AFL Magic Round: South Australia’s footy festival must be affordable for families to travel to and attend
Unless the AFL’s new ‘Magic Round’ can be affordable for families to attend from across the country, a great idea could be dead on arrival, writes Jon Ralph.
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So let’s get the name out of the way first.
If the AFL is calling for submissions for its new Magic Round, is there a better way to recognise Neale Daniher’s extraordinary contribution than to name an annual round in his honour?
A man who came from NSW, made his name in Victoria and spent time in West Australia, who transcends any one state or supporter base with his stoicism and bravery in fighting MND.
Daniher has raised nearly $50 million for MND research and having his reputation attached to the only named round in 24 across the home-and-away season would be a fitting tribute.
As an entertainer on the field, as a fighter through those four knee reconstructions, as the hot-gospelling ‘Reverend promoting Melbourne as a coach, for all of his work since then.
Why not throw that name out for public submissions? It’s a clever piece of work for a round that seems to have very few downsides.
The players get paid - $200,000 per team- the clubs get $500,000 each and can spend $200,000 on their football departments - and we replace an irrelevant pre-season round with nine more AFL contests.
As far as brazen thievery goes in stealing an NRL idea it is hard to find a negative.
And yet like ferrying grand final participants down the Yarra in a new-look parade, the key is to stick the landing.
The league will only get one chance to make a splash, a single opportunity to create the kind of hype that makes this an annual event with an annual bidding war from respective states.
It must be affordable enough for the families it is attempting to lure to actually find their way across the border, and price-gouging on air fares will immediately kill this round as a potential success.
Return tickets at 11am on Friday were about $170 on Jetstar and $270 on Virgin, but you can bet your bottom dollar they will be at exorbitant prices in a flash.
Not for nothing the social media wags were already labelling this weekend ‘Cash Grab Round’, so if the AFL cannot lobby its sponsor Virgin for responsible pricing, good luck getting a family of four to stump up $2000 for flights alone even before accommodation.
This round needs to be big and brash and exuberant and make use of the fact 18 clubs are in one city for the only time this year.
Do we use it for an ideas summit to bring together footy’s best thinkers to consider 50 ideas to grow the game’s revenue?
How can we bring about new ideas to keep the game fresh and exciting for all the kids more interested in gaming and screen time and overseas sports with infinite transfer windows.
The kids would love to see Nathan Fyfe, Patrick Dangerfield, Dustin Martin and Lance Franklin miked up in a PGA-style skills session explaining to the kids the fundamentals of their checksides, torpedoes, set shots.
Some of those ideas might bomb but others would catch fire as Fox Footy and Seven put their thinking caps on about a weekend where surely every even media-shy Dusty and Buddy are up for initiatives to promote the game to kids and families.
So the AFL has brought $15 million or more of revenue into the game for little downside and now its challenge it to make it a value proposition for the families it is desperate to attract.
The only thing that will kill this game in its tracks is half-full stands if families intent on flying into Adelaide for a football festival are quickly priced out of the market.
Everything you need to know about SA ‘Magic Round’
- Matt Turner
Club and AFL members will get free entry to all matches during the league’s extra round when it is held in South Australia during the April school holidays.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan and Premier Peter Malinauskas confirmed the event - to feature 18 clubs playing in South Australia across four days - was coming to SA at a press conference at Adelaide Oval on Friday, where they said:
* Adelaide Oval would host matches from Thursday to Sunday , including weekend double-headers
* It will be in round 5 from April 13-16
* The SANFL and Adelaide Footy League will have byes that weekend
* Holding the round in other states in the future is on the cards but SA will be in strong consideration each year
* McLachlan knew SA felt wounded for missing the 2020 and 2021 grand finals that were moved from the MCG
* Malinauskas would not reveal how much money his government spent to lure the event
* The round, adopted from the NRL’s “Magic Round” does not yet have an official name
McLachlan said SA played a vital role in the survival of the game during the pandemic years so he was pleased to bring what he expected yo be a legacy event for the code to the state.
“I think the stimulus, even for the rusted on, whatever is created in South Australia is going to have a national knock-on effect,” McLachlan said.
“The passion will create an asset that will reverberate around the country.”
McLachlan said having an extra round came out of players treating the second pre-season game like a home-and-away match.
“Instead of bearing all the costs, can we create an asset that has a huge benefit for our supporters, a state and a city,” he said.
Round details will be confirmed when the fixture is released in late November.
Norwood is expected to host two games and the Barossa potentially one with Nuriootpa the frontrunner.
Tickets will go on sale after the fixture is released.
The wine country oval in frame for Magic Round match
- Matt Turner and Paul Starick
A grand final eve meeting between Premier Peter Malinauskas and South Australian football powerbrokers in a Melbourne hotel room has helped wrestle the AFL’s inaugural “Magic Round” away from New South Wales.
SA will on Friday be confirmed as host of the new event, which will feature all 18 clubs playing in Adelaide over a few days in April.
But the round was headed for Sydney until rival SA football bodies united for the state’s cause in September, helping it pull the rug out from under New South Wales.
With AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan having made it clear the event was east-bound, passionate Port Adelaide fan Malinauskas convened a high-powered meeting in a nondescript hotel room in Melbourne, where he urged those who attended to fight to turn things in SA’s favour.
Crows bosses John Olsen and Tim Silvers, Power counterparts David Koch and Matthew Richardson, SANFL chief executive Darren Chandler, Adelaide Oval CEO Nick Addison and SA Football Commission chairman Rob Kerin were all understood to have been there, asked to push the state’s case, including at the next day’s Geelong-Sydney grand final at the MCG.
Central to the SA pitch was emphasising the benefits of staging a “Festival of Footy” in a traditional Aussie rules state, highlighting what it could do for grassroots ranks.
Adelaide missing out on securing the grand final in 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic forced the event away from the MCG, was likely to have been another factor in the AFL’s decision.
South Australia was also understood to have made a lucrative financial offer, tapping into a $40m major events fund created in the June 2 state budget.
The lobbying paid off and McLachlan was set to confirm SA as host in Adelaide on Friday.
Adelaide Oval will have at least six games in the new round, the Barossa Valley is set to stage one and Norwood is believed to be another venue.
Hospitality and tourism chiefs say the round will bring tens of millions of dollars worth of economic benefit into the state while luring thousands of tourists from over the border.
Fixture details are yet to be revealed but it is scheduled for round 5.
The two South Australian teams are set to play against interstate sides that round, rather than a Showdown.
It will increase the length of the AFL season to 23 matches per team for the first time, reducing the number of pre-season games from two to one.
Malinauskas was also understood to have had meetings with Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany over broadcasting and Adelaide Footy League boss John Kernahan to ensure that the state’s biggest grassroots competition would provide clear air by holding a bye that weekend, like the SANFL.
The event is a replica of the “Magic Round” in the NRL, which has been a boon for Brisbane.
AFL clubs will each receive an extra $500,000.
Speaking on SEN last week, Malinauskas said a Thursday night kick-off at Adelaide Oval was likely.
“We want as many people as possible travelling to our state and we believe we can host it better than anyone else in the country,” Malinauskas said.
“I’m a footy fan but my objective is more of an economic one, to get our hotel rooms filled up, get our restaurants chock-a-block and for the people watching on TV across the nation, a chance to showcase who we are and what we have to offer.
“We see this as a chance to get a different demographic to South Australia to have an experience because of their footy team, then have a positive experience in the state more broadly and hopefully coming back.”
Nuriootpa Oval is believed to be the frontrunner if there is a Barossa game.
CROWS MAKE TOUGH CALL ON SEEDSMAN
Adelaide has delisted concussion-affected wingman Paul Seedsman but plans to re-select him as a rookie.
The Crows removed Seedsman, who did not play this year, and defender Andrew McPherson from their primary list on Wednesday ahead of this month’s national draft.
Seedsman has been sidelined since sustaining a head knock at training in December.
It followed a career-best campaign for the Victorian in 2021, which included being named in the All-Australian squad of 40, as well as finishing third in the Crows’ best-and-fairest.
In July, Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks said Seedsman, 30, would remain on the list, “it’s just a matter of how he progresses now” as to whether he returned to the field.
McPherson, 23, was substituted with hamstring tightness in his sole AFL game this year – in round 1 against Fremantle.
He went on to play seven SANFL matches before suffering a season-ending posterior cruciate ligament injury in July.
McPherson has played 28 AFL games since being drafted with pick 40 in 2017, while Seedsman has lined up in 83 for Adelaide since joining from Collingwood at the end of 2015.
The Crows intend to re-select them at the rookie draft on November 30.
Adelaide is expected to make two picks at the national draft, which will be held on November 28 and 29.
The club has selections 46, 56 and 59.
Adelaide also upgraded a pair of fourth-year rookies, key defender Jordon Butts and ruckman Kieran Strachan, on Wednesday.
Butts, 22, played 19 games last season, taking his career tally to 43.
Strachan, 27, featured twice at AFL level in 2022 and also was the SANFL team’s club champion for the second consecutive year.
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