Ralphy: How AFL deals with coronavirus could change footy forever

The AFL is in uncharted territory. As it braces for a minefield that affects every aspect of the league and the finances that underpin it, Jon Ralph delves into the massive, wide-ranging toll coronavirus is set to take on the competition.

The Essendon scandal that gripped the game for more than three seasons was a Sunday afternoon stroll for the AFL compared to the buzz saw it is about to walk into.

That long-running saga tore down reputations, ended careers and in 2016 saw the Bombers declare a $9.8 million loss due to legal and sundry costs.

Yet for an AFL administration where content is king, it was a drop in the ocean compared to the inevitable chaos the league is about to endure.

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Carlton has worked so hard to wipe out its debt, but playing with no crowds is set to bite. Picture: AAP

The AFL was able to wait until days before the 2013 finals to boot Essendon from September and slingshot Carlton into that vacant fixture, while even the player bans of 2016 didn’t prevent the Bombers from fielding a team.

The AFL season that still is not certain of starting on Thursday night will be a minefield that affects every aspect of the AFL and the finances that underpin it.

From TV rights present and future, to player pay, to the next player collective bargaining agreement, to the future of a Tasmanian team, to the future of list sizes, to the defining legacy of AFL boss Gillon McLachlan.

This is uncharted territory on so many levels.

The easiest question to answer is the one so many are already screaming: how can the AFL consider starting the season when so many rival codes have cancelled?

The AFL believes it is inevitable that, at some stage, it will have to postpone months of football.

With the peak of coronavirus potentially still months away, it believes the only way to finish the AFL season by mid-October is by banking rounds as quickly as possible.

Its medical advice is that it is still safe to play games behind closed doors.

This season will be marked by a big fat asterisk if one team wins it with a band of top-ups in a season where they have played six home-and-away games in four weeks in what will truly be survival of the fittest.

If the Essendon supplements saga was bleak for former CEO Andrew Demetriou and commission chair Mike Fitzpatrick, current boss Gillon McLachlan is facing a whole new ball game.

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But the league’s position is the alternative of postponing now and potentially hitting mid-year or later without a single game being played is disastrous.

Good luck trying to squeeze a full season and finals series into three months.

Financially, the AFL is trying to serve two masters with absolutely opposite priorities.

Its TV networks, who have never been in a more precarious financial position, are desperate for the immediate content that will sustain their business model.

Yet every round the AFL gets away to help its rights partners paying over $400 million combined per season affects the bottom line of clubs losing millions in ticket and membership revenue.

Carlton has spent years whittling away a debt approaching $10 million and hoped to be debt-free in the near future.

In the space of three hours on Thursday night it will lose as much as $700,000 from the gate-sharing arrangement with Richmond, and that is only the start for the AFL’s 198 regular-season games.

It could get worse.

No one minds donating a portion of a $150 club membership but a businessman who bought a $15,000 corporate seat package to entertain clients and will now struggle to pay his mortgage?

Or tradie with a $1500 reserved seat package.

Damned right he wants a refund. His very livelihood depends upon it.

Players are already set for pay cuts and yet the same clubs who are looking for millions in savings might have to pay top-up players so they can field big enough lists.

The flow-on effect of this year’s financial bloodbath will invariably roll into the not-too-distant future as the collective bargaining and TV rights deals expire.

It is hard for a competition financially on its knees or having eroded a $60 million future fund to hand players another hefty pay rise.

Those identical head winds will hit the AFL’s TV rights deal, depending upon how many games are actually played this year.

Or what if an eventual 17-game season rates its socks off given the demand we will have for football under a potential months-long hiatus.

An emotional decision on a Tasmanian AFL team becomes a cold-hard financial one, while the future expansion of the AFLW will not likely be fast-tracked if the financial cost is as savage as predicted.

The opportunity suddenly emerges for McLachlan to show the kind of leadership that was tested with a handful of unforced errors last year that will quickly fade from view if he can be the trusted figure navigating a path through this crisis.

There will be mistakes but the public will be crying out for authority figures with a sense of gravitas and common sense already lacking in some quarters here and abroad.

Football has never seen a season like this or challenges of this magnitude.

Originally published as Ralphy: How AFL deals with coronavirus could change footy forever