Gold Coast CEO Mark Evans opens up about the challenges faces by the AFL and rival sporting codes

SUNS CEO Mark Evans says AFLW is the sport’s game changer that many clubs currently trumpeting its success once questioned.Evans has detailed the challenges faced by the AFL and wider sporting world in contemporary society including viewership, remaining relevant and the emergence of e-sports.

SUNS CEO Mark Evans says AFLW is the sport’s game changer that many clubs currently trumpeting its success once questioned.

Evans has detailed the challenges faced by the AFL and wider sporting world in contemporary society including viewership, remaining relevant through adaptation and the emergence of e-sports.

The Suns boss was working as the AFL’s general manager of football operations for four years before joining Gold Coast at the start of 2017.

It was his task to sound out interest in AFLW licences from clubs and he said the response of some of the biggest clubs were shocking.

“AFLW should have happened years ago and now we’re sitting there,” Evans said at a recent sports forum at Bond University.

BULLETIN’S AFL PREDICTIONS

LUKOSIUS SET FOR ROUND 1 DEBUT

BRODIE’S BATTLE FOR AFL TIME

“People when I was at the AFL and it was my job to wander around to each club and say would you like an AFLW licence, what would you do, and some of the incredibly powerful clubs and incredibly successful clubs would always say no … we’re too busy doing this other

stuff (AFL).

“I thought, what a disgraceful attitude. The same clubs now are banging on the AFL’s door saying, gee that looks pretty good.

“That’s really exciting, what growth, what relevance you are now making with families and hanging the whole nature of the game.”

Twenty-five per cent of Gold Coast’s men’s list is made up of Queensland talent and Evans said that figure would sit around 70 per cent for their women’s team who will enter the AFLW in 2020.

Evans said the biggest challenge facing sports is not rival codes, but maintaining relevance in a changing society.

Suns CEO Mark Evans looks on during the round 19 AFL match between the Gold Coast Suns and the Richmond Tigers at Metricon Stadium on July 29, 2017 in Gold Coast, Australia. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images/AFL Media)

“It is what people do with their time and some sports now have found ways of changing parts of their game and producing another product that is a marketing stream for their sport,” Evans said.

“If you take Twenty20 cricket — if cricket did not do that, it would be almost dead by now. “The things in cricket that make money that fund the sport, Ashes makes money, anything to do with India makes money and short-form cricket makes money.

“Everything else is incredibly expensive and if you’re running cricket in Australia, you can only have England and India out here so often.

Tom Cooper of the Melbourne Renegades hits a 6 during the Big Bash League Final match between the Melbourne Renegades and the Melbourne Stars at Marvel Stadium on February 17, 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

“You have got to bring the other teams out and that loses money. And they’ve hit something with the Big Bash that instead of Test cricket — I love Test cricket — but instead of Test cricket becoming just a sport for old men who are getting older and knowing your audience, they have now found a product that is incredibly engaging for younger people and families and a group of people that have no real interest in cricket and they come to the sport and some of them go on to absolutely love Test cricket. So it is a very, very clever thing that they have done and I think in other sports now, certainly the AFL, what else can we do that makes sense in different parts of the world.

“What happens if we don’t have a fixed size AFL oval? How do you keep bringing the kids and the families to the sport? What’s the fan engagement that comes with that? How do you use some of the leanings from there to actually go and make (the sport) more relevant to

Australia.”

Evans said 10 years ago he wouldn’t have ever considered the thought of people watching sport on their mobile but the advancement in technology and additions of streaming services had put TV viewership in decline amid some of the biggest broadcast deals in history.

Those broadcast rights help fund the AFL and Evans said he was unsure how it would keep changing and how they would stay ahead of the curve.

“Can you actually get ahead of that curve? It’s quite interesting, we haven’t actually quite worked out how a screen that size (a mobile phone) can be monetised,” Evans said.

“Every sport is going to have to face this. We want to watch things at our own speed, in our

own time. The data that comes through this platform is enormous. You can track what happens to people who don’t want to hang around and watch a terrible game between two terrible teams.”

GET FULL DIGITAL ACCESS FOR 50C A DAY

Evans said companies were now shifting some of their marketing money to the growing e-sports phenomena and believed it was an area that needed attention from national teams.

“There has got to be something within what we do that says is that an area where we

should have some engagement?

“If this is a way of engaging with young people, part of the demographic that you want to turn them onto sport or the Suns or the Titans, whatever it is, is there a way of engaging with them that makes some sense? I’m not trying to advocate for kids to spend more time in front of a screen playing games but is there something there that brings them into sport?”