It was undoubtedly one of the games of the season, a blockbuster in the true sense of the word, yet somehow footy fans in South Australia and Western Australia were unable to watch last Saturday’s epic between Geelong and Hawthorn.
With West Coast’s clash with Adelaide a designated Fox Sports game, that match ended up being shown on both Fox and Ten (plus One HD) in both states. Geelong and Hawthorn were nowhere to be seen.
It was a farcical situation, made worse by the sort of coverage the MCG epic got elsewhere.
Curiously, in the so-called “foreign” territory of Sydney and Brisbane, the game was shown live on Ten.
Amazingly, in the actually foreign territory of the United States, the game was shown live to a potential audience of 98 million-plus on ESPN2.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better advertisement for the game than Geelong-Hawthorn, so it’s comforting to know the coverage in these markets was above what would be considered acceptable. But that doesn’t excuse such poor coverage in two of the game’s heartlands.
Obviously, it would be foolish to suggest the fixture can run smoothly without presenting such glitches. The AFL are juggling multiple broadcasters, timeslots, markets and time zones. We have to accept that issues such as this are unavoidable.
But there are ways to avoid what happened last week and it all starts with the AFL taking some initiative. Just look at how the Main Event channel delivers Friday night football into New South Wales and Queensland.
Why couldn’t that happen in South and West Australia, if only as a one-off whenever there’s a game as big as last week’s?
Hopefully this all gets sorted in the next broadcast deal.
I can't really see why Ten couldn't have shown the West Coast game on Ten, and the Geelong-Hawthorn game on One. By showing the West Coast game on both SD digital stations, they showed that they don't care about people who don't care about football, so why not give footy viewers the choice?
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