Broadcast rights – where is community sport?

At the table of billion-dollar sports rights deals where does grassroots community sport sit?

On its face that question seems fanciful. How can the Yarrawonga Pigeons or Leongatha Parrots be impacted by the deal the AFL strike with a multinational public company?

This question occupied the finest legal minds of the US in late 1950s and early 1960s. So much so that in 1961 Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act which in turn protected high school football and college football game attendance by blacking out NFL games Friday evenings and Saturdays – during those sports regular seasons.

These laws continue today to protect and ensure the longevity of the game at grassroots level by promoting attendance and providing a stronger commercial basis from which the grassroots can market themselves.

Why haven’t these measures not been implemented in the Australian market?

With 100s of millions of taxpayer monies invested into essentially the AFL’s infrastructure by federal and state governments this is an issue that affects all of us.

You may have noticed phones, tablets and TVs all tuned to live sports streaming. This technological change cannot be overstated.

As a child on the farm a trip to the local football was “an outing”. It was as much for mum to have relief from her three boys as to enjoy quality local sport.

Today, that need can be filled with the remote with the bar-fridge stacked and a capacity to gamble on every conceivable element of the game(s) with the TV streaming live sport from Thursday or Friday until late Sunday. What hope does community sport have to attract its critical mass?

Yes, we are more mobile. Yes, many country towns are contracting. However, my community has grown materially in all demographics over the decades yet cannot field any more players on a Saturday than 30 years ago.

Further, attendance continues to fall off the proverbial cliff. Whilst a side effect of the pandemic has been increased rural populations, it has also ravaged clubs of players, spectators and more importantly volunteers.

Without strong grassroot clubs the community suffers. However, grassroots sporting clubs appear to be screaming into a vacuum and our sporting bodies conflicted.

The value of sport

It is the lessons sport can provide that are so fundamental.

So often clubs are valued on that one day in September, but those analysts miss the mark. It is the wayward youth influenced to be more disciplined and work hard or the young child mentored by quality coaching to handle the rigors of assessment, performance and also disappointment (and success).

As a young man my exams were held in the exhibition halls of the Melbourne Showgrounds. A boy from a tiny rural outpost among the best minds of the University of Melbourne filled with the fear of failure.

The same feeling, I had felt lining up for my school 1st XVIII – it was nerves and sport had taught me, not how to master, but how to accept them.

Like those sports events, I was determined to do my best. Sport taught me how to be uncomfortable. In fact, it taught me trying to achieve anything worthwhile is uncomfortable. Once you accept that, you are then prepared to endure and then capable of enduring and trying.

Success is in the try. This is sport’s best lesson. Further, to see that learnt as part of a community club is one of life’s real joys.

We need our sporting leaders to stand up and take back our time. We need to engage our community and have them see the value of seeing their community succeeding.

The battle may not be capable of being won, the corporate dollar’s power is all powerful, but if the US were able to find their way through this more than 60 years ago then surely there must be support to be found amongst our elected representatives – surely, they want to see their constituents out in the elements not on the tablet gambling via the Wi-Fi. Surely!

Ross Mulquiney

President

Yarrawonga Football Netball Club