Brendon Gale cares too much for fans, and not enough for making money, to be made AFL CEO
The AFL is too TV focused, money hungry and consumed with rule changes to replace Gillon McLachlan with a man of the people like Richmond’s Brendon Gale.
Opinion
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Richmond’s Brendon Gale should be the next CEO of the AFL when Gillon McLachlan departs at the end of the 2022 season.
He won’t get the job though.
Gale, the Tigers’ CEO, has a couple of problems; he cares more about the fans and players and less about the business of making more money for the AFL.
I’ve obviously got no insider knowledge – and could be completely wrong - but the people who run the game on behalf of the clubs increasingly ignore the fans.
Football is now a sport designed entirely around a TV schedule with no thought to families with school age children who will grow — the AFL thinks — into the supporters of the future.
How else could you explain matches scheduled for Thursday nights before a school day with, depending on your suburb, a near-midnight home time.
No better are 7.50pm. Friday clashes or twilight Sundays with a ball bounce at 4.40pm in the middle of a Melbourne winter.
Clearly Thursday is for TV only unless you live in East Melbourne next to the MCG with your own car park or an apartment across the road from Marvel in Docklands.
Headquarters will argue the billions the media companies tip into the game gives them the right to call the shots on match timing but equally the atmosphere loyal fans add to the broadcast should be taken into account.
Who could forget the dismal display AFL became during the Covid times when crowds were locked out and games went ahead in empty stadiums?
Going to games day or night is no longer the joyous experience it once was and for many has become an expensive painful chore done mainly to remain loyal to your team.
As a Richmond supporter and member – 28 years platinum reserved seat holder – who paid fully during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, even enduring a Grand Final win at home in Melbourne on the couch, I think, like many supporters, the AFL lets us down.
My own club was even forced to brag how last Sundays’ attendance of 39,391 was the fourth largest crowd for a home and away game against West Coast since 1990.
What’s worth crowing about in that figure, on a largely sunny Sunday during school holidays?
I went to that game in my seat and had an OK time, but something is missing. The MCG appeared to predict a smaller than expected attendance and shuttered most of the lower level bars in the Olympic stand. Getting in has become a task harder than boarding Jetstar flight at Tullamarine.
Once you have queued for a bag check and a wand wave – leftovers from terror attacks years ago – you then queue in another line while everyone turns their phones on and off trying to find digital tickets.
Inside, pre match entertainment consists of team banners that players these days appear not allowed to run through, rather going under.
At quarter time Richmond has a member trying to win cash by the impossible task of kicking a Sherrin into a bucket. At least when Jeep was a sponsor it was an athletic activity of sprinting to beat a Jeep across the line. Back then people even won sometimes.
We all know only too well that once the game starts the annoying rule changes Gil and the head office insisted upon, ruin the contest. Protected space – since altered – standing still on the mark for fear of a 50-metre penalty and the umpire interpretation of disrespect.
I’m sure in a quiet moment – and I haven’t spoken to him about this – Brendon (a 244-game robust ruckman) would find those three rules as a player frustrating and unnecessary.
But there’s another reason sadly why he won’t get the top job, one I think should qualify him above all other applicants.
I know it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and throw grenades at the AFL but they will hire consultants, and spend a fortune surveying supporters to find out why their crowds are in decline.
It’s simple really to work out. The game is too expensive for people struggling with the rising cost of fuel, food, energy and paying off the house.
Fixturing is not kind to the backbone of the AFL crowds and that’s suburban families forced to use public transport to get to just two Melbourne stadiums.
AFL wokeness and rule fiddling doesn’t go down well with your average footy fan and rule changes are robbing football of its spontaneity.
To rediscover the joy, more and more fans are turning to suburban AFL at grounds like Port Melbourne’s home ground North Port Oval in Williamstown Road or country footy like the Sorrento Sharks.
In SA and WA their local leagues deliver a more traditional version of the game we all grew up with.
As we all get older, we do get more nostalgic, and the good old days do seem much better than they really were, but memories are for savouring.
As a 10-year-old Sturt supporter in 1965 I was allowed to sleep outside the Victor Richardson gates at the Adelaide Oval to get the best seat for the Grand Final against the old enemy Port Adelaide.
A record crowd of 62,543 packed that famous ground that day a record that stood until 2017 and was only broken by an Adele concert.
Sturt tragically lost by three points but went on to win the next six flags in a row.
Even if I did lose my transistor radio in the crush to get into the 1966 Grand Final, it was one of the best days of my life as Sturt kicked nine goals to one in the last quarter.
And guess what? It wasn’t even live on TV.
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