El Diablo
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it's going global man
https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/af...k=2853a01d46af3efa4dbd11e9dd8b8e9a-1519216009
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sp...n/news-story/0daab46984ea6d7cacbb8e6ebcb09d48
AFLX’s spectacular debut sets up global campaign
- The Australian
- 12:00AM February 19, 2018
- Greg Denham
The inaugural short-game concept with new and adapted rules attracted more than 40,000 fans to tournaments in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, and rated well on television.
Allianz Stadium in Sydney got its first taste of modified Australian football with 9892 spectators on Saturday night. Coopers Stadium in Adelaide launched the series on Thursday night with a near-capacity crowd of 10,253 while Etihad Stadium in Melbourne attracted 22,585 on Friday night.
The success of AFLX will prompt the league to introduce the new concept around the world, starting almost certainly in Hong Kong in November next year with as many as six clubs initially involved.
Before then, AFLX general manager of China and India Dave Stevenson said there would be “some tinkering” around the structure of the shortened version of the game. “We might look at such things as changing the zones or adding more players than the current seven,” he said.
Seven-a-side AFLX marked the start to the code’s pre-season practice matches, with the JLT Community Series beginning on Saturday before the first game of the premiership season on March 22.
The Crows, Demons and Brisbane remained undefeated in their games by taking out the grand finals in the three divisions.
Stevenson told The Australian yesterday the league had interest from “multiple” clubs, promoters and international stadiums to play the game overseas from 2019. “We’ve even been contacted by recently retired players interested in participating in the new format in the future,” Stevenson said.
The AFL will today send out surveys to clubs, players, fans and broadcasters on their AFLX experience with a full executive review to be conducted on Wednesday.
“Across the board, we were very happy, and crowd figures at all three venues came in above forecast,” Stevenson said.
“If you look through the crowd numbers that we got at each of the three, through the player feedback, through the club feedback, through the ratings, it very much exceeded our expectations.”
On opening night, the 3½-hour broadcast on Fox Footy drew 82,000 viewers, while a free-to-air audience on 7Two peaked at 643,000 viewers, with an average audience of 171,000.
The AFL was encouraged that viewers were not turned off by a lack of involvement of each club’s best players, which is not unusual at this time of the year.
“We wouldn’t have put all this effort in if we thought it was just a one-year proposition,” Stevenson said. “There’s definitely some things we’ll change and we’ll tweak along the way. We learned some things that we’ll improve and we’ll get feedback from all our stakeholders, including the fans. We’ll do a post mortem … and work out what worked and what didn’t, and what we’ll change for next year.”
High on the list of improvements will be initiatives to encourage high marks and more contested football.
The AFLX fixture will also be reviewed, but clubs will not be forced to play their most experienced stars. “An alternative could be to have a more fluid fixture so you could try and engineer the live games a little bit earlier and give the teams a break before the grand finals,” Stevenson said.
“We think the game was really strong even without all of those established stars. I felt we had a good mix of established stars, and we saw some new names that I think will give us some pretty good excitement as the year goes on.”
There were teething problems and the silver balls were replaced by yellow ones midway through the Adelaide tournament after complaints from the Seven Network. The broadcasters found the silver ball difficult to see on television, as did the players in action.
Coaches and players were generally very supportive of the concept. Geelong coach Chris Scott led a chorus of support, which included his twin brother Brad at North Melbourne, in approving the format, saying it was not only an elite-level spectacle but an invaluable game involving just seven players at any one time for children to become accustomed to before graduating to the traditional game.
“Our footy club really supports the concept,” he said. “We think it not only has a good chance at the top level but probably, more importantly, it has a good chance to succeed at the amateur level, and internationally as well.
“I have a view, and I think it’s shared by a few of the senior coaches around the competition, that 18 versus 18 on a huge field is not the right way to go for young kids who can only kick the ball 30m. I think this (AFLX) is a really good way to learn the game.”
