

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Kurt said | April 30th 2009 @ 7:11am | Report comment

And here we go again. Boo hoo the mainstream media is against is, if only they paid us the attention we deserve say the perpetually adolescent & sooky soccer fans. AFL fans in NSW accept that theirs is a minority interest, as do league fans in Victoria but noooo say the soccerinas, everyone’s against us and the only reason we don’t get more media coverage is because of a conspiracy, nothing to do with the fact that these profit-driven multi-billion dollar businesses just maybe have an idea of what their audiences want and what rates well.

As for this perpetual nonsense about Channel Nine and their broadcasting of the NRL, if we were to follow this particular theory to its logical conclusion, in Melbourne they would give preference to League over AFL, a sport broadcast by their key commercial competitors. But in fact they still give preference to AFL, a result of their understanding of their audience’s preferences.

In short soccer fans should learn to accept their place within the Australian sporting hierachy and do away with their arrogant born to rule mentality that only results in heart ache for you and amusement for the rest of us.

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Ryan Steele said | April 30th 2009 @ 7:38am | Report comment

This isn’t about a hierarchy, it’s about giving every sport a ‘fair go’. Aussie rules fans in Sydney/Brisbane and rugby fans in Victoria/South Australia/Perth/et al are given plenty of media support, with the likes of (as previously mentioned) Network Ten’s Sports Tonight program, and free-to-air broadcasts of the sports.

Netball and Major League Baseball are on the rise (with major support from Network Ten’s sports-dedicated One channel), and cricket is obviously the most broadly-covered, but the likes of association football, and the NBL (and in most cases, basketball in general) are ignored by the general media.

It’s nothing to do with “their place in Australian sporting hierarchy” – the Hyundai A-League is rapidly gaining popularity, and attendances have even gone well above those of the AFL, at times – but about creating a medium that covers all areas of sporting interest. Especially at a time where Australia is moments away from a successive World Cup campaign, and the league is expanding and aiming to be bigger and better than ever before.

The fact that the A-League garners more media attention from England shows just how pitiful the Australian media has been.

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Adam said | April 30th 2009 @ 8:14am | Report comment

Mike – good to see some knowledge of the ‘world’ game on The Roar.
Football is a universal language and the second consecutive world cup will be another big step in the exposure for the game in Australia. Keep up the positive feedback, unlike so many of the journalists out there.

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Mike Tuckerman said | April 30th 2009 @ 8:40am | Report comment

Kurt – I couldn’t care less what AFL fans think. I didn’t write the piece to appease you. I wrote it to represent football fans who are tired of being patronised by out-dated TV executives.

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Redb said | April 30th 2009 @ 8:48am | Report comment

steady on Mike T heard of free speech?. One of the posters is suggesting the A League gets better crowds than the AFL at times implying the A League is approaching AFL popularity levels. Would you like to compare averages across 8 games a week versus 4? Reality check.

I can only speak for Melbourne, but Melbourne Victory get pretty good coverage here but its still only one sporting team out of 10 AFL teams most of which individually have a bigger fan base than Melb Victory.

The reality is when your in Sydney you dont hear much about AFL either compared to NRL and vice versa in Melbourne. One team towns get limited coverage thus the scramble to create derbies

Redb

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Sam said | April 30th 2009 @ 8:52am | Report comment

Kurt

You will be surprised how much coverage AFL get on channel 10 news and Sports Tonight here in Sydney. It is pretty much the headlining news most times. I can tell you that more people in NSW would be actually interested in the a-league news on NSW clubs, then any AFL coverage. But I guess the a-league has more money to splash around and promote their game.

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