The custodians of sport are losing touch with reality
Columnist By Adrian Musolino, 30 May 2010 Adrian Musolino is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- AFL, Caroline Wilson, channel night, Crowds, Jeff Browne, Monday night football, virtual reality
A Gelong fan flexes his muscles during the AFL Round 09 match between the Collingwood Magpies and the Geelong Cats at the MCG, Melbourne.
What do you do when fans aren’t turning up to sporting events and you’re left with the indignity of televising from empty stadiums? You create virtual spectators instead. Yes, in the race to satisfy the demands of television and fiscal goals, the custodians of our codes want to manufacture crowds rather than listening to them.
Over 40,000 may have turned up on a Monday night for Carlton versus St Kilda recently, but the AFL must still have concerns about the night’s ability to attract regular huge crowds if the crazy admission by Channel Nine’s executive director Jeff Browne is anything to go by.
Browne, whose network is keen to regain AFL television rights at the next round of negotiations, told The Age that as part of the network’s push to convince the AFL of Monday night footy they will use digital technology to superimpose a virtual crowd on to our screens to compensate for the possibility of empty stadiums.
So while there may only be 16,000 at AAMI Stadium (as there was yesterday for Richmond’s surprise victory over Port Power) or the like, television viewers at home could be treated to a packed stadium and, supposedly, the fake atmosphere to accompany it.
Upon reading the article I couldn’t help but check my calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fools.
Could such a ludicrous proposition be genuine?
“People are being diabolically conservative about this,” Browne said.
Is expecting reality – real reality not virtual reality – diabolically conservative nowadays?
What a fallacy that such actions and ideas could be deemed acceptable – cheating and misconstruing audiences to hide the truth.
It reminds me of the common practice of doctoring photos of models and celebrities in magazines to make them ‘perfect’ – and then we wonder why so many young people suffer body issues as they try and attain the impossible look propagated to them on newsstands.
What’s worrying is people in positions of power such as Browne not only believe such ideas are acceptable, but they seem confident enough to push them in the public domain believing people will support it.
According to Caroline Wilson’s article: “The AFL, which hopes to sell its next five-year broadcast package complete with nine weekly home-and-away games for $1 billion, said the virtual audience would solve the TV problem but not the prospect of relatively empty Monday night stadiums.”
So the AFL is okay with a virtual audience?
Perhaps the FFA could look into the technology for A-League games!
But joking aside, the ridiculousness of the proposal highlights the gulf between such executives and the fans – not to mention reality.
With television executives increasingly influencing the direction of codes, is it healthy for them to be so submissive to the demands of television while ignoring the core reasons why fans are speaking with their feet on matters such as the popularity of footy on Monday nights in the first place?
Absolutely not.
Sports stand on the brink when they resort to such distortions to hide reality.
The reality is the future of punters actually going to sporting events is at risk, with the advent of high definition and 3D technology making it even easier for fans to stay in rather than face the traffic, costs, dodgy food and wintery conditions in half-empty stadiums – especially when atmosphere can be manufactured by digital technology in high definition on the couch.
And the increasing demand for live coverage of games is a reaction from fans who know live sport is the final ingredient in their viewing utopia.
But codes must not cave in to the lunacy of corporate suits and their bottom dollars and remember the soul of their sports can be found in the stands – the actual people sitting in the stands, not the digitised variation you may be seeing on Channel 9 on Monday nights in the near future.
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- Explore:
- AFL, Caroline Wilson, channel night, Crowds, Jeff Browne, Monday night football, virtual reality
May 30th 2010 @ 1:26pm
Sammy22 said | May 30th 2010 @ 1:26pm | Report comment
Agree with article
Fair to say though the audience that will watch whatever channel 9 tell them, are not reading the roar or even thinking at a level that’s good for ‘their’ sport or should I say entertainment.
As a TV company buying a 5 year agreement it means one thing ROI and dam quick, no different than any other business. If its seen to be a winner at the end of that you get first dibs at doing it again.
As a guess there has been 15 years maybe more of kids playing playstations et al with virtual crowds, the same time at least has seen crowds placed on one side of the stadium to make it look fuller for TV and the crowds have been sanitised (right or wrong). Here i mean many characters of the crowds are no longer allowed to exist as there flag come paraphernalia are seen as dangerous or they must sit ‘appropriately’ in the stand not the hill. It will not matter to many probably most
As much as I agree with the article I’m don’t think it will matter as far as the TV companies and even the football code’s management are concerned if the business plan works the dollar will make it happen
May 30th 2010 @ 1:43pm
Maxy said | May 30th 2010 @ 1:43pm | Report comment
I wouldn’t take this proposal seriously, it has probably been put out there to soften up the public and make something else look more palatable by comparison. I’m betting the next rights will require a night Grand Final.
May 30th 2010 @ 5:35pm
TennisInsight said | May 30th 2010 @ 5:35pm | Report comment
Great article. But why stop at virtual crowds?
The idea has merit and taken to it’s logical conclusion we could have virtual players playing virtual games (every one bound to go down to the wire). Virtual refs & cheerleaders, hey we can even have virtual off field scandals with players having virtual group s**, oh sorry, that module will be exclusively available for the NRL.
May 30th 2010 @ 7:26pm
sheek said | May 30th 2010 @ 7:26pm | Report comment
I’m sorry to say this, but the people responsible for allowing this kind of stupidity to evolve are……………….. US!
Society is by & large apathetic. We wake up one day & find the world is completely different to how we imagined it should be. When that happens, don’t complain, because you/we/us allowed it to happen this way.
May 30th 2010 @ 7:30pm
James said | May 30th 2010 @ 7:30pm | Report comment
Disagree. We are here writing about it and complaining but we have made powerless because our voices don’t count as we’ve been squeezed out of sport.
Look at Channel 7 delaying Friday night footy. We hate it, we complain, we turn off, yet cause there is enough money in the system floating around our protests don’t matter.
May 30th 2010 @ 8:18pm
sheek said | May 30th 2010 @ 8:18pm | Report comment
James,
Our strength is in our numbers, but not enough of us can be bothered uniting our voice into one.
Writing & complaining on The Roar gets it off our chest, but it doesn’t achieve anything in the scheme of things. However, if more & more people complain & criticize, it will amount to something.
May 30th 2010 @ 8:47pm
James said | May 30th 2010 @ 8:47pm | Report comment
Australians are complacent, I agree.
May 30th 2010 @ 8:29pm
Bay35Pablo said | May 30th 2010 @ 8:29pm | Report comment
The same stupid thinking that was behind some of the logic for Super League in Australia, where some drongo said they wouldn’t need general admission revenue because they’d make enough from the corporate boxes. I kid you not. So those corporate boxes would be loving watching an empty stadium. Perhaps they could watch the TVs in their boxes with this CGI crowd for the atmosphere!
In fact, if the sport itself gets too boring, just have digitally created games!!! Why have one sided contests when the computer can create a more gripping contest that is always a cliff hanger? Do away with player costs too!
This is the end product of sport becoming business. The bean counters take over and forget what it is all about.