Goodes delivery to US

[ScottH]

Link

Goodes and teammates Matthew Nicks, Jude Bolton, Jared Crouch, Michael O'Loughlin and Jarrad McVeigh went on a scouting mission last month to prepare for the club's 20-day tour to America in January.

He even predicted Harlem teenagers could soon be honing their skills with a Tommy Sherrin.

The Harlem Globetrotters playing in the AFL, I'd like to see that.

[Charlie]

20 days!

That's a big chunk of our pre-season. I'm assuming it includes some sort of elite training camp?

[ScottH]

Originally posted by Charlie
20 days!

That's a big chunk of our pre-season. I'm assuming it includes some sort of elite training camp?

If they visit Harlem, you can bet on that. Nicks will be outsprinting Crouch.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Frankly I think pretending this US trip is anything other than an exercise in providing corporate entertainment for a trade show is twaddle. Game developement my bum!

And no I'm not belittling big John Ironmonger's efforts but really . . . the US?

First things first, I'd much prefer to see more Sydney teenagers honing their skills with a Tommy Sherrin than some US kid.

Last year not a single kid got drafted from NSW (although a couple slipped into the Rookie draft) and a recent article in inside football suggests it'll be the same this year.

We won the premeirship (thank heaven) but that success could prove as ephemeral as the Edelstun years or 1996 in terms of capturing NSW kids.

And while I'm very happy to see the huge Auskick participation rates, it doesn't seem to be flowing into the the underage ranks.

[Ryan Bomford]

Originally posted by Ruckman
Frankly I think pretending this US trip is anything other than an exercise in providing corporate entertainment for a trade show is twaddle. Game developement my bum!

And no I'm not belittling big John Ironmonger's efforts but really . . . the US?

First things first, I'd much prefer to see more Sydney teenagers honing their skills with a Tommy Sherrin than some US kid.

Last year not a single kid got drafted from NSW (although a couple slipped into the Rookie draft) and a recent article in inside football suggests it'll be the same this year.

We won the premeirship (thank heaven) but that success could prove as ephemeral as the Edelstun years or 1996 in terms of capturing NSW kids.

And while I'm very happy to see the huge Auskick participation rates, it doesn't seem to be flowing into the the underage ranks.

Ruckman,

I agree totally with your sentiments but you really can't ignore a 250 Million person market. There are so many quality athletes who don't make it to the professional grade in the US/Canada market. Sure it will take a long time but if we can create a foothold and some exposure, who knows what might happen.

[Jeffers1984]

Originally posted by Ryan Bomford
Ruckman,

I agree totally with your sentiments but you really can't ignore a 250 Million person market. There are so many quality athletes who don't make it to the professional grade in the US/Canada market. Sure it will take a long time but if we can create a foothold and some exposure, who knows what might happen.

Imagine someone as athletic as NBA baller Kevin Garnett got to play in the AFL. 7' foot of pure athletisism. Great for a ruck.

[goswannie14]

Originally posted by Jeffers1984
Imagine someone as athletic as NBA baller Kevin Garnett got to play in the AFL. 7' foot of pure athletisism. Great for a ruck.

Or a full forward...better than Salmon in his prime

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Originally posted by Ryan Bomford
Sure it will take a long time but if we can create a foothold and some exposure, who knows what might happen.

I couldn't have expressed the argument for investing in NSW better if I tried.

This trip really has bugger-all to do with 'spreading the word' in the US market. So it's not really a case of which market the AFL's going to invest in to develope the game, more a case of wasting promotional money on a corporate entertainment.

Should the AFL actually seriously contemplate such an effort I'd hope that someone would point out that US is a well recognised marketing El Dorado.
Yes 250 million people is a mouthwateringly large number of potential customers but it's less significant than the number of well entrenched competitors it contains and the competative disadvantages our 'product' would face (product recognition / infrastructure / parochialism).
We are still to get around those issues in much of NSW.

And while the population size of the US does mean the next Jason Ball is more likely to be wondering what to do now his high school basketballing days are over than that the next LA Raiders tight-end is playing Gridiron for Sydney Uni. I think it's more likely indeed that he's currently packing down in the 1st 15 of some private school that insists he plays rugby (actually that sounds exactly like Chris Langfords kids).

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Originally posted by Jeffers1984
Imagine someone as athletic as NBA baller Kevin Garnett got to play in the AFL. 7' foot of pure athletisism. Great for a ruck.

But John Eales was born closer to hand.

[Charlie]

Originally posted by Ryan Bomford
Ruckman,

I agree totally with your sentiments but you really can't ignore a 250 Million person market. There are so many quality athletes who don't make it to the professional grade in the US/Canada market. Sure it will take a long time but if we can create a foothold and some exposure, who knows what might happen.

Yep. There's tens of thousands of high-level athletes on scholarships in the various college systems. Maybe five percent of them get a professional contract when they finish... and the rest have nowhere to go. There is a much more limited culture of amateur sport in the United States. The vast majority of athletic careers in America end at 18 or 22.

I don't really understand why the AFL isn't tapping into this market. The obvious problem is the age restriction on rookies (at 23, this is very close to the age at which most American athletes reach the end of their careers in American sports)... but this could be changed.

It has also struck me that this is an obvious way of developing the game in the US itself. How many 24 and 25 year olds are there that played football or basketball for ten years... and then found they no longer had a team to play for?

[hammo]

We should be concentrating on our own backyard not wasting our time in the USA.

[Thunder Shaker]

These chaps are looking forward to it. link

[penga]

Originally posted by Jeffers1984
Imagine someone as athletic as NBA baller Kevin Garnett got to play in the AFL. 7' foot of pure athletisism. Great for a ruck.

KG's soft.

Offer Artest a contract! He would need to go to anger management school with Bazza...

[goswannie14]

Originally posted by hammo
We should be concentrating on our own backyard not wasting our time in the USA.

What...so we can develop kids that the other AFL teams can poach from us.........

I think the USA idea is a good one, then when we kick their butts we can claim to be the world champions

[hammo]

Originally posted by goswannie14
What...so we can develop kids that the other AFL teams can poach from us.........

They won't get poached if we draft them instead of passing them up like we did with Lenny Hayes.

At least youngsters in NSW know what AFL is - its a fair bet 99.9% of Americans would never have heard of the game let alone have any interest in travelling to Australia to try and play it.