A ground fit for television

by RICK KANE

WHAT was that fuss with the Hawks/Bombers match being played at 'The Which Bank' stadium or the MCG about anyway? From the moment the plans for the new stadium were being drawn up we all knew what was going on. Didn't we? Well, it seems, yes and no. That stadium, we can now agree, was built to accommodate two very different audiences - the rich bastard and couch man. Let's just call the actual crowd that turns up 'warm props'. It's better than calling them scenery. It's likely that's the description given them when the AFL was dreaming up this site to mediate the money-tree of a game/myth they had been so lucky to lay their grubby little mittens on.

Practically everyone with some relation to the AFL has a piece of the pie that is the Colonial Stadium. Everyone, that is, except the punter. Don't you get it mate, they don't care (that much) if you're not at the game. If you do turn up, that's good because you'll help create the backdrop called 'crowd' for the television audience. Oh, just by-the-by, apparently 603 757 people in Melbourne watched the game on telly. All that carping about 20 000 missing out on seeing the game live because it wasn't transferred to the MCG is really chicken-shit to greedy little men adding up the various revenues, takes and deals made out of that kind of television audience.

In the week leading up to the game there was plenty of discussion in the multiple different media outlets that sell, I mean promote, footy, I mean, the AFL. Some disingenuous rhetoric was delivered by Jackson et al to explain the case for keeping the game at the stadium rather than moving it where more fans might be able to watch it. The gist of their argument, as far as I could tell, was that the mates who own footy have done deals with each other which have ridiculous bottom lines. And the people who are paying for all these high-flyers' speculations are the people who like to go and watch their team, or even just like to go and watch a game of footy.

One argument presented during the week leading up to the game was that the AFL guaranteed the various stadium stakeholders/investors (who just happen to be mates of the AFL) an average crowd of 40 000 (or thereabouts). A 40 000 average! And these smart men with the figures and calculations and accountants and lawyers digested this and signed on the dotted line. Now, what do you know, 40 000 people are not turning up every week and the place ain't making the money all these smart, well informed men thought it would. Wait a minute, is there something someone is not telling me? If this were Denmark, in the time of Hamlet and you were to remark that something was rotten the most likely response would be "D'oh".

Greg Baum, writing in The Age, points out that the AFL states in its most recent annual report that it "remains committed to the MCG as ... host to big drawing matches". Betrayals, deceit and greed. If there was only something to laugh about in this pathetic little farce. How far can the relationship between the custodians and the fans be stretched? When does the punter turn into the hunter? When will we hear the revolutionary cry of 'la basta' - enough is enough?

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