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AFL broadcasting needs Darwinian competition

Roar Guru
15th February, 2012
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Roar Guru
15th February, 2012
10

In mid-2011, the news reported that consumers (not fans) had “reason to celebrate” as several corporate giants signed a deal to secure television rights to AFL.

It was worth over one billion dollars (that’s a one, with nine zeroes after it).

Every news site and mainstream media outlet has offered some form of commentary on what this means for fans (in fact, they really mean consumers).

The reason why I write “consumers” rather than “fans” is that fans carry too much baggage as far as televised AFL is concerned; calling them “consumers” rationalises the economics behind the deals and makes it easier to brush aside fan-atical concerns.

For example, if fans ran the deals you would probably see all AFL games broadcast live in each state. If fans ran the deals you would probably see more AFL coverage online, on blogs, forums and independent coverage. You wouldn’t see the same game being simultaneously televised on free-to-air and pay TV at the same time, which is an oddity in itself.

Alas, we are locked in. Corporatism has prevailed.

According to Webster, corporatism is “the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction”. In other words, we are locked into having elite representative bodies make our decisions for us.

These “representative” bodies, unfortunately, also include our elected government. I do not understand why a nine-figure TV-rights deal does not negate any right to more government funding? Perhaps the government would be better placed to re-allocate AFL funds into the ABC so that “non priority” AFL games can be shown there live?

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Let me put this analogy forward. If you earn around $30,000 a year you receive government benefits such as low income earner benefits (or low tax rates). If you have a family and you earn $70,000 you get family tax benefits or education rebates. At some point, as your income gets higher, the government cuts these benefits from you because surely – after reaching a certain point – you are able to look after yourself.

Has not the AFL reached the point where it can be weened off the breast of government? I have a simple, yet contentious, Darwinian proposition that will solve this dilemma.

Let any television station air any game it so chooses at a weekly base-line cost to the station as determined by the AFL.

Yes, that’s right; any station can show any game.

It might even mean that the same game is broadcast on five different stations! But it would be a bit mystifying if all 30-odd current digital stations bought the same one game. The heat would certainly be on stations to come up with a cracker team of Commettis, experts and revered analysts.

This means that fans such as myself, who do not reside in the same state as their team, will have more chance of watching their team live. Indeed, it could actually result in niche marketing of AFL games where fans can have alternate viewing options rather than being stuck with the usual televised heavyweights.

The station with the greatest coverage, commentary, facts and figures will prevail over the others. In typical Darwinian fashion, the others will compete and will win or drop away by natural attrition. However as others drop away, they could still remain at a niche level or could attempt a specialised coverage of the event.

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In essence, the fans should decide who prevails.

As an AFL club member, I was never consulted about the television rights by the corporate elites. They only have the final dividend as their concern. This will ultimately be to the detriment of the game whereby people such as myself will have to take up watching lawn bowls on the ABC (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

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