Three FUN facts about the AFL fixture

Three FUN facts about the AFL fixture

GuyWhoLikesSport

In the AFL’s ongoing quest to become NFL-lite in order to justify annual trips to the Super Bowl for the Executive,

we have slowly been getting games and fixtures released for the last week or so, finally culminating in the full fixture release on Thursday.

I’ll look forward to the NFL-style fixture release show they will inevitably do on Fox Footy like the NFL does on NFL Network.

But forgive my cynicism. I’m excited to be talking footy again. Here are three key thoughts I had while having a look at the fixture.

1. The AFL is like McDonalds

Content is a real estate business, and the AFL is taking up as much real estate as it can. It’s like McDonalds, which derives most of its valuation from the property that it buys and puts its stores on.

The footy, and the food, are secondary.

My favourite version of the AFL’s incel-level thirst for attention is when the AFL released its round 1 2023 fixture at 6:00am on December 3rd 2023. What was special about that date? The Socceroos were playing (and nearly beating) Argentina in the Round of 16 at the World Cup.

Hilarious.

Anyway, the AFL is back at it again trying to monopolise as much space as it possibly can over your weekend and invading the non-footy heartland states.

Over the first 16 weeks of the season, the AFL has officially caved and put a Thursday Night Footy game on every single week. This was undoubtedly a bargaining chip that the AFL wielded at the CBA negotiations, and Channel 7 is now getting what I assume they paid for.

Beyond that, they’ve also added a bunch of Sunday Night footy.

They’ve basically tried to conjure up two new prime time slots and make them permanent additions, while stretching your available footy watching time to effectively 96 hours every weekend from March-September.

Hope you hate your family!

They’re like Vincent D’Onofrio in The Break-Up trying to take over Chicago tourism by air, land and sea.

Instead of taking it to the squids, they’re taking it up to Queensland and NSW with Opening Round again, dominating South Australia with Gather Round again, while also making their product available on every weekend night.

The AFL has its infantry established and is ready to make sure you’ve always got footy to watch.

2. The AFL Really Believes in the One Last Job Pies

Collingwood knows they have a small window given how old the list is and how little young talent they have, particularly forward of the ball.

But they just spent the offseason trying to pry it just a liiiiiiitle bit wider by adding Dan Houston in the trade period…

presumably to try and get back to the kind of electric ball movement that helps to make up for their forward line.

Even with the addition of Tim Membrey, the Pies forward line is still a collection B+ to B- players at its best. The bet is that the pace and space that the McRae system needs to thrive, and that Dan Houston might help to get them back to, is enough to to turn the B+ players into A- player and the B- players into B+ level players.

It’s a hard way to live. They won the premiership doing that, but it’s a hard way to live.

The Pies’ approach reminds me of the crew in Heat, pulling one last job before they get out.

It’s a hard job, but it’s a big job.

If it works, it cements legacies.

If it doesn’t work, you’re just hoping you don’t get shot by Al Pacino running through an airport.

I hear Pendles is going to Fiji to look at iridescent Algae after this year.

Despite the fact that Collingwood is only going to be successful this year if they manage to not fall off the marathon-length tightrope that’s stretched over a pit of fire, snakes, spiders, and spears, the AFL clearly believes in the experiment. The Pies playing 12 either night or standalone games over the first 15 weeks, as well as the capper to Opening Round.

While the AFL’s insistence on a floating fixture from rounds 16 onwards is borderline contemptuous toward fans that want to travel to games, it does give them the flexibility to make bets like this one.

If they’re wrong, the Pies can just play on Sunday afternoons in the last third of the season. Maybe learn how to play with a red ball.

3. The AFL probably loves John Wick

Because they are into revenge.

Dan Houston plays Port on Saturday night in round 1.

Next to that, the AFL is stamping its authority onto Sunday Night Footy in Gather Round by having the rematch of the mud-slinging match between Port and Hawthorn in round 6.

Even Bailey Smith’s first game against the Bulldogs is getting prime-time treatment, with Geelong the Bulldogs playing on Thursday Night of round 11.

There are also rematches of big finals, with the season opening with a game between Brisbane and Geelong and round 1 featuring a Grand Final rematch between Sydney and Brisbane.

And don’t get me wrong, I love it. Passion in footy is necessary.

But it is a bit hypocritical, particularly with the Port v Hawthorn game acting as a kind of main event to undercard of footy the AFL is putting on in Gather Round.

It reminds of UFC 229 – McGregor v Nurmagomedov. The UFC got so grumpy when McGregor, in one of his increasingly frequent narcotic binges, decided not to commit a  crime but instead threw a dolly through a bus window attempting to injure Khabib.

Dana White looked like he was at a funeral when he called it “the most disgusting thing in UFC history”.

But the UFC is a marketing machine, and when it came time to sell UFC229, what was front and centre of the pitch? The dolly attack.

The AFL is kind of pulling the same move. They fined Ken Hinkley for being competitive, sorry, conduct unbecoming the AFL. Then that very same AFL that was defamed and debased by Ken’s conduct wants to cash the chip on their marquee regular season weekend.

AFL Chief Andrew Dillon saying “I don’t think you will see the AFL leading with that (the Hinkley and Ginnivan narrative) I think you will see others leading with that” is the best semantic jobs that I’ve heard since Albo said he never personally called Alan Joyce to get a flight upgrade.

 

Obviously you didn’t. Your EA called his.

Separately, I can’t fathom why anyone cares about Albo’s flights (or his house – breaking news: well-paid guy buys expensive house) but that’s a topic for another day.

Anyway, it’s the same with the AFL. What is the avenue on which the AFL might lead with it? Its website?

We all know that you personally don’t broadcast the games and clearly the broadcasters will lead with the biggest story.

This isn’t the biggest deal in the world, I’m just confused as to why a violent, contact sport is being puritanical about someone pretending to be a plane.

 

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