Diamond_Jim

I assume the rating for Essendon is based on the theory that because of their recruiting they will be better than last year. Personally I thought they over performed last year... just as we under performed. Stop Daniher and you stop Essendon in all probability.

I had that thought as well and you are probably right. Of course if they are big enough and the traditional cable TV (ie local providers) fall away the monolith becomes a "price maker" rather than a price taker and the AFL will have to take a much reduced price to get onto the system. More likely that the sports will get into direct marketing and the monolith will never get off the ground but who knows.

You can fly to Asia for that amount ....Australian airfares are way too high. On the other hand by comparison to what thy used to charge us that's a bargain. Now all you have to do is to find some accommodation under $200 a night ! Enjoy yourself ... a nice 10 goal first quarter would be good and then outscore them by around 2 goals each quarter for the rest of the match. Somehow I doubt that will happen. The low clubs always think they have a chance against us ... and we always seem to give it to them.

Remember the policy of no TV unless the GF was a sell out. One year Channel 7 had to buy a swag of tickets so it could show the game. If you think about it the VFA were the ones who blazed the trail with their FTA live matches every Sunday. Fascinating to try and predict the future of sports broadcasting. Ten years ago would we have imagined that Netflix would have the reach that it has today. Perhaps there will be a Netflix that emerges in the Sports market ie.one company..... all the sport you can watch for $20 a month.

Interesting... Most are in the ballpark but Port (2-8) and Essendon are rated too highly and perhaps Bulldogs (7-12) and West Coast (8-12) are under rated. I'd have both these clubs at 6-10. In the case of Port and Essendon.. I would also rank them at 6-10. One of Port's problem is that it will probably lose to Adelaide which means two less wins for the season. Just saw Moonshadow's post .... seems we are in agreement that Bulldogs and West Coast are under rated.

Interesting vibe on the board these days. Starting to feel like 1987 where a lot of players that had been okay to that time started to have a real impact. The Febey brothers come to mind as a good example. Hopefully this is Salem's year. No doubt he has the talent.

Thought it might be time for a World Cup logistics update for those who are interested. I planned to drop into Moscow for three nights before heading onto my base in Kazan. Booked a hotel through Agoda in the normal way with attendance guaranteed by credit card and then started hearing all these horror stories about hotels in Moscow cancelling bookings for the WC. Emailed the hotel twice but no reply. Did a dummy booking at the hotel and was told 4 nights minimum stay (I had booked for 3 nights) and the rate had increased.I got in touch with Agoda and they had their Russian speaking consultant phone the hotel and supposedly my booking is good. Who knows... so if you guys know of a couch that I can share in Moscow it could be good back up. Now onto Kazan where I have booked an Air bnb. Have used airbnb all around the world for the last few years and they are great. The big plus is the payment system. Airbnb act as the broker and no probs with false sites etc and payment is so simple. Russia however has a twist for foreign visitors. Usually if you are in any city for more than 7 days you need to formally register your presence with the authorities. For the WC the requirement to register has been reduced to 24 hours if you are in a WC host city. Registration requires a personal visit by you and the host to the authorities. Nobody knows how this mass registration is going to work in practice. My Kazan airbnb host with whom I communicate by means of google translate has no idea either. Such joys ... but all part of the adventure.... PS Is Timmy ever going to get onto the park with Milwall??

Now that is a nice debating point and deserves a considered response. Cricket is facing such a question in a round about way with the Big bash. Should it keep it on Channel 10 where it rates well and the kids love it etc or should it give it to foxtel or even worse Optus for more dollars. Cricket in the UK (including test cricket) has been behind a paywall for around 10 years after cricket lobbied to be taken off the UK anti siphoning list.

Thanks SWYL ... I downloaded one from a third party that got me onto 774 but I also like my News radio occasionally so I will try Tunein

That is the total number of foxtel subscribers .... the number who sign up because of the AFL package would be far fewer. Total membership of all clubs is a tad under 1 million but that is often 2-3 persons per household. My figure of 1 million is reasonable but even at say 1.5 million the amounts are around the same. Remember under the internet package you are getting nothing but the AFL.... no movies.. no Game of Thrones etc etc As to advertising who would pay for a service with ads especially a lot of ads. Foxtel advertising revenue would not be that great. In many cases it's just promos for other shows. I agree banner advertising might get you a few dollars

but why .... please do not tell me that they are intending to sell their streaming rights a la the AFL overseas listening app.

The world of internet streaming is complicated. Just noticed that my ABC apps had disappeared from my phone. I downloaded new ones and cannot find the links to radio that used to be there. Just news in text form. Google ABC and find out that now their App has disabled radio streaming while overseas. I can understand that they need to do this for some content such as cricket etc but to completely shut off their app to overseas streaming is weird. Strangely enough I can still stream by going through web sites. This is from their FAQ page: I downloaded the App in Australia and when I am travelling overseas I can’t see all of the features Yes. Outside of Australia some features are limited. These include streaming content, weather, and notifications. Rest assured, as soon as you arrive back in Australia, your ABC App will restore full functionality.

Foxtel use AFL as a loss leader to sell their subscriptions. The sports package premium itself would go nowhere near what they pay for the rights. So that begs the question. In an internet world selling just the sports package what would we mugs pay? Hard to say to the last dollar but in simple terms the rights are now worth $418M per year. Let's assume there are 1 million people prepared to pay for an AFL subscription. At that fee we would need to each pay $418 per year plus a share of production costs. As you can see if you only took foxtel for the six months of the AFL season you are getting line ball on what we would need to pay under an AFL internet model. Where I think we all have a very legitimate beef with Foxtel is that it is selling old school technology in the sense that its premium HD model only goes to one TV set etc. Foxtel Go is a much better product but it lacks HD and a lot of the other bells and whistles that we have come to expect. For the sake of my argument I have ignored what the FTA network contributes to the rights deal as increasingly they will desert the field as the rights prices increase.

Interesting about all the "depth comments". Much the same was said at this time last year and yet when the injuries hit our depth was shown to be lacking. Brayshaw and Frost are a cut above the VFL and rightly challenge for inclusion as does Pederson but the rest of our fringe players are yet to show that they can play at AFL level. When the likes of JKH, Maynard, White etc were included last year they failed to impress. Perhaps 2018 will be different.

Thanks Earl .... you are really filling me with dread but I like the honesty. I like going to VFL games ... went to about five last year but have never ventured out to Casey. Those bacon and egg rolls do sound good though

Not one for conspiracy theories but I would like to know more about this medical report. Really is time for independent medico reports perhaps.

what can one say .... hope it gets some media attention because that was soft

Would like to see this list down to 2 or 3 players. Add Mckenna and Jetta and you have 10 players ... around 25% of the list. They are in the main minor but if we are to succeed this year the injury list is a KPI in itself. In theory it could be down to VdB, Smith, McKenna and Viney by JLT 2. That would be great.

Life is much easier when we stuff up like we usually do. The tension that goes with success is something we rarely have to deal with as MFC supporters.

The hardest games on paper before the bye are Geelong, Adelaide and Richmond. In each of those we go in with an even chance. The first 11 games will probably determine our season . Turn 5-6 and it is over. On the other hand turn at 9-2 we can start to seriously worry. My concern is that we rarely have easy wins. A combination perhaps of inadequate forward line and leaking easy goals over the back. I have a feeling we may just get our forward structure right this year and as to the other .. who knows. Of course I have often been known to be wrong when it comes to the MFC.

such confidence OD. I, of course have us winning every game up to the bye. Have not looked beyond that as yet.

Hi I was thinking of heading out to Casey for JLT 2. Have never been to the ground before but I have heard various stories about car park problems etc. Also what are the viewing areas like. Assuming a crowd of say 10,000 and it being a night game I am interested in comments by the regulars about logistics etc. At least we should not have the winter wind/fog issue. Cheers

If we had beaten North and had done the job against Collingwood in round 23 we would have been equal on points with GWS who finished 4th last year. In that sense a top 4 finish is no pipe dream. Winning the big one requires luck ... something we haven't had lots of for around 50 years. I live in hope !!

Choice of an ISP is very dependent upon your location and of course as to whether you have NBN and what type of NBN etc etc. There is a wonderful forum called Whirlpool that has an enormous section on the choice of ISP's. If you have NBN make sure you select an ISP that has a good ratio of (forget what it is called but for the sake of discussion lets call them NBN lines) to users. There is one they recommend highly on Whirlpool in contrast to say Dodo that has a bad reputation in this area. If you would like post some details of your set up ... ADSL or NBN etc and I am sure that the technically minded on the forum will come along and offer some help. One other thing you need to bear in mind is wireless distribution within your house.

Reading on Bigfooty that the replays via the App are now at 420p quality whereas formerly they were at 720p Are the games themselves at that resolution... Not the greatest for watching on the big screen. I have cable TV in Asia and watch matches on Australia Plus. The quality of the normal programs is good standard but when it comes to AFL they are using high compression rates and watching on a 60 inch TV is not the best. I assume this is done to allow it to be sent through the international cables at low cost and almost live whereas normal programs are on three hour delay at least so there is much longer to send the product. The EPL etc on HD is at a fantastic level. Formula 1 is now using ultra cameras. Cannot understand also why Foxtel etc does not give viewing options.For example there is footage from overhead and behind the goals they could make available live.. not to mention different commentaries. I would like crowd noise with no commentary for example on many occasions. If they are going to charge top dollar they need to improve the product.