AFANA Footy BBS

I was considering subscribing to that AFL membership thing they have on the AFL website next year and was wondering if anyone else in North America does this and if they felt it was worth it. Apparantly it's $59 but I'm wondering how the video quality is? Does the video cut out since it's streaming from so far?

> I was considering subscribing to that AFL membership thing they have on the AFL
> website next year and was wondering if anyone else in North America does this

Lot's of people do and if it weren't for North Americans, I doubt the service would survive.

> and if they felt it was worth it. Apparantly it's $59 but I'm wondering how the video
> quality is? Does the video cut out since it's streaming from so far?

First off, I would suggest waiting until next March and sign up for next season. The features and packages change from season to season. Feedback to AFANA says that those with high speed connections generally think the service is worth it. Otherwise it is just not practical. Video was 24 hrs delayed this season and audio was live. How reliable the service is depends on your ISP and their connection to the internet backbone, limits on streaming, load on the AFL servers, etc. Some fans say it's great, others had less success.

Our TV and Media newsletter will have full coverage on this in the leadup to and start of next season.

-Rob de Santos
AFANA Chairman

AFANA Blog

> Lot's of people do and if it weren't for North Americans, I doubt the service
> would survive.

> First off, I would suggest waiting until next March and sign up for next
> season. The features and packages change from season to season. Feedback to AFANA
> says that those with high speed connections generally think the service is worth it.
> Otherwise it is just not practical.

Thanks Rob. By the way, I was surfing around the web and came across some interview you did with prolefeed.com, interesting read. I think though in some ways the name Australian Rules does hurt a bit. I know personally with some friends that I've tried to introduce the sport to, the name drives some away. I guess they're just too patriotic. (http://www.prolefeed.com/2004/master.html?http://www.prolefeed.com/2004/0909.html)

/0909.html)

> Thanks Rob. By the way, I was surfing around the web and came across some interview
> you did with prolefeed.com, interesting read.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it and I appreciated the opportunity to do the interview. More recently, I've done some interviews with television and sports "trade" publications that have yet to appear.

> I think though in some ways the name
> Australian Rules does hurt a bit. I know personally with some friends that I've
> tried to introduce the sport to, the name drives some away. I guess they're just too
> patriotic.

I suppose patriotism could be one description but I'd probably choose nationalism or parochialism as better terms. We'll never get those fans any more than you can get the "true believers" in soccer to come over to Aussie rules. As I alluded to in the interview, the key has always been exposure. Get an open minded sports fan to watch the sport a couple of times and you'll make fans out of a healthy percentage of them. It's also useful not to think of this as a zero sum game. Most North Americans are fans of multiple sports and all we need to do is add one more to their mix.

The controversy about "Aussie rules" or "Australian football" versus some other name for the sport will continue. Since AFANA's focus will remain primarily on the AFL for the forseeable future (a professional US and Canadian based league in the sport being far off in the distance), it's less of a problem for us than it is for the USAFL and shouldn't be a handicap we can overcome with some imagination.

-Rob de Santos
AFANA Chairman

AFANA Blog