How did the AFL’s new Prime Minister handle his first year?

When there’s a regime change in politics, you tend to see the new guys go particularly hard on reform in their first year in charge.

Not to get too political – this is a sports column after all – but we saw that play out precisely to script in the 2013 handover between the Liberal and Labor Parties at a Federal level in Australia.

Well, we just had a regime change in the AFL, too! It seems like a decade ago, but new AFL Prime Minister the Honourable Gillon McLachlan MP took over the reins from his predecessor Andrew ‘Vlad’ Demetriou almost exactly one year ago.

Time flies when you’re having fun, or something like that.

In assuming the nation’s third most important job (behind Australian cricket captain and President of Collingwood, of course), McLachlan set out a pretty clear agenda for his first 12 months. In a lot of ways, Demetriou’s tenure as chief ended up being all about expansion: stadia, broadcast rights, new clubs, and new countries. McLachlan’s agenda is about consolidating those gains and ensuring the foundations of the nation state of football are improved.

At his first press conference, McLachlan said as much.

“My job ultimately is to consolidate that (Andrew Demetriou’s) investment and focus on leveraging that investment”.

The way I see it, McLachlan outlined six priorities between the time he won the job (March) and sat in the no-doubt glorious chair for the first time (June). Let’s check in on these, and give a somewhat flippant grade for each.

Fixing the schedule: B+
Last year’s Sunday and Monday night games were such a big hit that one of Gil’s first orders of business was to declare they were out from this year. And so they are.

Thursday nights were a bit more successful though, and despite this there’s only four scheduled in, all in succession between Round 12 and 15, in 2015. Maybe that’s an experiment to see whether there’s an audience? I don’t know.

The Friday night scheduling is a definite sore point though, and should be addressed next year.

Engaging with the fans: A-
Freezing ticket prices? Tick.

Slaying the beasts known as third party food and beverage providers? Tick.

Ditching (mostly) the poorly implemented but theoretically sound variable ticketing system? Tick.

Giving the clubs more scope to improve match day? Tick, despite the mixed results…

Kids free on Sundays? 10 billion ticks. What a genius move.

It’s hard to argue against a good grade for this one, unless you want to pick apart the virtues of an already random mascot driving a very random vehicle around the ground before a game, in which case feel free to leave a comment if that gets you fired up.

Addressing structural financial issues: C
Equalisation has been a talking point for some time, and admittedly the AFL’s new financial equalisation system was negotiated and implemented by Vlad. But McLachlan would have been in the room when the deals were being thrashed out and Eddie was throwing his hands in the air.

It’s unclear to this point whether the measure will have any material impact on the ability of the less financially well-off clubs to compete on the field. And the general opaqueness of AFL club finances will make it a difficult thing to assess moving forward. The only equalisation-related figure I’ve come across is a projected $400,000 equalisation-initiative-related bill expected to be paid by Hawthorn this year.

As I wrote last year, one of the biggest panaceas for the Victorian clubs – which, lets face it, are at the root of this problem – would be to address the high fixed costs associated with the Melbourne stadium situation. Not a lot of progress on that one.

Anyway, it’s a little too early to tell. At least he got rid of COLA, hey.

Drugs, drugs, drugs: D
Does this one need much explanation? Ok good.

Look, drugs are a difficult issue for everyone in professional sports. But the head-in-the-sand approach isn’t working, and will only become a more pressing issue if left unattended.

At least we don’t have players coming back from torn triceps in a less than 10 weeks though right? I don’t think we want to get to that point.

‘Look and feel’ of the game: A
I think this is another undisputed tick. Two distinct events stick out for me.

First is the meeting between Head Chef Gil and 11 of football’s most influential figures in June last year, which I can only assume was a bit of a pow wow about the state of the game on the field, and the role tactics play in this.

The second are this rule changes instituted for this season, including the Travis Cloke rule (aka the don’t pay a free kick against me just because I’m a big guy rule) and the much stricter interpretation of holding the ball. That second one has come with an edict for umpires to be more trigger happy on calling ball ups, and there’s no doubt this has contributed to the lessening of rolling mauls and ugly play this season.

Notwithstanding, we’re on track for another sub-90 points per game season. That’s the blemish stopping an A+ here.

Another issue related to this is the reform to the Match Review Panel, which was implemented by new Deputy Prime Minister Mark Evans. There’s still some wrinkles – when you’re operating a legal system without the ability to use precedent, you’ll always get some funny calls – but this is another one where I don’t think you can argue the game has gone backwards.

Next broadcasting agreement: C
Money talks, and in the AFL, money means broadcasting agreements. Last year, the AFL as a central entity brought in $458 million – $248 million of this coming from its broadcasting agreements with Channel 7, Foxtel and Telstra. The current agreement expires at the end of the 2016 season, and the bean counters at the AFL and potential distributors are doing lots of bean counting right now. At least that’s what we’re led to believe.

Foxtel will be into it, and so will Channel 7. Apparently Channel 9 is interested in broadcasting a couple of games a week – perhaps aiming for a Saturday takeover ala Channel 10 in the previous agreement. Their entry into the fold makes things a bit more difficult for Channel 7, as it becomes less about satisfying the demands of the content provider and more about ensuring they’re beating a rival.

Some people think the AFL is set for a $2 billion deal. That sounds like overs to me. If that last agreement was about $1.25 billion, I think something along the $1.6-$1.8 billion range would be more likely. Channel 9’s involvement is the kind of delicious twist that could push it towards the top of that range.

Needless to say, getting the agreement right is critical to the game’s short-term future. There’s nothing to suggest its going badly, but there’s nothing public to suggest its going well, either. Hence, the very boring, bland, neutral C grade.

So what’s coming next? According to a weekend article in The Age, Prime Minister McLachlan is developing his very own White Paper on the future of the game. I personally love reading White Papers, and I can’t wait to see what McLachlan thinks needs to change for the game to continue its evolution.

Further growth of the women’s game looks high on the to do list, which is great to see.

Recent proposals regarding the draft, player movement, fixturing, and second-tier levels of football suggest to me McLachlan feels the time is right to make the leap to the full blown professional sport ecosystem model that most other major global sporting bodies operate. As a football nerd, to me this is a great step forward. But I can see some traditionalists getting a little uncomfortable with this new world.

AFL Media, a McLachlan product, continues its growth, notwithstanding some questionable content. There was some talk earlier in the year that the AFL may look to broadcast a game a week ‘in-house’ as a way of growing the brand. This would again been quite a big step, although one I don’t expect them to take.

The drugs issue, both illicit and performance enhancing, looks to be Simba’s biggest thorn at this point in time (Lion King Reference in a column: check). We’re just 22 days from starting the second half of the year, and there’s not been a great deal of public commentary regarding the next broadcasting agreement.

So what do you think? How has the good ship football faired in the first phase of its journey under Captain Gil’s stewardship? Could I have crammed any more leadership metaphors into a single article? What do you grade his, and the AFL’s, performance on the six big issues 12 months on?

Is it four more years, or Governor General’s orders, for Prime Minister McLachlan?