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AFL thread

Monoethnic Social Club said:
Matey, at the end of the day, this sporting attempt at colonizing is ALL about money and reaching new markets...

To my eyes, what AFL is trying to do in India and China is no different to what Spanish football does holding Cup finals in Saudi or what cynical EPL clubs do to their tired players at the end of a gruelling season, trotting them out to Asia, Australia and the US to play exhibition matehes jersey selling branding events..
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I get that it's a cynical cash grab, and I'm not in favour of things like domestic tournaments being staged overseas for the purposes of brand expansion, or financial remuneration.

But at the same time - there's plenty of folks in Saudi who follow Barca or Real Madrid, or people in Asia/Australia/US who follow an EPL side and it's an existing market.
Does the AFL seriously think anyone in India is doing become a diehard Essendon/Collingwood/etc fan, buying up merch and proudly walk the streets of Mumbai in their new AFL cap and singlet after they hold a match there?

Don't forget;
- they did the same thing in Wellington for 3 years (NZ ostensibly being the country closest to Australia culturally). Each year the crowds were down on the previous year, and after the contract was up, Wellington City said "Thanks, but no thanks" to renewing the contract for another 3 years.
- they also did the same in China, staging games in a largely empty stadium. Don't know if you remember, but at the time the AFL came out with a few laughable excuses; "Everyone was in the catering tents", "The busses bringing spectators got lost en-route the the ground". I think the AFL breathed a huge sigh of relief in 2020 when COVID came along and gave a face-saving excuse to pull the plug.


But who knows, maybe matches in India will have a different outcome and they'll discover a new large untapped fanbase. I guess it's possible, but I wont be holding my breath for it to happen...
 
melbcityguy said:
We laugh about this but what people don't mention is they still got a crowd to this. There's a sucker born every minute
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Why "sucker" though mate, to each their own... We dont question people watching futsal or beach soccer world cup etc etc... AFLX isnt for me, or most people to be fair, but if thats what they wanna watch.. who are we to judge?
 
petszk said:
I get that it's a cynical cash grab, and I'm not in favour of things like domestic tournaments being staged overseas for the purposes of brand expansion, or financial remuneration.

But at the same time - there's plenty of folks in Saudi who follow Barca or Real Madrid, or people in Asia/Australia/US who follow an EPL side and it's an existing market.
Does the AFL seriously think anyone in India is doing become a diehard Essendon/Collingwood/etc fan, buying up merch and proudly walk the streets of Mumbai in their new AFL cap and singlet after they hold a match there?

Don't forget;
- they did the same thing in Wellington for 3 years (NZ ostensibly being the country closest to Australia culturally). Each year the crowds were down on the previous year, and after the contract was up, Wellington City said "Thanks, but no thanks" to renewing the contract for another 3 years.
- they also did the same in China, staging games in a largely empty stadium. Don't know if you remember, but at the time the AFL came out with a few laughable excuses; "Everyone was in the catering tents", "The busses bringing spectators got lost en-route the the ground". I think the AFL breathed a huge sigh of relief in 2020 when COVID came along and gave a face-saving excuse to pull the plug.


But who knows, maybe matches in India will have a different outcome and they'll discover a new large untapped fanbase. I guess it's possible, but I wont be holding my breath for it to happen...
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Mate, all they need is 0.0000001% of the sports fans in India to show even a tiny interest and that will double the global AFL fanbase overnight ...
 
petszk said:
But who knows, maybe matches in India will have a different outcome and they'll discover a new large untapped fanbase. I guess it's possible, but I wont be holding my breath for it to happen...
Click to expand...
It won't, and that's the saving grace in all this.

Imagine if the AFL used the funds for this to bail out metro/rural clubs and leagues instead..and in the case of VIC reintroduce pro-rel to the VFL - of course that would make too much sense, but whatevz.
 
rebelliousfeminist974 said:
To be fair the concept of AFLX was flawed from the start and nobody would have been interested in the bold marketing strategy they were going for since it doesn't really fit with the traditional fanbase of the sport.
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It gave crows fans a chance to inspect Hindmarsh Stadium, where most had never been before.
 
This is the mentality of many AFL fans:
They genuinely believe that their game is "the greatest in the world"
They genuinely believe that "if only they could see it, they would fall in love with it".
Others say that they don't care if their game is not international.
Either way, they just want to block out reality.
 
ashtongate said:
This is the mentality of many AFL fans:
They genuinely believe that their game is "the greatest in the world"
They genuinely believe that "if only they could see it, they would fall in love with it".
Others say that they don't care if their game is not international.
Either way, they just want to block out reality.
Click to expand...
TBF though we say EXACTLY the same about football....
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
Why "sucker" though mate, to each their own... We dont question people watching futsal or beach soccer world cup etc etc... AFLX isnt for me, or most people to be fair, but if thats what they wanna watch.. who are we to judge?
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Typical evasive response; let's not offend anybody!
Particularly in Melbourne.
 
Noah Anderson with a behind and Patrick Dangerfield with his second goal for Victoria, who lead Western Australia 16.14 (110) to 15.6 (96) in the fourth quarter of AFL State of Origin.
 
Victoria defeated Western Australia by 24 points in AFL State of Origin, 18.17 (125) to 15.11 (101) after having led for most of the match including at quarter time, the half and three quarter time.
 
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