Disappointee's,
What would Pup do (apart from being in isolation with his soon to be divorced wife and child after his 'personal secretary' sensibly fled the love nest for fear of being trapped)? That's the burning question on everyone's lips. Don't you read the magazines? But the sad fact is that this is the end of spectator sport as we have come to love and know it - quite possibly forever. As the AFL and NRL are being all Bolshy about getting back on the paddock sometime in May/June, there have been very well respected medico's in the world wide infectious diseases caper who are quietly saying that as long as the novel coronavirus exists in any part of the world, it would be very prudent to limit public gatherings to less than 50 people. The Chief Medical Officer has very clearly expressed an opinion that anything prone to attracting large crowds, such as sporting events, will "be the last things to come back". People are listening to him, not clueless sports moguls.
50 people in at the footy? Socially scattered throughout the stands, as they sit among movie props and cardboard cut outs to make up the numbers? In any case, Associated Press is reporting that with soccer games in Europe hoping to recommence in empty stadia sometime next month also, the Bundesliga has calculated that to run a game from the players down would require a minimum of 213 people in the ground. That is the absolute bare bones. "The number of journalists attending would vary from country to country, but that could easily be slimmed down", they report. A match played last month in Cologne had 600+ folks in - all directly related to coaching the two teams or running the ground and the TV broadcast. How many assistant coaches, let alone hangers-on, does a football team need?
The fall out is mind boggling. A helluva lotta footy people are out of work. Little wonder those in charge of professional sport are at a complete loss. National Rugby League CEO Todd Greenberg could see the writing on the wall and made a quick smart exit from the game - not because of accusations from the broadcaster that he's been wasting and mismanaging their money for years - he's gone because Peter V'Landys was white anting him, and he doesn't want to be mired in it when the whole damn thing implodes after going belly up and people are looking for scapegoats. Best to run as far away from it as fast as you possibly can under the current circumstances. It's very difficult to see them playing again anytime soon, when at least two or three clubs, maybe more, will by definition be illegally trading while insolvent if they try to turn out a team. No gate receipts means throwing bad money after worse and chucking the team under a bus, to mix a cliché. The broadcaster will soon get very sick of it as ratings plummet with no fan involvement on any level (a quick survey of club 'apps' reveals whatever PR staff they have left on can only turn to video highlights of old games and dreadfully boring stories on what the players are getting up to in lockdown - The GWS Giants ran a highly distasteful photograph of Toby "Fucking" Greene reading the stock market reports in the paper with the glummest of faces, poor shit. You have to feel sorry for the bloke given the savage haircut he's taken on this one, surely?) No one liked the emotionless single round where they did play without crowds (even tho' that now seems like ancient history, it was just five weeks ago), and if they start doing it week in week out, interest will fall away to nothing as the broadcaster punts the games to the back channels. Eventually The Network will say "look, we are losing money on this hand over fist, so we're not going to run it". So what are you left with? Footy games in grounds bereft of spectators with no TV? That'd be like me standing in this room delivering a lecture on futility to the four walls, who wouldn't be listening anyway. Grainy four camera coverage streaming on your tiny mobile phone screen with no soundtrack as the way of the future, anyone?
Even if they were to foolishly open up grounds to all comers by year's end - no one will go - have they even realised they'll have to deeply cut ticket prices in an era of mass unemployment? What's more, people will be worried sick by what other folk - particularly away fans - might be carrying in with them in the way of the lack of basic personal hygiene more than they ever have been before. Not only will opposition supporters just smell bad, they may well be harbouring evil germs meaning to do you harm. Takes me back to 1989 when rugby league living legend King Wally Lewis, playing for Brisbane, spat in a fit of pique upon the bonce of the Gold Coast's Jimmy Cowell for being a total nong - they hated each other's guts - and Jimbo fired a well placed fleshy oyster straight back into the big King's eye - and then it was on. What a stink! They both coped token fines, but weeks later Wally, captaining Queensland, was in Sydney for a State-of-Origin match where he saw New South Wales fans in the stands wearing the now infamous hand-made improvised "Wally Golly Guard" by the thousands, just in case he lobbed a lolly over the boundary fence for something that might have been said. Perhaps there will be a business opportunity here for a Corona Golly Guard to immunise you from the screaming idiot in the row behind spraying you with a fine mist of saliva every time they open their yawning rictus for a loud screeching barrack? Some kind of personal protection bonnet in a club colours arrangement, perhaps? Never mind the fun of having Mexican beer poured all over you.
Make no mistake footy is in disarray. Raelene Castle didn't quit as CEO of Rugby Australia because the board lost confidence in her, no, she went having Israel Folau and a TV rights debacle on her hands, which was a fine ol' clusterfuck before any of this happened that sure as hell should have bankrupted the joint. Plus, the code is a very hard sell; she knew well enough that rugby union has always been riven by Old School Tie factions that shall not be moved by New Money. Crikey, they can't even decide what kind of competition they actually want, having failed miserably in the transition from "amateur" to professional, which is now very old hat indeed in the world of big money sport. Plus, of all the football codes, union is by far and away the most batshit boring thing you could ever watch on television - the ol' pigs rooting in mud thing epitomised. Great game to play, shocker to watch.
The AFL are talking about some kind of mysterious "hubs" where footy is to be performed in a vacuum for the camera, after the NRL's "rugby league island" fantasy from "Project Apollo" fell through for some obscure reason. What, no dancing girls? The National Soccer League was dead, buried, and cremated well before any of this plague & pestilence appeared. So that's finito for sure, as they go into receivership with nothing to sell in a fire sale. The National Basketball League will continue to sputter and spurt as it has done for its entire existence, the Super Netball won't play in gymnasiums with thousands of screaming fans crammed together on the bleachers anymore, and the Olympics is kaput. Stone dead. It'll be a very tough ask to get the enthusiasm and "care factor" going for Tokyo 2021. (In a Great Depression, world travel will be the province of only the leaisured wealthy anyway). Bring on competitive wall climbing! It's the end of the road for that crazy conflated idea of the Baron Pierre de Coubertin. What was the dude thinking? "Faster, Higher, Stronger" will no longer cut the mustard as everyone now focuses their laser beams entirely on survival and resilience. The once fabulous IOC gravy train has ground to a shuddering halt, and will never move out of the siding again. Current Olympic plans would send Paris and Los Angeles fully broke in any case.
By now "nothing will ever be the same" "and "it's all a day-to-day proposition" have already become lame platitudes, but nothing's more certain than spectator sport becoming an entirely different thing altogether, and maybe, just maybe, for the better. Or worse? Who knows? With the exception of Melbourne, the days of the "enormous crowds" look done for, and all you'll be able to do is read about the "tremendous atmosphere" in the lil' old history books or give some old timer a drink or three and they'll tell you all about how marvellous everything was back in the good old days. "Open the gates, and they will come" has always been a myth anyway.
The 2020 football season is toast. No amount of wishful thinking will change that. Perhaps the only thing anyone can be vaguely confident of 'going forward' is the crowds at next summer's Sheffield Shield matches won't change that much. After a long, cold, bitter winter of discontent, The Man and His Dog will still turn out to watch first class cricket. No one else will. And the Dear Ol' Swannies and The Mighty Tiges will finish the season with a win each.
