When is it fair to be unfair?

The recent media hysteria surrounding the alleged unfairness of the AFL fixture poses some interesting questions about how modern pro sports leagues should handle the balance between the integrity of the competition and the need to maximise commercial returns.

Consider the following headlines:

“AFL fixture ‘unfair’”

“Harvey slams 'unfair' AFL fixture list”

“Saints count cost of unfair fixtures”

“Draw unfair for some: Malthouse”

Interestingly, that last headline was actually from the AFL’s own website, which raises the question of just how critical a league site should be of its own competition... but that’s fodder for a future blog.

The point is there has been widespread media condemnation of the AFL’s fixturing in the wake of a couple of 100-plus point wins by power teams Collingwood and Geelong.  Players, coaches, legends and even academics came out of the wordwork to revile the AFL scheduling.

Just how any schedule, no matter how unfair, can really lead to the Cats recording a pair of 150-point wins is mystifying.  Perhaps the better question to ask is whether the AFL’s recent expansion has diluted football’s talent pool.  Or whether the AFL’s Draft and Salary Cap systems are really effectively allowing talent to be spread evenly amongst its teams.

The hue and cry that has followed those lopsided results however has been nothing short of a witch-hunt, with AFL supremo Andrew Demetriou cast as the chief warlock.

The league bosses were portrayed in general  as money-hungry bureaucrats who had allowed their greed to impair the integrity of the game.

Yet it is those same league bosses that hand out millions of dollars annually to the AFL clubs, dollars which have been generated on the back of the TV and sponsorship revenue that the self-same fixture had helped to bring in.

As someone who works for a league office, I know only too well how often the need to make commercially sound decisions for the future of the competition can seem to come at odds with maintaining a fair and balanced competition.

There were plenty of fans in Far North Queensland last season who expressed their disappointment in no uncertain terms at the small number of Cairns and Townsville games that appeared on the ONE fixture.

They pointed to the blanket coverage of games involving the Sydney Kings and Melbourne Tigers and talked of “big city biases”.  Yet the reality was that the NBL was back on free-to-air TV for the first time in years with a new partner and there was a pressing need to repay ONE’s faith in the NBL with the best possible viewership figures.  Say what you like about big cities, but they do come with big potential viewing audiences, even when their teams are losing.

For the first time in years, the NBL didn’t try to make the TV schedule an even affair and unashamedly featured the major metro markets more prominently than those of our regional teams. 

The result was our highest viewing audience in years. 

For a league that went close to the brink two years ago, the need for this sort of exposure is obvious.  It makes those sponsorship meetings that little bit easier and gives the NBL added visibility. 

So is it right for the AFL, a code which earned a billion dollars for their TV rights recently, to have unbalanced scheduling in the name of commercial returns?

The answer to that is complicated but in order to come to a conclusion, it’s important to understand one simple fact – there really is no such thing as a balanced draw.

Sure, when you’re scheduling your local under 14 competition, you can make certain that each team plays each other the same number of times.  But just try doing that in a pro league.

The commercial realities of teams trying to make a buck, or more likely just break even, inevitably intrude on any attempts to install a truly balanced draw. 

The NBL league office has tried a number of times to convince clubs to play an even and balanced fixture, with teams facing each other once at home and once away.  Those efforts have continually come to naught as the NBL clubs have steadfastly declined to reduce their number of home games each season below the current 14 they currently host.

For those teams that make a profit every time their players run out on the floor at a home game, that is perfectly understandable.  Yet given the high percentage of NBL teams in recent years who have taken a loss on their home dates, it is less so. 

Regardless, you are automatically left with an unbalanced draw.  That is, of course, before you even throw in the factors of venue availability, travel schedules and broadcast partner needs, let alone team preferences for playing on specific nights.

Given all of this, the chances of actually putting in place a balanced draw are literally zero.  The best any league can do is to minimise the necessary inequalities in their fixture.

I know that the NBL season tip-off is imminent each year when the first coach calls me to complain that they are getting shafted by the league by their schedule in the first few rounds.  It’s kind of like the league office equivalent of the first swallow of Spring.

Funnily enough, during the course of the season I will normally field a call from just about every coach in the league with pretty much the same complaint.  The reality is that every team goes through difficult patches in the draw at some stage.  If that team happens to be hanging on to their playoff hopes by a thread when that happens, then you can be assured that the complaints will come thick and fast.

So back to the question at hand; is the AFL draw really unfair?  In all likelihood, yes it is. 

If fans do start to believe that their team really is so unfairly disadvantaged by the draw as to not even be legitimate contenders however, they will undoubtedly vote with their feet and their wallets.  There is certainly no sign of that yet.

The AFL makes no apologies for scheduling games to maximise audiences, both at games and on TV, and that model has helped them drive the game to a whole new level of profitability

As such, it is a model to be copied, not criticised.

Can Kewell save the A-League?

The circus that has surrounded the on-again, off-again (and now finally on-again) signing of Socceroos star Harry Kewell to the A-League has raised some interesting questions around the value of one player to a club and an entire league.

After literally months of speculation, the Melbourne Victory have finally confirmed that, yes, they do have Kewell's signature and he will play for them until 2014.

But just how valuable will Kewell in a Victory jersey be?

The Herald Sun's Grantley Bernard clearly believes the deal to be a good one for the Victory and the A-League.

Certainly it seems reasonable to assume that Victory games will attract bigger crowds with Kewell on the pitch - at least at first - assuming of course he overcomes the on-going injury problems that have plagued him in recent years.

Yet the sort of concessions that Kewell was reportedly seeking from Football Federation Australia were far from minor.

The Herald Sun also reported that Kewell was seeking "exemption from the collective bargaining agreement and standard player contract for control of image rights and the freedom to negotiate with rivals to FFA's protected sponsors."


The collective bargaining agreement is the foundation of the business model under which most national leagues operate and to allow exceptions to it is to undermine that model in a major way.

National governing bodies also work incredibly hard to establish exclusive categories in which to sign sponsors.  To allow a player - even a bona fide superstar - to negotiate with a company that is in direct competition to a league sponsor is like inviting ambush marketers to waltz through your door.

If Kewell starts appearing in Toyota or Honda ads in his Victory strip, the chances of the A-League re-signing Hyundai as naming rights partner when that deal is up would likely be slim to none.

It is not yet clear of course whether or not the A-League actually agreed to those exemptions but if they did, regardless of any added attendance or media coverage, FFA is going to have a lot of explaining to do to its corporate partners.

Despite the excitement amongst the media at the prospect of Kewell signing with the A-League, the coverage of the pursuit of Kewell has painted an unflattering picture of the FFA.  Soccer's governing body was cast as being overly obstructive to Kewell's return to Australia.  Kewell's management got into an all too public stoush with FFA's Head of Corporate Affairs and Communications Kyle Patterson with claims and counter-claims flying both ways.

FFA were clearly on a hiding to nothing as even any legitimate effort to protect their few existing commercial rights was portrayed as stinginess which could cost Australia's favourite footballing son the chance to play at home.

The FFA were virtually accused of being unpatriotic by not rolling over and accepting every demand of Kewell's management.  That's despite the FFA reportedly offering Kewell half a million dollars for a promotional contract with the league as a sweetener to attract him back to Australia.

Ultimately, FFA did have to find a way to get the Kewell deal done.  Not just because of the massive potential upside for the sport, but for fear of looking like they put the kibosh on Kewell playing in Australia. 

The case draws an interesting comparison to the on-going negotiations between NBL teams and Boomers and Portland Trail Blazers star Patty Mills.

Mills has been pursued by basically every club in the NBL since it became clear that the NBA lockout would likely see him needing to find a place to play this summer. 

Whilst Basketball Australia has said it wants to clear the way for Mills to play at home, would the NBL exempt a team from the salary cap to sign him?  Unlikely to stay the least. Or would the NBL allow Mills to do an ad for a competitor of naming rights sponsor iiNet in an NBL jersey?  No way.

Yes, Mills would bring extra people through the turnstiles.  Yes, he would sell more NBL merchandise and attract more viewers to watch the NBL on TV.  And yes, we would all really like to see him in an NBL singlet. 

Yet you have to maintain the integrity of the competition and you can't sell the farm for one player.  That is the sort of lesson that too many defunct NBL teams didn't learn. 

And thus they are defunct.

As an Australian sports fan, I am very happy to see Kewell playing at home. The A-League has however had more than its share of financial issues over recent years and one hopes that any concessions they have made to help Kewell play in Australia don't create more long-term problems for the sport than his presence can actually solve.

The nine lives of a superstar

The only thing that comes as less of a surprise than the latest transgression of Sydney Roosters NRL star Todd Carney is the news that he is likely to be given another chance by his team.

Carney was issued with a breach notice by his club after reportedly being caught in a 2:00AM drinking session with teammates Nate Myles and Frank-Paul Nuuasuala.

An athlete going out drinking late at night is in itself of course not normally considered a big deal.  The Roosters' players had however put in place a self-imposed booze ban in an attempt to stop the rot that has them anchored near the foot of the table and out of finals contention.

Making matters worse, Carney is also a player who has a history of off-field incidents involving alcohol.  He has reportedly been on his last chance with the Roosters, who were the club that threw him a lifeline after his previous playing contract with the Canberra Raiders was terminated and the NRL deregistered him.

So why would the Roosters consider giving Carney yet another chance?

The Daily Telegraph reports that the Roosters Chairman Nick Politis holds grave fears that Carney's life "could spiral out of control if he's cut loose from rugby league."

You have to wonder if those fears would have been quite so grave if Carney hadn't won a Dally M Medal as the NRL's best player in 2010.

That win was billed (again by the Daily Telegraph) as a "fairytale" comeback by Carney after two years in the rugby league wilderness following his deregistration. 

At the time, Carney was described as a "one-time bad boy of the NRL" by the Tele, indicating that his redemption was now complete, presumably because he had realised his considerable potential as an athlete.

Bad boy, yes.  One-time, not so much apparently.

The media always love a great redemption story, but to say that this one was told prematurely is a King Kong-sized understatement.

It was also a terrific example of how quickly an athlete can resurrect their public image with the right spin and, more importantly, enough talent.

And there lies the crux of the matter.

Does even the least cynical of us truly believe that Carney would still be a Rooster if he wasn't one of the biggest stars in the NRL?

Let's suppose he was a struggling first-year player and did the same thing.  There is little doubt he would have been sacked by the Roosters.  Most likely his axing would have been justified by public statements along the lines of his actions "not reflecting the family values of the club".

Yet interestingly it is the same "family" line that is often used to justify the retention of a star athlete in disgrace.

You hear all too often that a club refuses to turn its back on a member of its "family" in a time of need. 

Yet only the most talented members of its family apparently gets this sort of treatment. 

In September 2010 the Roosters sacked two Toyota Cup players for a breach of their code of conduct.

At the time the Roosters said that "the Club started the 2010 season with the mantra `New Attitude. New Beginning' and it is disappointing that this incident has occurred.  Throughout the 2010 season the Sydney Roosters have lived by this mantra and will continue to enforce the code of conduct as set by the players and management."

Apparently the enforcement of that code of conduct depends on the skill level of the player involved.

Forget the "two-speed economy", this sort of "two-speed justice" is common to every sport around the world, not just the NRL. 

Flawed superstars are given chance after chance, yet ultimately this sort of tolerance seals their fate.  Inevitably, they continue to push the boundaries of that tolerance until they have burned the last bridge.  That usually doesn't happen of course until their skill level starts to slip.  Then the athlete is left wondering why they can't get away with what they used to.

So whilst The Roosters might publicly espouse that they can't sack Carney for fear of what it might do to him, if they really care about him they'll make him realise that his talent won't always save him.

Of course, even if they do have the courage to make that call, Carney probably won't learn that lesson right away.  If the Roosters release him, Carney's talent is such that NRL clubs would likely line up to sign him.

Sadly, pro sporting clubs are just as slow to learn their lessons as athletes.

To boldly go...

One of my most firmly-held beliefs about being a PR guy is this ... if you're personally in the news, rather than the company you represent, then you ain't really doing your job.

A good PR guy champions a brand, not their own brand.

It is therefore with not a little trepidation that I decided to start writing this blog. 

Let's get one thing straight.  I am not writing this because I believe the world cannot exist without yet another individual ranting about their own personal agendas.  The rise of social media has ensured there is an endless stream of opinions from all sides of the political spectrum from which to choose.

Rather, I choose to blog because of this torrent of beliefs. 

You see, 99% of what seems to pass for personal opinion on Twitter, Facebook and whatever the next big thing is in the world of social media is in fact the regurgitation of somebody's carefully crafted spin.

Most people form their opinions based on an analysis of the information available to them through the free-press.  The only problem is that the press really may not be so free after all.

Crikey recently published an eye-opening article as part of an on-going investigation into the issue of just how much of our media is actually independent reporting.

As a guy who works in PR, this doesn't come as a surprise of course.  Whilst I work with plenty of dedicated journalists who would never dream of allowing themselves to be manipulated in the way outlined in this article, I have also come across more than a few that are thankful for someone who writes the story for them.

This isn't necessarily because they are lazy.  The reality of the modern newsroom is that there is incredible pressure on journalists to produce a constant stream of copy.

The rise of the on-line world started this squeeze, and the addition of things like i-Pad apps has only exacerbated it.

Content is king and the modern media has an unquenchable thirst for stories.

The rise of Facebook and, more importantly, Twitter, has allowed pretty much anybody with a mobile phone to essentially become a journalist now.  That means that the traditional media now needs to cover stories that are developing in real-time.  Unfortunately this is much faster than the press can keep up with using traditional methods.

This has also led to the sort of standards that journalism used to use to self-regulate (questionable as some might suggest theses standards were) being lowered considerably.  Any sort of rumour is now gleefully reported and, worse, retweeted to millions of people as fact. 

Perception is reality as they say and he who has the largest number of Facebook friends or tweeps usually has the last word.

A number of media organisations have been caught out in reporting on these types of erroneous (or sometimes mischievous) posts, but the truth of the matter is that journalists simply can't afford to ignore potentially explosive stories for fear of being left behind.

That has resulted in the power of setting the news agenda starting to swing away from traditional media outlets, towards individuals.  It is the questionable quality of those individuals however that makes this shift more than a little scary.

It also makes it necessary, at least in my opinion, to scrutinise reports in the media - traditional and social - even more closely than ever before.

And thus, I've started this blog.

I've chosen to raise my head above the parapet and give my own take on the issues that matter (at least to me anyway).

Although I work in basketball, I don't intend to focus excllusively on hoops, or even sport for that matter.  Whatever issue of the day takes my fancy, or raises my ire, will be the topic du jour. 

Here's hoping you enjoy my writing.  Or at least find it thought-provoking.