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Opinion
Hamish McLachlan summed it up on the Channel Seven broadcast when he stated that 2020 feels like the sort of year where a result like this could happen.
For the AFL, where ‘optics’ are of the highest priority, where how things appear seem to be of more importance than how they actually are from the outside looking in, last night’s result must feel like a little bit of an anticlimax.
They’ve tried so hard to control everything through this strange season and ensured they tightly manage so much within their boundaries of responsibility, only to have it all brought undone by the only thing they could not control: the game itself.
Fans have been promised fast, exciting football, with the shorter quarters designed to create that sense of ‘free-flowing football’, but what we’re left with is footy’s ultimate letdown, the draw.
From a business perspective the AFL are surely smiling – more eyes watching the broadcast with ratings up and the broadcast deal sorted just prior to the bounce. But surely this morning there must be a sense of frustration that after trying so hard they ended up with the lowest-scoring game this century.
It was an underwhelming visual spectacle of a game, with player skills clearly underdone, and ultimately delivered the most unfulfilling of results.
Perhaps the lesson in all of this is the more you micro-manage, the greater the odds that the product doesn’t live up to your expectations. The AFL talked a big game, but perhaps the game itself didn’t walk the walk.
Thankfully the only way from here is up.
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