mbe said:Mark from Brisbane said:I was talking to someone up here in "TV land", don't know if this is "just talk" or not but he said that Fox / Nein are really pushing for this as they can permenantly set up a whole stack of infrastructure which would save the whole mobile set up they have to do at the suburban grounds.
He said the cost saving is in the millions.
Currently TV "own the game", and with the current huge dollars on the table you can see fans being pushed further and further into the background on this.
I was also talking to a Sky Channel guy (regarding horse racing coverage)...he said apart from the big race days (the obvious ones) they'd much prefer to a facility with straight line tracks, in the middle of nowhere (cheaper to create and run), no crowd, no facilities needed just the gee gees, trainers, strappers etc.....with races running every few minutes. Again a huge cost saving with permenent infrastructure set up to handle it....NOW, I agree that's far fetched BUT you can see the thought line of these TV people can't you....all about savings and the fans ...well they don;t give a flying fig about them!!
I remember in the 80's they were talking about doing this at the races.Just have straight course racing,no crowds just participants and only for pay TV.It would have been way out of reach (distance wise) for most people to attend.What a souless atmosphere and the same will happen to football if this goes ahead.
Yes MBE, it would be souless BUT I guess for racing (and betting) it would be perfect.
The trouble is I think the NRL think that no matter what they do they'll still have a growing game....I would NOT be at all surprised to see membership numbers (right across the board) fall this year, and attendance figures for the regular season well down.
Some teams will not be affected, many will...Townsville for example on a Monday night will attract 6 supporters, 4 dogs and the Cowboys cheer leaders...it's just a fact up there that 90% of the crowd travels from way way out of town.