Is the AFL in trouble in spite of its crowds?
However, the way the AFL seems so keen on changing the game and its rules (reducing games from 100 to 80 minutes playing time, with further reductions expected, and the move to a smaller stadium with the closure of Waverley and opening of Docklands) suggests that the AFL is desperately obsessed with the inability of Australian football to play well on television. The AFL feared and fears that if it cannot make Australian Rules play as well on television as major international sports like basketball, rugby union, rugby league and even soccer, it will lose its audience to those sports which play best on TV.
Having watched games from before the AFL made its first change, I cannot say it makes as much difference as the AFL would probably like. The one improvement for ease of appreciation on TV is that the game is more stop-start with a roofed stadium where you cannot get wet games that discourage such play. If the AFL wants Australian Rules to play as well on TV as basketball or the rugby codes, it would need to shorten grounds a lot more and make games so much shorter that the game could lose a lot more than the variety already lost with a roofed stadium. Unless (and probably even if) it reduces the size of teams, with such changes the AFL would face more difficulty in finding enough quality players to prevent un-competitive teams - which however may keep TV audiences up by providing more games to watch for fans of viable teams.
There is no doubt that sports which have tried this route in the face of such challenges have lost a lot of their appeal or distinctiveness - think of the history of cricket since the first one-day games in the 1960s - and have not spread to new markets significantly enough to make one think the cost is justified (though the changes from first-class to 20/20 cricket may have attracted the present-oriented baby boom generation and its successor “Generation Me”). In the case of the AFL, I am tempted to think that the changes it has made and wants to make serve to heighten the gap between the inner-city “policy culture” including the AFL and its clubs along with other government and academic institutions, and the primarily outer-suburban and ultraconservative “community culture” which tends to dislike the kind of promotion one sees of games at Docklands on TV. Australian football, being less violent and less sensationalist than most alternatives, is more likely to appeal to this “community culture” that more telegenic sports may not tap.
The question of why the NRL does not attract crowds like the AFL seems to bother and irritate a lot of people.
However, the way the AFL seems so keen on changing the game and its rules (reducing games from 100 to 80 minutes playing time, with further reductions expected, and the move to a smaller stadium with the closure of Waverley and opening of Docklands) suggests that the AFL is desperately obsessed with the inability of Australian football to play well on television. The AFL feared and fears that if it cannot make Australian Rules play as well on television as major international sports like basketball, rugby union, rugby league and even soccer, it will lose its audience to those sports which play best on TV.
Having watched games from before the AFL made its first change, I cannot say it makes as much difference as the AFL would probably like. The one improvement for ease of appreciation on TV is that the game is more stop-start with a roofed stadium where you cannot get wet games that discourage such play. If the AFL wants Australian Rules to play as well on TV as basketball or the rugby codes, it would need to shorten grounds a lot more and make games so much shorter that the game could lose a lot more than the variety already lost with a roofed stadium. Unless (and probably even if) it reduces the size of teams, with such changes the AFL would face more difficulty in finding enough quality players to prevent un-competitive teams - which however may keep TV audiences up by providing more games to watch for fans of viable teams.
There is no doubt that sports which have tried this route in the face of such challenges have lost a lot of their appeal or distinctiveness - think of the history of cricket since the first one-day games in the 1960s - and have not spread to new markets significantly enough to make one think the cost is justified (though the changes from first-class to 20/20 cricket may have attracted the present-oriented baby boom generation and its successor “Generation Me”). In the case of the AFL, I am tempted to think that the changes it has made and wants to make serve to heighten the gap between the inner-city “policy culture” including the AFL and its clubs along with other government and academic institutions, and the primarily outer-suburban and ultraconservative “community culture” which tends to dislike the kind of promotion one sees of games at Docklands on TV. Australian football, being less violent and less sensationalist than most alternatives, is more likely to appeal to this “community culture” that more telegenic sports may not tap.
