We've had enough McGuire!

[Legs Akimbo]

Buddy's contract may be the high water mark for afl player contracts. This signals potential future reductions in player payments, at least in adjusted terms.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/dead-in-the-water-foxtel-austerity-drive-signals-end-of-sports-rights-boom-20190514-p51n3v.html

A fair bit self inflicted if you ask me. Also, I think having games on Telstra devices really undermines the value of foxtel's squillions a month contracts.

Foxtel is to entertainment what taxis are to transport.

[707]

I can help them trim their AFL broadcast costs, they can get rid of waste of space commentators like Cameron Ling, Luke Darcy, did these guys actually play footy? You wouldn't know it from how stupid they appear in "commentary"

Plenty of others too

[Aprilbr]

Interesting article. I think that it's the major sports like cricket, AFL and NRL that drive subscribers so they will not want to lose the broadcasting rights.

With improving technology, the AFL will be exploring direct streaming of their games from their own site in the future. So effectively earning the subscriptions directly. They already do this with overseas subscribers. 2022 is a long way ahead in technology terms so taking out the middle man (Foxtel) may be much easier than it is now.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

[KTigers]

Buddy's contract may be the high water mark for afl player contracts. This signals potential future reductions in player payments, at least in adjusted terms.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/dead-in-the-water-foxtel-austerity-drive-signals-end-of-sports-rights-boom-20190514-p51n3v.html

A fair bit self inflicted if you ask me. Also, I think having games on Telstra devices really undermines the value of foxtel's squillions a month contracts.

Foxtel is to entertainment what taxis are to transport.

Not sure what you mean by that, but I'll fall over if Foxtel even exists in ten years time. They are losing subscribers
in massive numbers, losing hundreds of millions every year, and owned by two companies, News Corp (who are in
process of selling themselves) and Telstra (who won't pony up a cent to keep Foxtel afloat). The entire industry they
are in is under assault from all the new players coming into it, which is one of the reasons Murdoch wants to get
out while the going is (sort of) good. In the long run, all the professional football codes in this country are facing
a pretty decent haircut unless their respective administrators can figure out a way to bring in new money into their
codes, My prediction is that us, the people that actually go to games will be the first to be hit up. And the price of
a seat at a game (which is very low at the moment compared to equivalent games OS) will head upwards fairly soon.

[The Big Cat]

I can help them trim their AFL broadcast costs, they can get rid of waste of space commentators like Cameron Ling, Luke Darcy, did these guys actually play footy? You wouldn't know it from how stupid they appear in "commentary"

Plenty of others too

Agree entirely, but the bloke who is probably the most expensive and contributes ZERO is Eddie. As Tim Watson said when the controversy of McGuire calling Collingwood games was rife: "Him calling Collingwood doesn't worry me, what is more important is that he's not a very good caller." Spot on Tim. Yelling louder does not equal excitement. He is the worst I've listened to and I've been listening since 1949.

[707]

Agree entirely, but the bloke who is probably the most expensive and contributes ZERO is Eddie. As Tim Watson said when the controversy of McGuire calling Collingwood games was rife: "Him calling Collingwood doesn't worry me, what is more important is that he's not a very good caller." Spot on Tim. Yelling louder does not equal excitement. He is the worst I've listened to and I've been listening since 1949.

1949, when you needed to pay for a licence to listen to the wireless :-)

[The Big Cat]

1949, when you needed to pay for a licence to listen to the wireless :-)

I was a baby then, but all games were on a Saturday arvo at the same time. Six stations broadcast footy. Two of them (3UZ and 3DB) were racing stations so you only got about 5 minutes of actual calling, one was 3GL (only Geelong games). South always down the bottom so copped the dud stations. The proper broadcasts came through 3XY, 3AW and 3LO (ABC). Up in the country could really only get 3LO (ABC) on our radios, so we heard about two full calls for the year. The rest were round-the-ground scores. When TV came there was only TV replay for an hour on Saturday night and only featured a couple of games, virtually never South unless they were being annihilated by one of the big clubs and the station showed the quarter where Carlton or Richmond or Essendon kicked ten goals. Now days it's luxury. We get to see all our mistakes in high definition living colour!

[Meg]

Now days it's luxury. We get to see all our mistakes in high definition living colour!

I think right now Rampe would prefer the old radio days!

[Blood Fever]

Agree entirely, but the bloke who is probably the most expensive and contributes ZERO is Eddie. As Tim Watson said when the controversy of McGuire calling Collingwood games was rife: "Him calling Collingwood doesn't worry me, what is more important is that he's not a very good caller." Spot on Tim. Yelling louder does not equal excitement. He is the worst I've listened to and I've been listening since 1949.

The loud mouthed clown by far the worst.

[Odysseus]

Not sure what you mean by that, but I'll fall over if Foxtel even exists in ten years time. They are losing subscribers
in massive numbers, losing hundreds of millions every year, and owned by two companies, News Corp (who are in
process of selling themselves) and Telstra (who won't pony up a cent to keep Foxtel afloat). The entire industry they
are in is under assault from all the new players coming into it, which is one of the reasons Murdoch wants to get
out while the going is (sort of) good. In the long run, all the professional football codes in this country are facing
a pretty decent haircut unless their respective administrators can figure out a way to bring in new money into their
codes, My prediction is that us, the people that actually go to games will be the first to be hit up. And the price of
a seat at a game (which is very low at the moment compared to equivalent games OS) will head upwards fairly soon.

Thanks for the informative and interesting comment. I wonder if you'd explain why you think those who attend games will be first to be hit up? I wouldn't be happy going to games to pay more while thinking I was compensating for revenue lost in the digital market, and I am unlikely to pay more to attend matches marred by the moronic supplementary "entertainment" and by the impossibility of having a conversation with the person sitting next to me over the noise of the moronic PA rubbish fans are subject to.

[stevoswan]

I was a baby then, but all games were on a Saturday arvo at the same time. Six stations broadcast footy. Two of them (3UZ and 3DB) were racing stations so you only got about 5 minutes of actual calling, one was 3GL (only Geelong games). South always down the bottom so copped the dud stations. The proper broadcasts came through 3XY, 3AW and 3LO (ABC). Up in the country could really only get 3LO (ABC) on our radios, so we heard about two full calls for the year. The rest were round-the-ground scores. When TV came there was only TV replay for an hour on Saturday night and only featured a couple of games, virtually never South unless they were being annihilated by one of the big clubs and the station showed the quarter where Carlton or Richmond or Essendon kicked ten goals. Now days it's luxury. We get to see all our mistakes in high definition living colour!

I could have written that (except for the 'I was a baby.....in 1949' bit).....ah, the memories!

[dejavoodoo44]

Thanks for the informative and interesting comment. I wonder if you'd explain why you think those who attend games will be first to be hit up? I wouldn't be happy going to games to pay more while thinking I was compensating for revenue lost in the digital market, and I am unlikely to pay more to attend matches marred by the moronic supplementary "entertainment" and by the impossibility of having a conversation with the person sitting next to me over the noise of the moronic PA rubbish fans are subject to.

Actually, talking about the PA: if the AFL was actually interested in catering to the preference of fans, then perhaps they could do a modern version of what used to happen on trains? That is, a while ago, you had the choice if you wanted to sit in the smoking carriage or the non-smoking carriage. So, for AFL games, perhaps you could have the choice, if you wanted to sit in the stand, were the PA was turned on or where the PA was turned off? For me, the two grounds that I go to, are Carrara and the Gabba. Carrara tends not to have the PA turned up to 11, whereas the Gabba does. Also, the Gabba gives the microphone to what I call, 'red cordial girl'. Who is probably a young woman, around the age of twenty, who's possibly a commercial radio personality: but to me, she sounds about twelve years old and she's just finally seen her daddy walking in the door, two months after mummy told her, that, "Daddy doesn't really love you".

Anyway, just to spare me from that, I think that it would be great, if the grounds would offer the public the choice, of: would you like the PA turned up, so some screaming halfwit can exhort you to be excited, by whatever the @@@@ they're gibbering about; or would you like the PA turned down, so you can talk to the people near you and be excited by the football?

[KTigers]

Thanks for the informative and interesting comment. I wonder if you'd explain why you think those who attend games will be first to be hit up? I wouldn't be happy going to games to pay more while thinking I was compensating for revenue lost in the digital market, and I am unlikely to pay more to attend matches marred by the moronic supplementary "entertainment" and by the impossibility of having a conversation with the person sitting next to me over the noise of the moronic PA rubbish fans are subject to.

For better or worse the US is regarded as the benchmark for professional sports, and it seems to me the AFL looks very closely
at what goes on over there. A lot of the things that we see at AFL games now are direct imports from sports events in the US.
The "supplementary entertainment" you refer to has been a staple in the US for many years. I was at a Dodgers game in LA
just a few weeks ago, and the "match day experience" we have to endure these days at the SCG during the breaks is a fraction
of what occurred there. Go to any NBA game, and you'll wonder how any basketball gets played at all. It is literally a circus.
While you (and I) and most of the people posting on this forum dislike all the non football "entertainment" at AFL games these
days, a lot of people don't mind it. So we aren't representative of every person going to games. And so I think fans going to
games are an easy target for a price hike. If you are a Swans member and have a reserved seat in one of the so-called premium
areas you pay about $50 per game for your seat. At the Dodgers game I sat a similar distance from the field as my seat in
Brewongle and our tickets cost $130 each. The equivalent ticket to an NBA or EPL game costs about the same. Tickets to
see "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" last night at the STC cost a bit under $100. Tickets to Metallica at ANZ later this year on Level 4
cost $265. So compared to all of these other events, going to the footy is pretty cheap. And I think the AFL know it, and
when they start looking for extra money, they aren't going to have to look far to find it.

[barry]

Being entertained by the AFL/Swans is a winter-long experience, so membership ($300+) price is equivalent to those one-off Metalica concerts.

There is no way the AFL will increase game day ticket prices. It lives and dies by the crowd size, not the crowd revenue.

[KTigers]

Being entertained by the AFL/Swans is a winter-long experience, so membership ($300+) price is equivalent to those one-off Metalica concerts.

There is no way the AFL will increase game day ticket prices. It lives and dies by the crowd size, not the crowd revenue.

Barry.... c'mon.... the AFL lives and dies on money, just like all businesses.