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Tonight’s match at Energy Australia Stadium will be a celebration. For a club that was on its deathbed only weeks ago, the Newcastle Jets will entertain one of the game’s biggest names (albeit for non-football reasons these days) in front of a sell-out crowd.
The excitement in Newcastle is palpable and considering this is just a friendly game against a side few have never seen before, this is a remarkable achievement.
So to those who will be at the game tonight or watching on TV, enjoy yourselves. Successes can be few and far between for a new league and with so much riding on next week’s World Cup bidding decision, it’ll be nice to forget about the high stakes on offer for a brief moment.
Yet before we enjoy the evening, we should also acknowledge that this game will also be something of a missed opportunity for both the Jets and Australian football in general.
It is now widely accepted that finding an avenue to get the A-League on free to air television will be a vital component to the competition’s success. In fact the worst-case scenario is that without doing so, the league will eventually collapse.
That’s why I’m left deeply disappointed that when an opportunity arrived to get an A-League side on free to air television, it’s been missed.
Tonight’s Galaxy game will be broadcasted on Fox Sports and well done to Fox for continuing to embrace the game no matter what the cost, literally. I shudder to think where Australian football would be without the commitment the pay TV broadcaster has shown.
The issue though, is with those who decided shopping the fixture around for a little financial profit was better then ensuring the game was on FTA for the whole country to see.
The same is true for access to David Beckham.
The decision to do a doorstop with the former England international when the team stopped over at Sydney airport while en route to Newcastle was an inspired one and no doubt helped increase coverage of the Galaxy’s arrival.
However allowing Beckham’s interview availability to be limited to a solitary paid appearance on the broadcaster of the Galaxy friendly is a real pity.
One look at the kind of manic coverage the Englishman’s presence is soliciting right across the country shows you the reach only a superstar name like Beckham’s has.
The 35-year-old’s positive comments about the A-League, made during that Sydney Airport doorstop, may have been somewhat diplomatic and expected, but imagine what it would have done for the young competition to have him saying these things on one of the major FTA networks during primetime TV!
In the end, Newcastle’s Beckham experiment will be buried away on pay TV for a select few to enjoy and football, apparently so determined to get itself on FTA, has watched the opportunity to promote itself to a large and untapped audience go sailing by.
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