Symbiotic story of a tail and its dog

WE all know that sport and television have a symbiotic relationship.

Before TV, even top-level sport was just a hobby, even though it sometimes provided its best and brightest with a few fringe benefits.

On the other side of the equation, without sport, TV struggles to bring in the viewers it requires to hit advertisers for the big bucks.

The natural consequence of this relationship is that TV ends up changing sport.

For instance, in the 1970s, sporting uniforms changed to take advantage of colour TV.

I’m thinking here about coloured cricket uniforms and the addition of bright colours into football team jumpers (Fitzroy added yellow into its jumper for this very reason).

Night sporting events became more commonplace around the same time, with the networks realising they could keep the punters glued to the telly all day if they had the content required.

Soon, games were scheduled to fit around TV news broadcasts, and in some sports the TV stations could even stop the game to fit in an advertisement or fix a technical issue.

New teams were created, partly to ensure TV stations were happy that audiences in all major cities would tune in (and the broadcast rights could therefore be sold).

But perhaps the biggest changes are just around the corner and relate to Australia’s most dominant sport: Australian football.

The recent signing of a seven-year, $4.5 billion rights deal between the AFL, Foxtel and Kerry Stokes’ Seven network already looks likely to spark some of the most radical changes in the national competition’s history.

First, it is likely to pave the way for a team from Tasmania to be admitted, finally ending the football penury the Apple Isle has been forced to endure since the AFL left it behind in the early 1990s.

The big sticking point for Tasmania’s inclusion as the league’s 19th team has been its financial viability, especially given the AFL is still covering the cost of expansion teams in western Sydney and on the Gold Coast.

The mega broadcast deal means money will no longer be an issue and the inevitable addition of a 20th team to eliminate the bye will provide another game each week for the broadcasters, all of which will give the AFL a nice bargaining chip when the deal comes up for renegotiation in around 2029.

Choosing the location for that 20th team is a more difficult proposition.

One location likely to come under consideration is the Northern Territory, but its sparse population is a concern.

More likely, perhaps, is a third WA team, with the northern suburbs of Perth a more realistic option than a South West team to be based in Mandurah or Bunbury.

The extra money is also likely to spark a review of the way AFL clubs interact with state leagues.

The four AFL teams based in Adelaide and Perth appear to be unhappy with the current system, under which their surplus players play in reserves teams in the SANFL and WAFL, respectively.

Fearing the AFL clubs would dominate, those leagues put in place heavy restrictions on recruiting and finals eligibility.

As a result, a national reserves competition will surely come under discussion.

The VFL’s reserves competition continued into the AFL era, but the cost was a problem once interstate teams joined and it eventually morphed into the Victorian state league competition.

The interstate clubs joined their own state leagues.

But with a $4.5 billion war chest, money is now available to reinstate a national reserves competition, and the addition in 2021 of Queensland and NSW teams to the VFL shows that it can work.

Better still, it would provide the broadcasters with even more football content, perhaps pushing up the price of the next rights deal.

Then there’s the AFLW.

Those players want the opportunity to become full-time professionals, and rightly so.

It’s the only way the standard will improve and better-quality football will mean more members, more supporters, more merchandise sales, more sponsors and, again, a better TV rights deal.

All in all, those are some pretty serious changes.

So, with all those TV-linked changes on the horizon, perhaps we could just leave the grand final as an afternoon affair.