Liam's picture
Sat, 24/12/2005 - 8:34am — Liam

Happy Christmas, Australian football fans. The AFL has accepted Kerry Packer’s offer of $780 million for Channel Nine and Foxtel to broadcast AFL games across Australia, and unless the oppposition can come up with the chips they look as if the whole pot is going to go Packer’s way. Is it a call to crack open the celebratory champagne or get stuck into the sad-sack’s sweet sherry?

Seven/Ten, which holds the first-and-last offer rights, has 14 days to respond to what is clearly the richest TV offer to any football code in Australian history.

Thank goodness for that. Meanwhile, AFL chief Andrew Demetriou once again demonstrates a total lack of common sense or any imagination that there is an Australia outside the 3000 central Melbourne postcode:

“We will have better coverage than we’ve ever had before but while the final details of the coverage will only be known when we’ve received our response from Channels Seven and Ten, we do know that nationally coverage will be better than we have currently, especially in our key growth markets.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong in almost every way. The Channel Nine coverage of 2005 aussie rules was beyond appalling. In NSW and QLD the most match-ups in each round consistently gave way to dud rugby league games, to satisfy the network’s scrum addiction. The Sydney market for AFL is growing despite the best efforts of the AFL and Channel Nine.

Add to Nine’s bloody mindedness, an insufficient number of camera operators who’d be hard pressed to focus on the wicket during the morning tea break at the Gabba, let alone train their gear on a flying yellow night ball or follow inevitable behind-play stoushes. Add to that well-trained rugby league commentators pressed into service for a code they don’t like and don’t know very much about, because Nine wouldn’t stump up to recruit experienced AFL commentators. Add to that a total lack of commitment in promoting the code, perhaps evidence that—shock, horror—Nine bought the AFL rights in Sydney and Queensland to keep rugby league audiences safe from competition.

C’mon 7/10 consortium, you’ve got eight hundred mil lying around somewhere. Cut Rove’s meat pie allowance or the Neighbours caucasian makeup fund if you have to. Save the day for the oppressed non-Victorian AFL fans of Australia. We don’t want to have to start talking about nationalising the footy coverage and sending it to… SBS.