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The sporting war between the NRL and the AFL is in full swing, with the AFL surging into the east coast with a promise of winning the hearts of Sydney’s sporting fans.
But from this weekends example, it is quite clear the AFL are kidding themselves if they want to win the war.
The AFL had potentially the biggest military weapon at their disposal and decided to let it fester on the sidelines.
The weekend’s epic St Kilda v Geelong clash was the perfect vehicle to capture non-AFL sporting fans in Sydney.
Two teams undefeated to this point in the season (which is a first in the AFL), who stood at 85-all with just 60 seconds remaining in a great match…and yet it was not broadcast on free-to-air television in Sydney. And even those with Foxtel may have struggled to find it on the reserve foxsports channel, Channel 518.
They missed a game that was the best regular season game in over ten years and a game that would have showcased the highest quality of skills and the brilliance of Ablett, Riewoldt, Selwood, Gardiner and Bartell to non AFL fans.
The AFL had a perfect lead in to the St Kilda-Geelong game as well with the Sydney v North Melbourne game concluding at 3.15pm, only three minutes after the St Kilda-Geelong game had begun.
Not only would have most AFL fans watching the previous game had stayed onto watch, but it would have almost certainly grabbed the casual sporting and NRL fans waiting patiently till 4pm for Nine’s Rugby League coverage to begin.
You could even argue that had the NRL fans indeed tuned in, given the quality of the 1st half from both St Kilda and Geelong, those fans may have just stuck around.
But it was not to be.
Instead they witnessed a gripping 38-34 game between Penrith and Parramatta, and ironically perhaps picked up a few AFL fans who had nothing better to watch in the process.
What is also ironic is that the AFL is attempting to win over the Western Sydney market, a low socio-economic area of Sydney, which indicates many can not afford such luxury’s as Foxtel and Austar and are confined to free-to-air television for their sporting fix.
Furthermore, the AFL’s spurning of AFL fans in Sydney is all on the back of the NRL’s record television audience in Melbourne for Origin 1, and a record crowd for an NRL game in Perth in the recent South Sydney-Melbourne Storm fixture.
It is early days in a war that will only intensify as the AFL get closer to introducing teams on the East Coast and in particular Western Sydney, but it is a war that the NRL is winning.
And the AFL has only got themselves to blame!
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