Is footy media at its most unwatchable?

In in the manufacturing/wholesale industry. The products I am involved in are pretty much bastardised on a daily basis. If a customer of mine has somethingm their competitor must have the same. Both, or more, go to Bunnings and say "hey this is what I got". Bunnings says ok, who's got the best price. Rinse, repeat.

Like footy media. One person has a story, everyone else must have the same story.
 
Jul 13, 2015
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Every year the size of the footy industry grows, and every year it gets worse. A coach will be asked 20 questions and the media will focus on a single answer and make that the huge breaking news of the day and scour the lands to find some outraged ex-footballer who's ego hasnt accepted that they are no longer relevant.

Okay fine, Im talking about Robert Walls and his bitching and moaning about Clarko despite having exactly zero clue what Clarko and Gil talked about. But that didnt stop him getting up on the high horse and talking about how things were done in his day (minus the brown paper bag payments of course).
 
Jun 19, 2008
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Without question.
Why cant our footy media be media rather than celebrities first.
Not knocking Damians skills as a jester thespian on the occasional skit on the footy show tho. Delivered his lines well.
The purple one. First lady of football. Ginger Meggs from Talking footy.
Just write or talk about the football. Not 80% shitfights you have with 90% of those in the footy industry so you have to scoop and stoop more to speculative dribble to beat that internet clock headline which never stops.
 

Pessimistic

Cancelled
30k Posts 10k Posts HBF's Milk Crate - 70k Posts TheBrownDog
Sep 13, 2000
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Every year the size of the footy industry grows, and every year it gets worse. A coach will be asked 20 questions and the media will focus on a single answer and make that the huge breaking news of the day and scour the lands to find some outraged ex-footballer who's ego hasnt accepted that they are no longer relevant.

Okay fine, Im talking about Robert Walls and his bitching and moaning about Clarko despite having exactly zero clue what Clarko and Gil talked about. But that didnt stop him getting up on the high horse and talking about how things were done in his day (minus the brown paper bag payments of course).

Worst is the 'fake news' concocted by journos in retaliation because a certain club didn't give enough 'access'
 
Jan 12, 2011
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A very large proportion of AFL Footballers are the dumbest forks you would find anywhere.

Why anyone thinks they make good Callers/Commentators staggers me, they constantly repeat ad-nauseam worn out cliche's that in the main don't make any sense and make more mistakes than your average 3rd grader.
It has now gotten to the point that the commentators discuss amongst themselves, their junior careers, what they are going to do after the game and make a series of in house jokes, all while the game goes on in front of them.

They actually think they are the stars and the game is there to promote their stardom
 

Pessimistic

Cancelled
30k Posts 10k Posts HBF's Milk Crate - 70k Posts TheBrownDog
Sep 13, 2000
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The game has the media it deserves. Because of the way the game is played now, it has given rise to tactical analysis, endless dribble of meaningless statistics, etc, and who better to present this then a group of over-confident people with massive egos who think they know more about the game's tactics than the coaches, and try to impress everyone with their knowledge.

Who else cringes when they talk about commentators in the LAB? Woah!!!!

Don't you just love this "Player X should have been there, player Y should have been over here, and then player Z should have been circling around behind them, blah, blah, blah" .... better than laxatives. You've got 18 players running all over the ground, players being rotated, they're not always going to be in the precise position every time, especially when there's been a turnover. It's becoming just like American sports where they have a useless statistic for every occasion, as if they actually mean anything.

What I'd prefer to see is analysis of why Player X just missed an easy shot for goal from 20 metres out straight on front. That would help the game more than the waffle they carry on about.

"and now over to the lab" has me switching to seven. I need to automate that somehow
 
Jul 29, 2009
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Part of the bland element stems from the overall loss of personalities from footy (which someone mentioned re Robert Murphy).

Players used to be themselves, not so drilled to toe a party line to "protect the brand", be open to having a genuine opinion and hang some genuine stuff on each other.

Nowadays, with players drilled in "media speak" from the moment they are drafted (and often before), many being basically colourless clones in personality all using the same dozen or so basic cliches in interview situations, there are very few genuine personalities coming through the ranks now that fans are interested in watching.

Imagine 10 years down the track when some of the current crop are on special comments/occasional calling or 3rd/4th wheel on panel shows. It will like watching beige paint dry.
 

Sprout

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Most unwatchable/unlistenable.

I listened to Ling and Richo wrap up the Melbourne v Adelaide game on 3AW and their analysis was even more shallow than when they are on Seven. They literally just listed the highest possession getters as the best players. No mention of Lever who was almost certainly one of the best three or four players on the ground. But his 15 possessions didn’t leap off the page so no mention.

Who were the best players for Adelaide? The two highest possession getters.

What illustrated Melbourne’s dominance? The difference in disposal numbers.

A six year old could read a stat sheet and pick out the highest number of disposals. It’s actually embarrassing that they think this garbage passes as analysis.
 
Last edited:
Jan 12, 2011
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Most unwatchable/unlistenable.

I listened to Ling and Richo wrap up the Melbourne v Adelaide game on 3AW and their analysis was even more shallow than when they are on Seven. They literally just listed the highest possession getters as the best players. No mention of Lever who was almost certainly one of the best three or four players on the ground. But his 15 possessions didn’t leap off the page so no mention.

Who were the best players for Adelaide? The two highest possession getters.

What illustrated Melbourne’s dominance? The difference in disposal numbers.

A six year old could read a stat sheet and pick out the highest number of disposals. It’s actually embarrassing that they think this garbage passes as analysis.
I'm more surprised they could read so well
 

Spearman

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this goes for the play-by-play;
watched the Stanley Cup game 1, first hockey I've watched since Gretsky was an Oiler so might not apply to other commentators, but what stood out to me was the total lack of made up, self-branding comments. the commentators just described what they were seeing without the onanstic utterances of Russell, Taylor, et al. even during the lulls, there weren't any wowees, knuckles, you beautys; no attempt to stamp their trademark on a goal, and just a lightest tinge of banter. quite refreshing in all, and it really makes you wonder what the exec and producers have in mind when they plan out their strategies. IMO this should be the first step in how the sport is presented on air - clean that pointless crap out.

on a slight tangent NHL mic'ed up videos are must sees, usually not censored and totally bring you into the game and are hilarious to boot.
 
Dec 18, 2007
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The footy media suffers from the same problem as the rest of the media suffers from, the need to focus on creating a narrative, over any substance. The media are convinced that audiences have little attention span, but in truth its not the audience which lacks the attention span., too many media people see themselves as movers & shakers, rather than reporters, adding to this, the media companies are obsessed with costs as their business models are increasingly outdated and slowly failing.
 
Dec 18, 2007
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"Robbo" is held up as some sort of voice of football. How have we arrived at this point ? He was cringeworthy last night at the hall of fame. Surely we can do better than him ?

Apparently Robbo is the Chief Football writer at the HS, and as Fox is part of the Foxtel stable, we see plenty of news limited journalist put up as exports, and whilst Robbo is bad but there someone even worst, not sure of her name but she appears on Sky Business as some kind of M&A expert yet in any 10 words, about half are hums or arrs, she makes Robbo look like a Rhodes Scholar.
 
Worst is the 'fake news' concocted by journos in retaliation because a certain club didn't give enough 'access'
Or just the blatant spin and bullshit to try create a story out of nothing. .

Take McClueless and the Geelong/Richmond game in Geelong last year for example.
McClueless runs with the story that the AFL is seriously considering moving the game to the G, has comment from Richmond who naturally are all for it. If you listen to what he actually says that he mentioned the AFL wouldn't rule it out when asked about it.
I'm no media expert but I figured out pretty quickly how he got his story - asks the AFL spokesman a generic question about would you ever consider moving the game, they wouldn't have said no and said they would always consider all options (as if the Cats asked for it to be moved they'd likely entertain the idea), he then asks Richmond who are all for it, he has a quote from them on the record then to run with.. Spins it as that the AFL are seriously considering it as they couldn't and wouldn't have shut it down directly with how he likely asked the question .. And then headlines and SEN all day night with the fact that the game may be moved.

The AFL categorically squashes the idea on breaky radio the next day and it's all forgotten about.

But that is just one example from one journo... And they all do it.
3/4s of the 'news' the report isn't even news, just twisting the answers or manipulating the answers to suit making it more of a story.

TL;DR the new wave of journos are all lying campaigners
 

Spearman

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Or just the blatant spin and bullshit to try create a story out of nothing. .

Take McClueless and the Geelong/Richmond game in Geelong last year for example.
McClueless runs with the story that the AFL is seriously considering moving the game to the G, has comment from Richmond who naturally are all for it. If you listen to what he actually says that he mentioned the AFL wouldn't rule it out when asked about it.
I'm no media expert but I figured out pretty quickly how he got his story - asks the AFL spokesman a generic question about would you ever consider moving the game, they wouldn't have said no and said they would always consider all options (as if the Cats asked for it to be moved they'd likely entertain the idea), he then asks Richmond who are all for it, he has a quote from them on the record then to run with.. Spins it as that the AFL are seriously considering it as they couldn't and wouldn't have shut it down directly with how he likely asked the question .. And then headlines and SEN all day night with the fact that the game may be moved.

The AFL categorically squashes the idea on breaky radio the next day and it's all forgotten about.

But that is just one example from one journo... And they all do it.
3/4s of the 'news' the report isn't even news, just twisting the answers or manipulating the answers to suit making it more of a story.

TL;DR the new wave of journos are all lying campaigners
and the little turd got his quota of clicks and re-tweets for the week.

good analysis Willo, spot on
 
and the little turd got his quota of clicks and re-tweets for the week.

good analysis Willo, spot on
Problem is, clicks and re-tweets are all they care about.. There is no accountability for them at all.

They make s**t up, it doesn't eventuate and they just move on and pretend it never happened
 
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