Bruce McAvaney responds to burning Channel 7 rumour

Australian sporting icon Bruce McAvaney has got tongues wagging after pouring fuel on the rumour quickly spreading.

Bruce McAvaney has poured fuel on the burning rumour that the Australian sporting icon could be making a comeback to AFL commentary.

The Australia Football Hall of Fame member was the centrepiece of Channel 7’s big announcement this week that the network is expanding its coverage of Australian athletics.

McAvaney has shown in recent years he still has what it takes when featuring in Seven’s athletics and horse racing coverage — and delighted fans when he returned for a cameo during the 2024 AFL finals series.

It’s why Seven’s athletics announcement sparked rumours the 71-year-old could make a comeback to calling footy — especially at a time when the footy media industry has been shaken up with high profile network switches.

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Seven has been the most active player in raiding its rivals for commentary talent, but there have been no official suggestions the doyen of Australian sports broadcasting could return to call footy in 2025.

The man himself, is not ruling it out.

He told SEN Adelaide he will speak with Seven about his potential return to the network’s footy team.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“That’s the truth and I’ve got to have these discussions with the network.

Bruce McAvaney has some sage advice for Gout Gout. Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images

“I enjoyed it last year. It came out of the blue — it was not something I had thought might happen.

“Seven came to me very late in the season — in the first week of the finals — and said, ‘Bruce, would you be involved with the Grand Final? We want you to do the opener, and we want you to be involved on the day’.

“The opener was not a problem and I ummed and ahhed for a few days, went and had a chat with them, and they asked me to do the Prelims and the finals, and I loved it. I really enjoyed it.”

McAvaney’s return to the microphone last year was only as a host for both preliminary finals and the Brisbane Lion’s Grand Final win — but he struck a chord with fans.

It also helped grow his confidence that he is capable of having a role throughout the 2025 season.

“I hadn’t done it for four years, and when you’re not working at something like that, you still follow it, but it’s a very different knowledge and different IQ that you need to have,” McAvaney said.

“I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to hold my end up, but I enjoyed it and loved it, so I’ve just got to have a think.

“I’m 71 and my health is going well … so I hope I’m involved, but it’s still to be worked out.

“We’re going to have these discussions in the next week or two.”

Footy Hall of Fame inductee Bruce McAvaney. Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos/via Getty Images.

Right now he is just excited for his future on Seven’s athletics team.

The broadcaster has extended its TV rights deal with Athletics Australia for a further two years.

While Channel 9 has the Olympics rights, Seven will screen major meets, including the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet, to be held in Melbourne in March.

It will also screen the 2025 Australian Athletics Championships.

McAvaney said in a Channel 7 press release he believes the Aussie track and field team is headed towards a “golden age”.

He is most impressed by Aussie teen freak Gout Gout.

The 16-year-old blew the world away when he won a silver medal in the 200m at the under-20 world championships in Peru in August.

His time of 20.60 was 0.01 seconds faster than Usain Bolt’s 2002 result where he won the world junior title just shy of his 16th birthday.

But it’s the tip of the iceberg when it’s come to records falling, currently the fourth fastest Aussie male over 200m in history.

McAvaney told Code Sports that it was clear that Gout had a “rare gift” that could be nurtured into something Australia hasn’t seen before.

“Has there been anyone more exciting?” McAvaney says. “Freeman was but he’s at a more mature stage than Cathy was at 16 in terms of what he is doing.

“We have never had anyone quite like him and the potential is unique within this country I think.”

Is Gout Gout the next Cathy Freeman?

Could Gout give Australia a Cathy moment? Picture by Pat Scala.

Along with his under-20s silver medal, Gout has been making waves online, going viral after a video surfaced of his 100m race at the Queensland Athletics Championships in March, breaking his own under-16s national record in a time of 10.29 seconds.

But it was earlier this month that Gout made everyone realise he could well be the real deal after running a 20.29 in the heats of the 200m at the All Schools Queensland track and field championships.

Not only did he annihilate his PB of 20.60 from the world junior champs, his time is currently the 57th fastest in the world at all age groups in 2024, less than a second behind Botswana’s Letsile Tobogo’s 19.46 from the Olympics — and just over a second outside Usain Bolt’s world record of 19.19, which he’s held since 2009.

To put the performance in perspective, Gout not only smashed the Queensland Open 200m record, the Australian under-18 and under-20 records as well as the Oceania under-18 and under-20s records, but also registered the equal seventh fastest time in history by an Australian.

While Gout broke his own under-18 records, he lowered Aidan Murphy’s under-20s record of 20.42 set in 2022.

For the record, Peter Norman’s 1968 run in the final of the Mexico City Olympics is the fastest ever time by an Australian at 20.06.

“There is no question he (Gout) has caught the world’s attention,” McAvaney said. “The world is at his feet, we haven’t had anyone like him in Australia.

“But the challenge for him and his handlers is the fact there will be a plateau, a dip at some stage. Bolt went through this, they all go through this.

“Sprinting is a very, very fragile game and there are some years where things just don’t quite go right. The upward trajectory that we are all smiling and can’t get enough of is so uplifting but there will be a time where he, and those around him, have got to be patient and understand that there will be a time where it will plateau.

“That is the exciting challenge he faces and for him it is an incredible time because his eyes are wide open. It’s all new and there is a bit of mystery about him.”

Originally published as Bruce McAvaney responds to burning Channel 7 rumour