nobbyiscool
Brownlow Medallist
- Aug 11, 2006
- 21,797
- 24,217
- AFL Club
- Tasmania
- Other Teams
- TasTigers, JJs, MV, CRaiders, PhEagles
i may have the last two numbers wrong - but i definitely heard dwayne russel announce the crowd figure in canberra today as being 37??
oh, how i laughed. because it demonstrates 2 things.
- the afl will reap what is sewn by it's affiliated tv networks. it's been a bugbear of mine for the 2 seasons that i've lived in canberra that they will delay footy games for absolutely no reason at all - friday nite is delayed until 9.30, whilst garbage is shown at 8.30. and saturday nites are even worse where Southern Cross 10 show programs that could not possibly rate better than the footy - as evidenced last nite when instead of showing first vs third live or near-live, they showed the movie Double Jeopardy for what i believe was its 800th showing. the afl will reap what it sews through shitty tv deals.
- the AFL has been telling Canberra that they are supposed to care about Sydney for years... we get every single game of theirs on television, and they play in every game in canberra. apparently the AFL is so naive that it doesn't realise that there is absolutely no geographical or social connection between canberra and sydney. so why do it? rather than continue to punish canberra with substandard games including a boring sydney swans team, see what happens if you give us something half decent.
here's the thing in canberra... you can't just ignore it for the whole year and then swing into town expecting big crowd numbers. its a market that needs nurturing, and frankly neither the Sydney Swans nor the AFL do a bloody thing to nurture the place. there's a little rugby league team here called the Raiders who are locally based, who are accessible, and who do nurture the territory, and even they have problems pulling a crowd.
having said all that - i don't think the AFL actually has any intention of nurturing canberra or treating it seriously. with 450,000 people in Canberra and surrounding areas, this place is smaller population wise than tasmania - and not a whole lot of them care about AFL. so unfortunately for those of us here who do care, we have no option but to endure the AFLs shitty treatment of Canberra, because they won't nurture, they won't improve the tv deal, and they wont do anything other than expect us to support sydney. their 'presence' here is nothing more than a token presence.
and so they'll continue to play games here for the sake of that token presence, and the AFL will continue to be embarrassed with crowd figures like todays.
and i don't sympathise. again, you reap what you sew.
oh, how i laughed. because it demonstrates 2 things.
- the afl will reap what is sewn by it's affiliated tv networks. it's been a bugbear of mine for the 2 seasons that i've lived in canberra that they will delay footy games for absolutely no reason at all - friday nite is delayed until 9.30, whilst garbage is shown at 8.30. and saturday nites are even worse where Southern Cross 10 show programs that could not possibly rate better than the footy - as evidenced last nite when instead of showing first vs third live or near-live, they showed the movie Double Jeopardy for what i believe was its 800th showing. the afl will reap what it sews through shitty tv deals.
- the AFL has been telling Canberra that they are supposed to care about Sydney for years... we get every single game of theirs on television, and they play in every game in canberra. apparently the AFL is so naive that it doesn't realise that there is absolutely no geographical or social connection between canberra and sydney. so why do it? rather than continue to punish canberra with substandard games including a boring sydney swans team, see what happens if you give us something half decent.
here's the thing in canberra... you can't just ignore it for the whole year and then swing into town expecting big crowd numbers. its a market that needs nurturing, and frankly neither the Sydney Swans nor the AFL do a bloody thing to nurture the place. there's a little rugby league team here called the Raiders who are locally based, who are accessible, and who do nurture the territory, and even they have problems pulling a crowd.
having said all that - i don't think the AFL actually has any intention of nurturing canberra or treating it seriously. with 450,000 people in Canberra and surrounding areas, this place is smaller population wise than tasmania - and not a whole lot of them care about AFL. so unfortunately for those of us here who do care, we have no option but to endure the AFLs shitty treatment of Canberra, because they won't nurture, they won't improve the tv deal, and they wont do anything other than expect us to support sydney. their 'presence' here is nothing more than a token presence.
and so they'll continue to play games here for the sake of that token presence, and the AFL will continue to be embarrassed with crowd figures like todays.
and i don't sympathise. again, you reap what you sew.
