Dear AFL, don’t embarrass yourself with an NFL-style halftime extravaganza
As the AFL weighs up a twilight Grand Final, it’s bound to be seduced by dreams of a Super Bowl style entertainment spectacle. Here’s some quick advice — please don’t go there.
AFL
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Dear AFL, here is a little advice.
Please don’t embarrass yourself.
Don’t come back from your fact-finding mission to the Miami Super Bowl with stars in your eyes and delusions of grandeur.
Accept your limitations as a code and realise that if America can stage a knock-it-out-of-the-park entertainment spectacle at halftime of their NFL Super Bowl, it certainly doesn’t mean we are capable of such a feat.
Shakira and Jennifer Lopez just slayed it at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
There were no kids waving lame coloured flags and certainly no rocker decades past his prime slaughtering his lines.
It was a dazzling multimillion-dollar entertainment spectacular the AFL just isn’t capable of getting anywhere near.
It can’t get the elite talent and it can’t afford to stage such a show even if it could.
Instead, our sport’s day of days is about the contest itself, which is exactly as it should be.
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So, as the AFL Commission considers a decision yet again on whether to trial a twilight Grand Final this year the halftime entertainment can’t be a factor to consider.
An AFL administration that has ruled out any rule changes this summer and ruled out a truncated halftime as part of that theme should continue with the traditional day game.
Three of the past four Grand Finals have been exceptional, from the Dogs’ famous victory to Richmond’s drought-breaker to the Eagles’ epic victory over Collingwood.
GWS failed to show up last year and the Grand Final drew only 2.2 million viewers in the five major cities, down from 2.68 million in 2017.
The only possible reason to trial a twilight Grand Final is as leverage to lure another TV rights bonanza from its broadcast partners.
AFL commission boss Richard Goyder seems intent on that trial, bringing it up at every opportunity, so we need to follow the money.
If a twilight Grand Final is so wildly successful it is worth millions of dollars each year that can be poured into concussion research or junior development or AFLW injury prevention, it is the only acceptable rationale.
But what if the league trials it without the expected ratings boost?
Where does that leave the league as it tries to top the last $2.5 billion, six-year deal.
Nothing wrong with having the promise of a potential twilight Grand Final in the next deal rather than having nothing extra as a lure for those extra dollars
Last year the AFL tried a little bit of everything — Paul Kelly as the beloved songwriter with widespread appeal and Tones and I just as she was exploding internationally.
It wasn’t a showstopper but it wasn’t a flop, and that’s fine because the day shouldn’t live or die by what happens before the first bounce.
There might be a time when the league is utterly desperate to monetise the Grand Final with a twilight start, but it sure doesn’t seem like it has arrived yet.