A ball is yet to be kicked, but already this AFL premiership season is unlike any other. The sport of Australian football has weathered world wars, recessions and disease in its near 160-year history. And it will survive Covid-19. But the road to liberation will be a rocky one littered with disruption, insecurity and financial hardship. The 2020 season will forever have an accompanying asterisk in the annals of the game.
The AFL, like all entities mired in this global health crisis, is doing its level best to navigate waters hitherto uncharted. What we do know is that the AFL season is being reduced to 17 rounds, with each club playing each other club once. Round one, at this stage, will kick off as scheduled at the MCG on Thursday night. Until further notice all matches will be played with no supporters in attendance, as will the remainder of the AFLW season.
What we don’t know is what will happen next. The landscape is fluid to the point that it changes not daily but by the hour. It’s conceivable that round one could start but not finish. It’s also possible round one will be delayed indefinitely. Steps have already been taken to postpone state leagues and talent programs around Australia until 31 May. In the AFL there is a resolve to get the show on the road – in response to a questionnaire put to players by the AFLPA this week, over 80% voted in favour of playing this weekend – but the only certainty right now is that nothing is certain. If one player tests positive to the coronavirus, the entire AFL competition will go into mandatory lockdown for 14 days. The impact of further positive cases might depend on the efficacy and compliance with hygiene and containment protocols.
“We’ve got 40 weeks to get a 17-week season away,” AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said. “If it’s done by the end of September, fabulous. But if we need more time, we’ll do that. That’s our commitment to the industry. This unprecedented community challenge requires unprecedented community response.”
In cutting the season to 17 rounds and intending to start the season on schedule, the AFL is anticipating the need to be flexible; it knows it must factor in inevitable downtime. Match-ups in the first four rounds will remain as fixtured, but the remaining 13 rounds will be “recalibrated” in response to challenges that will come. To get the season away, almost anything is on the table. Games could be shortened to cater for clubs playing multiple games in a week. Matches might be played on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. There might be a mini-draft to help clubs replace players laid low by the coronavirus. The grand final might not be played on the last Saturday in September, but in October or even November. How a late-running AFL season will impact on summer sports such as cricket, which in October and November is due to host the men’s Twenty20 World Cup at Australia’s biggest stadiums, including the MCG, remains to be seen.
The majority of the sport’s revenue comes from its broadcast deal, so while fewer games and empty stadiums will hurt the AFL and its clubs financially, the focus of administrators is to deliver on their plan for a 17-match season that features finals and produces a premiership-winning club. Even with this, the best-case scenario, the bottom line of all concerned will be hit hard. While the Australian Rugby League is seeking financial assistance from the government for its 16 NRL clubs, the indication is that the AFL will attempt to shoulder its own load.
“Some clubs are stronger than others financially but no club could anticipate the way in which this virus is going to reduce our revenues and therefore put out viability at risk,” Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett said on Melbourne radio this week. “This is an extraordinary circumstance. We’ve been through GFCs, we’ve been through small recessions. I’ve never seen anything as universal as this. Our job is to ensure that this code is able to survive in order that once this coronavirus passes we can resume normal activities. That will place a lot of strain on a lot of component parts in the AFL.”
McLachlan, along with other high-earning administrators, is taking a pay cut. AFLPA boss Paul Marsh wants the AFL to be open to a 22-round season if time and opportunity permits, but as things stand the players will also suffer a pay reduction to the tune of around 20%. “It would be silly of me not to realise that if I’m playing 17 games rather than 22 and in front of no fans, then of course players are going to have to take a pay cut,” Essendon midfielder David Zaharakis said. “The whole community is affected by this. It’s bigger than us just in football. Everyone is suffering and we are a part of that.”
The degree of suffering is yet to be seen. Nobody could have predicted, nor planned for, the way Covid-19 would disrupt and dismantle our everyday lives. But lessons learned from this may alter the way sporting bodies such as the AFL conduct their governance to be better prepared for future crises. Right now, however, we are in it up to our ears. When asked earlier this week how long it would take the AFL to free itself from the effects of the coronavirus, McLachlan answered: “If I knew that, I should probably be advising Canberra rather than the other way around. This is so uncertain, it’s moving all the time. Even the experts don’t know. You might have a rule book today. It won’t apply tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, anything could happen. For many Australians, AFL and sport itself is a way of life. But in these extreme times we are learning that public freedoms are the first thing to go. For the sake of something far greater, for sports fans around the world 2020 might be about taking one for the team.
