Remember that wonderful Leunig cartoon where a family sits riveted before a TV set watching a spectacular sunset, even as the real sun is setting outside their window?
A lot of sports fans are like this too. They travel and queue to get inside the stadium, then keep a radio plugged into their ear to listen to a commentator's description of what is going on before their eyes. In recent years small portable TVs have replaced the trannies, so if today's game is being televised you can watch it in life and then get the replay on TV. Perhaps we don't trust our own senses, or certainly we don't want to miss anything, and maybe we don't believe it if it's not on the telly.
The smart sports promoters are well aware of this and want to keep their fans happy. This human need has now been fully catered for at Etihad Stadium. A new $10 million upgrade has created an 'embracing experience' for the spectators wherever they sit.
Seven hundred wifi hotspots will make sure no Facebook or tweet will be left unnoticed; 1500 digital TVs will ensure that not one kick or fowl will not be replayed again and again. Embracing experience? Or suffocating? But that's how the fans want it, snapping up the AFL Live Official App for their smart phones so not a precious minute or fact of the sport need be missed.
I remember the first Aussie Rules game I saw. In Darwin, played by a mixed team - some of the boys preferred to play barefoot. I found the fast, high-scoring game thrilling after a youth spent with the somewhat quieter games of soccer and cricket. To me, Footy summarised Australia - quick, loud, daring and determined on success.
So maybe, like our once knock-about suburbs Carlton or Port Melbourne, sport has become expensive and gentrified. It's all a bit too proper because there's so much money riding on it.
The AFL has declared this to be "The Year of the Fans" and has loudly promoted its attention to its fan base after a year consumed by doping cases and rows over ticket pricing and costs. In response, they have given fans back the $3 pie.
The trouble is that there are matters so important that they take away attention from the fans. Like the broadcasting deal that promises to exceed last year's $1.258 billion. A lot of distraction - but you can understand why the broadcasters expect the clubs to dance to their tune.
So a test of "Year of the Fan" is whether matches will be timed to suit footy-loving families, or prime time television.
Of course, despite the grumbles, the Etihad stadium is doing the right thing. The AFL's general manager of media, Peter Campbell, calls it "data-tainment". Fans want more than fit young men running up and down a field. "Gone are the days when putting on a scarf and beanie was enough".
"It's not just what's going on on the ground anymore," said Campbell, reinforcing the stadium's thoughts.
"It's what's on the big screens, the perimeter hoardings; the music over the PA, a fan's engagement with their friends and other supporters on social. There's just as much uploading at games these days as there is downloading."
So now it's an immersive, emotional, communal, multi-media, socially communicative experience. And you thought it was just a day at the footy.
ray@ebeatty.com
