Top 50 AFL media performers: See who made the 2021 list

It’s been a rocky year for Eddie McGuire as he lost the Collingwood presidency, but in media circles he wields huge influence. Where does he rank in our top 50?

The AFL media top 50.

It’s called a hospital handball in the business. “Let’s do a top 50 media performers,” the boss says.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh. Yeeeeessssss,” is the initial response.

It soon becomes clear it’s not a hint, more a direction with his mind set on the exercise. What could possibly go wrong? No-one will get their noses out-of-joint?

And so the whiteboard is wheeled out and parameters put in place. It’s only for media who cover the AFL with weight given to specific roles – commentator, special comments, journalist, broadcaster, photographer – as well as audience reach, media platforms, personality and impact.

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Like any football coach will tell you, when you have an overload of talent it makes selection a sleep-depriving exercise. What soon becomes apparent is 60 doesn’t go into 50 and after an attempt to have five names tied for the 50th spot was rejected, a final line-up was declared.

For the record Sam Edmund, Mitch Cleary, Brad Johnson, Nick Dal Santo, Adam Papalia, Brenton Speed, Michael Gleeson, Peter Ryan and Michael Klein were unlucky but they’re on the watch list for next season (if there is another list).

Nailing down the Top 10 was ridiculously tough particularly when you’re dealing with a post-Bruce era. The universal love for Bruce McAvaney would mean such an exercise in previous years would be a lot easier as he would have a mortgage on No. 1 more often than not.

Without him we still have some guns, all are experts in their specific fields whose voices are heard far and wide throughout the AFL community. And what they say generally matters which is not always the case in our industry.

Obviously the hardest part was to have my own name not included given my contribution to the AFL media landscape over the past 12 months but these are the types of sacrifices I was willing to make for the chance to be on the receiving end of the ultimate hospital handball.