Opinion: Sport is Big Business - Get Used to it!

Originally posted at The Roar

Has the dust settled after the Swans 32-point loss to the GWS Giants last Saturday at Spotless Stadium? I really hope so. Talk about a week full of knee-jerk reactions.

Most interestingly, for mine, has been talk amongst both Swans fans and those who, because of Buddy and Tippett, choose now to hate the team, who had formerly been – and you’ll pardon the pun here – the AFL’s Ugly Duckling and apparently now is everyone’s most-hated team. It is all about the Bloods culture and how the recruitment of Tippett and Franklin has destroyed that culture, and that the Sydney Swans Football Club has sold out

Really? It’s time we all woke up and saw what is really going on here. This isn’t 1984, it’s 2014, and sport now is wholly professional, run like a Fortune 500 business – or sometimes more responsibly – because, perhaps more than winning championships, making money and keeping afloat is the aim of the game. You may not like it, but it’s the changing face of sport, and it’s the way of things going forward, and so it will continue. Gone are the old days and the associated nostalgia. It’s a cutthroat world out there, professional sport.   

As nice as that Bloods culture is, there is a more cynical view to be taken here. Let us examine the situation of the Swans: they are an AFL team in rugby league heartland, battling in a city where more people call Aussie Rules football ‘gay-FL’ than go to Swans games, or GWS games, for that matter.  Since the GWS Giants have been a part of the competition, things have gotten tougher for the Swans. They aren’t the beneficiary of AFL money like the Giants are. They must make do as they can.

I’ve seen the advent of free agency in the AFL and other moves that are bringing sports leagues in Australia more towards the American or European models, and the apparent outrage that it brings, talk of players selling their souls or whatever, and merely smiled.

Spending time, as I do, in America, free agency and big contracts are part of the cut-throat world over there. It isn’t uncommon for a guy who’s given his heart and soul to a team to move on when there’s better money elsewhere, and although that player is almost always booed upon his return, it’s more a out of tradition rather than any real malice. These things happen, it’s business, is how most fans look at it now. It’s almost accepted.

Now, the same is happening in Australia. It’s evolution. You see it all the time in America: big-name stars are traded or cut or dealt ruthlessly, because the people in management recognise they need to do what’s best for their team. Per chance, that’s why the Swans sacrificed the likes of Mumford, Lamb, Everitt and White for Buddy Franklin. Outside of hard core fans, those names aren’t going to fill anyone with superstar awe. The man who wears #23 just might. That’s why he was recruited. It was business.

I had a conversation with my old man about this the other week. He doesn’t like the idea of getting Buddy, but not because he hates the man, just the idea. In his world, he wants guys who have spent years in the Swans/AFL NSW system to come up into first grade, rather than players bought from elsewhere. That doesn’t work anymore, except on the rare occasion. It’s something of an antiquated view. I told him so. We agreed to disagree.

Focusing on the Swans: AFL here in Sydney is a tough sell. Even the A-League crowds, helped by Alessandro Del Piero at Sydney FC and the start-up success seem to be tracking so far upward that they will begin to overtake those seen at an AFL venue in a few years’ time. The Swans won a premiership in 2012, but almost closed the fiscal year in the red. That alone should indicate how dire their financial situation is.

At the risk of perhaps going under – or, at the very least, not making enough money to be a viable entity – the Swans did the smart thing. They went out and signed two high-profile players, guys who are at or near the top of their game, and are exactly the types needed to help the Swans win premierships. Holding up the Premiership Cup on the last Saturday in September is necessary for the Swans to stay properly afloat and to rate more than a passing mention on the crowded sporting landscape.

In the short term, Franklin’s presence (and, Tippett’s, though to a lesser extent) is putting butts on seats at AFL in Sydney. I sat in front of a group of first-timers at the Sydney Derby last Saturday. They asked us for some pointers on the rules and said, basically, that they’d spent half the summer hearing about Buddy Franklin, and wanted to see what the guy was all about. Would they come to another game? Yeah, as long as it didn’t rain, they said.

In a microcosm, right there, that’s what Buddy Franklin’s press can do, and doubtless what the Swans were hoping it would do. When you’re swimming against the sporting tide in this city, as they certainly are, the way to get ahead is to bring in big names who create buzz, and hope that that buzz raises memberships numbers – it has – and leads to a collection of silverware – I hope it does – in the trophy cabinet in the football club’s front office.

That’s why the Swans pursued Franklin. He’s a gun player on the field and he’s a marketable name, as previous big-name imports Barry Hall and Tony Lockett were before him. He gets people talking, even if they’re not necessarily AFL fans. The real problem is that most of the Swans are nameless and anonymous in this city.

With GWS now on the scene and competing for fans in the west, the AFL product in Sydney is diluted by half, and so, you might say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Anonymity is why players love being up here, of course, but it doesn’t help promotion of the game, which sells tickets and merchandise, which contributes to the financial wellbeing of the club, or lack thereof. The Swans will be hoping that Buddy Franklin and Kurt Tippett make the rest of the playing list far more visible as players. If those two marquee names spearhead a good team, that’s more than likely going to be the case.

In Melbourne, for example, Luke Parker and Tom Mitchell and Dan Hannebery would be big-time stars. People would come in their droves to watch them – that entire midfield, even. In Sydney, they’re not. It’s a shame for those guys, because they’re supremely talented athletes, and it doesn’t help the club financially, either.
I’m sorry, but the supposed destruction of the Bloods Culture just isn’t a thing for me. It’s better that that fabled team-orientated buy-in from years gone by falls by the wayside as opposed to the entire franchise falling apart, isn’t it?

Such is life in the business-orientated sports world. Get used to this – it won’t be changing anytime soon.