AFLX

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xplo

Premiership Player
Jun 14, 2004
3,402
2,560
The Original 'Cougar'
AFL Club
Brisbane Lions
Other Teams
Lions
Someone mentioned them cutting half screen to Heath Shaw rabbiting on with Callan Ward and Ryan Griffen - while the game was in full swing. Why should we think the game is important when the coverage is telling us the game takes a back seat to the sun-cooked yammerings of a few knuckleheads in the mostly empty stands?
 
Exactly. The only live NRL game I saw with any atmosphere was a final between the Broncos and the Dragons. And Origin. The Broncos get crowds but if they ever had a sustained period in the bottom four like we have had their crowds would have disappeared too. Their game is so much better on TV than it is live.

dlanod seems to be the only one here who watched the AFLX live but from his reports it seemed better live than it was on TV. Regular AFL is great on TV if you are a fan but it is hard to convert anyone new to imo, but bring them to a live game and even without knowing the rules they enjoy the spectacle and seem to notice that a lot happens away from the ball - they generally want to come back. For AFLX to work I think it has to be as good on TV as it is live, simple enough that anyone can pick up the rules and I think they need to be able to compact the gameplay into what will fit onto a single television screen without feeling like you are missing half the game. That is League's biggest strength, you follow the ball, you see all the action basically.

From my viewing (TV) my immediate thought was that the live experience would have been so much better than TV. I did put this down to the production/direction of the broadcast though. You could tell that the live experience had a hyped up dramatic announcer, music, smoke blasts etc. The telly caught none of that hype or excitement/showmanship. Even after a goal, with the smoke blasting in an 'X', was not seen on TV. Like it or not, those elements are what makes that format. Instead, we had the same old commentators, waffling about which player moved to what club. This isn't a game to take seriously as a football game. It is meant to be a bit of circus fluff, and the broadcaster got none of that. It needs fun commentators/commentary and visuals of the exploding smoke, fireworks and whatever else was going on. Then, it might have some TV appeal. It could be done, but the failure I think was in production rather than the product.

Nunez did too.

I think it was better than TV simply because we didn't have the commentary. The announcer was ok (largely because of his interest in pigeons) but could've been better, I don't remember the music, and my pet hate ended up being the smoke blasts/goal replays because of the instant play-on after a goal - it meant that they distracted you and the ball was halfway down the field before you realised play was going on. They either needed more visuals but give the crowd the time to appreciate them (works in T20 because there's a lull in play after a six or wicket) or just move on.
 

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