Some say the AFL is in crisis, but the crowds keep turning up
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There is no hash tag, so it is not yet official. But, reportedly, the AFL is in crisis.
How do we measure this turmoil? Not at the gate.
Already this season 2,091,973 people have turned up (an average of 38,740) to supposedly unwatchable games while millions more allegedly gritted their teeth and endured sub-standard spectacles on the couch.
Upon viewing these figures, the leaders of rival codes who have been tweeting rally calls to #TalkUpTheGame (NRL), battling insurrection from impatient clubs (A-League) or attempting to rescue the game from irrelevance while pandering to code-hopping stars with offensive opinions (ARU), exclaim: "I'll have the crisis the AFL's having!"
The slavish devotion of fans has long been the AFL's great luxury. The game has a vast, cross-demographic audience that looks on with religious zeal, encouraged by a largely supportive media.
The AFL has worked tirelessly to consolidate this advantage. It formed a commission, modernised clubs, established mass-membership models and built stadiums with government funds while its opponents were riven by internal feuding or picking the lint from their navels.
Internally, the AFL has not been immune from robust debate and even occasional self-criticism. The media hamster wheel is propelled by eternal debates about Good Friday football, umpiring standards, which team is "under the pump" and so it spins.
But these in-house discussions have been underpinned by an unstinting belief that — everyone join in — "Aussie Rules is the best bloody sport on the planet, mate!"
Yet now, for the first time since the days of bankrupt clubs and forced mergers/relocations in the 1980s to mid-1990s, there is a sense even the AFL's hardcore fans and introspective jockocracy are questioning the sport's direction and even its appeal.
If this does not quite represent an existential crisis, there is a culture war between traditionalists and modernists about both the game's aesthetics and also concern about the handling of its vast social agenda.
Much of the media debate surrounds the unsightly and debilitating congestion created when incredibly fit players swarm in large numbers between the respective forward lines or are marshalled in carefully constructed zones; factors that have prompted several AFL legends including Malcolm Blight, Leigh Matthews and Dermott Brereton to bemoan the game's appearance.
Perversely, the contemporary emphasis on defence over attack is the consequence of the world finally coming to Australia's isolated little game. Although not in the way those who have attempted to "internationalise" Australian Rules once imagined.
The VFL/AFL has long harboured the endearingly naive idea that "foreigners" would see their homespun sport and fall head over heels.
Entrepreneur Harry Beitzel took his touring Galahs to Ireland and New York in 1967 and 1968, and there have since been games in England, Dubai, New Zealand, the US, Canada and China.
But rather than the world taking to AFL, the AFL's greatest minds have taken to, and from, other sports.
Thus layer-upon-layer of tactics and reflexive rule changes have imposed zones, presses, interchange and other once-alien concepts on what was a reasonably uncomplicated — some would say unsophisticated — game.
The result is the tough, crowded, relatively lower-scoring game we see now, traits exacerbated by the levelling impact of the draft/salary cap which means there are few "super teams" as well as the dilution of talent caused by the growth from 12 to 18 teams.
Thus the current debate between those who believe the game is an eyesore and those who argue as passionately that the fierce contests in confined spaces and fast breaks from congestion mean it has never been better.
As an elderly proponent of free-flowing, high-scoring football, it is tempting to argue "people don't pay to see pressure". Yet they continue to do so in record numbers.
So the crucial question: have contemporary fans been programmed by the stats freaks and other vested interests to accept less scoring can mean more entertainment? Or has the game evolved into a vastly different, but still hugely appealing spectacle?
Meanwhile, beyond the game itself, there is another reason AFL acolytes are suffering rare self-doubts — the disparity between the league's stated social agenda and its performance.
Under the savvy Andrew Demetriou, the AFL became a cause merchant par excellence, supporting initiatives that — coincidentally or not — unlocked lucrative government funding and positioned the game as a first-rate corporate and community citizen.
But the AFL's shameful failure to support Adam Goodes in the face of racist taunts and now the questionable implementation of its own "respect and responsibility" policy for women has created the impression the league is strolling past the standards it promotes on billboards and at themed rounds.
Particularly after the elongated and awkward handling of allegations Port Adelaide's Sam Powell-Pepper inappropriately touched a woman in a nightclub, and reports Fremantle paid a settlement to a former female employee after coach Ross Lyon made offensive comments at a club function.
This has some believing the AFL needs to be even more vigorous in its prosecution of "respect and responsibility", and others suggesting the league butt out of social (and, particularly, criminal) matters and concentrate on the game which, as we have explored, has problems of its own.
Yet seemingly regardless of how the game is played or administered, the grandstands remain packed. Blind faith? Or proof things aren't as bad as the headlines would have you believe?
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