This is a brave new world for media practitioners and that was no better illustrated than by the reaction on Friday to speculation which linked David Beckham with a move to the A-League.
The first I heard of the story was on Friday morning when several Tweets from a variety of media outlets advised that Football Federation Australia would make a major announcement at 2pm.
I was preoccupied at that hour, so it wasn’t until late afternoon that I saw Beckham’s name plastered over every major news outlet online.
Several prominent names were soon talking up Beckham’s chances of moving to the A-League, including new FFA chief David Gallop.
Much as I’d love to see Beckham in Australia, I can’t vouch for the veracity of the rumours because I simply don’t possess the contacts to confirm whether or not they’re true.
But judging by his bemused reaction when the question was put to him at an LA Galaxy news conference, one glance at Beckham’s body language suggests the rumours may have been little more than fantasy.
That didn’t stop Gallop from keeping Beckham’s name in the headlines by stating on Fox Sports that he’d spoken to his agent to say “it would be fantastic” if the former England star enjoyed a stint Down Under.
It certainly would be fantastic, just as it would be fascinating to note whether such a deal emerged because of the sheer weight of media interest.
It’s hard to know whether Gallop was being naïve or shrewd by keeping Beckham’s name in the headlines.
But one thing is certain: virtually every news outlet in the country ran with stories about Beckham’s ‘interest’ in the A-League despite no discernible attempt to verify whether or not it was genuine.
Only commentator Simon Hill – one of the best-connected journalists in the business – admitted on Fox Sports News to making some phone calls to try and uncover the story.
The reason for that should be obvious – in the online world, no news outlet can afford not to run a story published elsewhere.
Immediacy is paramount, so even the websites of major newspapers – once afforded the luxury of thorough research before their copy appeared in the morning edition – now often base reports on hard-to-verify Twitter rumours or otherwise react to what has been published elsewhere.
Which makes the weekend’s little tête-à-tête between Central Coast and FFA all the most interesting, during which the Mariners accused the FFA’s website of leaking details of Mat Ryan’s potential move to English club Hull City.
“For FFA to leak that the way they did, I think is totally wrong. What else are they going to leak?” Mariners’ coach Graham Arnold said after the story broke.
FFA hit back through Head of Corporate Affairs and Communications Kyle Patterson, who insisted Arnold was mistaken in thinking that FFA operations staff had leaked the story.
Instead Patterson said the story had been uncovered by the footballaustralia.com.au editorial team.
“The website employs independent journalists in conjunction with our digital partner Optus,” Patterson said. “They don’t work in the FFA offices.”
I can vouch for that because I write a weekly column for the site and have never once heard from anyone working inside FFA headquarters regarding its contents.
What was perhaps most interesting about the way the original story broke is that it was penned by Mike Cockerill – a Football Hall of Fame journalist and Fox Sports commentator who recently became Associate Editor of the FFA site after a 28-year career at the Sydney Morning Herald.
If anyone’s got contacts inside the game, it’s Cockerill, and though he sounded a bit croaky at Hunter Stadium yesterday it seems his news radar regarding the Ryan rumour was spot on.
Yet in an age when investigative journalism seems to be dwindling into irrelevance, perhaps it’s no surprise the Mariners were angered by the report.
When reactive reporting becomes the norm, it’s easy to dismiss the expert practitioners of what appears to be a dying craft.
As football consumers, we should ask ourselves if that’s really the path we want to head down.
Cappuccino
Roar Guru
Een the Daily Telegraph has dropped the "soccer" tag for football...
Matt F
Roar Guru
I'm pretty sure Graham Arnold still lives on the North Shore of Sydney and commutes every day for training etc (it's about an hour up the F3.) Maybe he and Becks could carpool ;)
TC
Guest
There are probably different dynamics at play for a 10 week stint. TC
HardcorePrawn
Roar Guru
Not unless Gosford can offer something that can further her varied career!
striker
Guest
Jbinnie Adelaide crowds are woefull considering there coming first whats doing with them.
El Capitan
Guest
So what your basicly saying is that CCM have no chance to have Beckhams signiture?
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Off topic, but for those with access to online streaming ... it's 80' in the 2nd leg of the MLS East Conference Final: Seattle Sounders v LA Galaxy. Beckham's LA Galaxy won the 1st leg 3-0 at home. Seattle went 2-0 up today but a contentious penalty to LA Galaxy means Seattle need to score 2 to win the tie. 27k fans packed into the CenturyLink Field in Seattle ... pulsating atmosphere.
jbinnie
Guest
Kasey - Sorry, not chasing an "elusive hidden meaning" just passing on notable information for those who are interested in such mundane matters as you seem to think they are.Now I could analyse these figures a bit further and from them could give warnings to certain clubs that they should be aware that their average gates are at present well below the 10,000 average that was being touted by the FFA a few years ago as a "break- even" figure. Out of the ten teams playing in the league 4 are presently in that category and if we examine them you will find some may have valid reasons ,others not so sure.Your Adelaide,playing well,are averaging only 8869.Melb Heart playing well, only 7577, Glory,with a home ground developement as an excuse,but playing well only 9930,and Wellington 9269. Now 3 of these teams have been in the league for some time now and yet are lagging way behind Vic ,Roar,Syd and Jets who all have average gates in excess of 14,000 and even West Syd (with a derby included ) are in excess of 11000. With these figures in mind I simply ask can something be done to help these clubs increase their averages,after all Del Piero has almost doubled Sydney's and Heskey will be helping the Jets. Could a similar marquee do the same for these clubs?????? That is an elusive question is it not?. With all the "new "money around maybe the answer could be interesting cheers jb
HardcorePrawn
Roar Guru
One thing to bear in mind when discussing any potential move to Australia by David Beckham , is the influence of his missus. Whilst he was at Man Utd Victoria was said to be very keen on Beckham moving to a London club. IIRC Spurs and Chelsea were usually the two linked most often to possible bids; It was said to be Victoria that put the kybosh on any interest from Barcelona when Beckham eventually moved from Man Utd, as she preferred to be in the larger, less provincial city of Madrid; It was also suggested in the media that his move to Los Angeles was at her behest too. At the time she was looking to work with a number of LA-based music producers, and also hoped to get herself some acting roles; The loan move to AC Milan also came about while the former Spice Girl was exploring a career in fashion. Coincidence? Possibly not. If this is the case I would respectfully suggest that a move to Australia might not be in her interests, and therefore be unlikely to happen. But if there is a chance that the Beckhams are to turn up here for a spell, and with even Barcelona not being deemed suitable for Goff's Oak's finest, I really can't imagine any club outside of Sydney getting his signature.
Matt F
Roar Guru
BR vs SFC - 132k AU v MH - 75k MV vs CCM - 99k NJ v WP - 53k PG vs WSW - 68k Average - 85.4k
mahonjt
Guest
I agree absolutely about the media treating football fairly - but I also care about code ranking. When the data supiorts the argument that we are the third code in overall terms (i.e. across the various measures) we should be proud to asy we are. These rankings play a big part in the culture of the media also - ranking effective perception, effecting coverage, effecting perfromance, effecting ranking (a virtous cycle that has ket the 'duopoly' in place for years). Football is as football's data shows - and we should be proudly proclaiming it from the rooftops in order to crack open the market and realise our fullest potential.
James
Guest
the first half was great. but it shut down in the second half. it can't have been the best game ever unfortunately based on one half. possibly the 2011 grand final was the best game ever.
Kasey
Guest
Great to have it finally confirmed: SBS will also broadcast the Qantas Socceroos FIFA World Cup Qualifiers effective immediately. The agreement sees SBS become the official free-to-air broadcast partner of the FFA. SBS's coverage of the Hyundai A-League will commence from the 2013-2014 season and will be the first time the A-League is broadcast on free-to-air TV since the competition’s inception. http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1129433/Football-returns-to-free-to-air-TV-on-SBS/
Bondy.
Guest
Jb. Thanks for the info,very informative as usual.
El Capitan
Guest
I heard from T'ville locals that it was real estate and prox to the reefs/islands that attracted Fowler. He apprently picked up former "Storm Finacial" owners home on Castle Hill overlooking the city and Maggie Island. From the accounts I've heard he's big on real estate. But if you can sell it to these places it can only be good. York was a good signing, but it would have been better with more big time players like now. I only wish the Super XV did the same, and teams were able to snare a big signing from England/Ireland/France/Wales here in Aust besides the Rebels. But alas the Reds and Tahs rely too much on kiwi and Sth Africian imports.
Kasey
Guest
As someone who was a semi-regular attendee at NSL games until Adelaide United entered in the very last season, I’m surprised to hear the NSL ever achieved the 500k mark. Although on 2nd thought, with Perth Glory, Adelaide United all scoring huge(by NSL standards) crowds…I suppose they were bound to get there at some stage in the final season.
Kasey
Guest
jbinnie You always seem to be chasing some elusive hidden meaning to the attendance figures …why isn’t it ever enough for you to just accept that crowds are up and be happy with that?
Bondy.
Guest
That stream Fox does is very good its seconds behind the live stuff,NRL are on at the moment.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
jb On Twitter many have noticed this. In fact, Andrew Howe (@AndrewHowe_statto), who is a statistician, provided the following additional information: * 500k after 35 matches is the FASTEST in the history of the A-League; the previous fastest 500k aggregate was achieved in 2007/08, when it took 37 matches * by comparison, only 2 seasons ago, it took 58 A-League matches to attain 500k aggregate * also, the fastest 500k achieved in the NSL was in 1998/99, when it took 85 games to reach this total - the final season of the NSL 2003/04 it took 122 matches to reach 500k attendees.
Kasey
Guest
striker: I’d have to look at the TV ratings thread on 442Oz, but it was pleasing to note that the 2012-13 season has already passes half a million spectators aggregate through the turnstyles(501,553 by my count). We arestil holding onto a 14k+ average with 2 of 3Melbourne Derbies and 2 of 3 Sydney Derbies yet to come in the season. Now I’m sure resident Negative-Nelly jbinnie (nothing personal mate, just looking on the sunny side is something I like to do) will find something to grouse about in the figures I’ve used; but nothing can disguise the fact that crowds, TV ratings and memberships are well up this season.