The Old Television Sports Hustle: Commentary from the Buffalo Club

This piece somehow got out of hand, turning from a small political commentary to be tapped out between my afternoon dose of The Good Oil and Big Wednesday drinks to some jaded, drawn out, heavily researched screed that breaks down the current sports broadcasting situation in Australia better than any document written to date. It really escalated, and it was only partly the fault of your much-lauded author.

In the late night throes of note-taking, dictation and heavy writing, my new assistant, Dr Alice Yardberry, was shot off to hospital and hasn’t returned since. She, of course, is not really a doctor but I was in need of an assistant and she was in need of some delusional fantasy, seemingly, so in the interests of personal order, she was bought on.

Her first two days were adequate; despite the fact she had a rather annoying habit of constantly whistling the theme to Blossom out her nose. Bills were paid, correspondence filed, tea made…

Then, without warning, she fell to the ground, screeching of severe palm pain and visions of the future. After a period of horrendous noise, she was soon shuffled off to hospital by some geeky cab driver named Iqbal. He seemed to know what he was doing.

That was a week ago and she has not returned. It is for the best. Valuable lessons were learnt, the most pertinent being never hire women who pretend to be doctors.

Since that eventful night, chaos has reigned supreme at The Buffalo Club. Randoms wander in and out at all hours looking for medical supplies, bootlegged wine and songs for the revolution. Unopened envelopes and partly read newspapers pile up. Four plumbers and two employees of the water company spent five hours in and out and under and over The Buffalo Club, trying to find the water meter and fix a leaking shower yesterday. Telephones are ringing constantly.

The carnage has me in a permanent state of anger and surliness. And the world keeps on turning…

But that doesn’t stop the anger. And thinking of the sports broadcasting laws in this country, their stupidity, and the ineptitude of proposed reforms just gets the blood boiling at a more tropical temperature.

Currently, the sports fan and the punter and Joe Worker get completely and utterly bent over and treated most unkindly and without a great deal of dignity by the current television situation. Television ownership laws, a failure to embrace technological advancements, a culture of protectionism and anti-siphoning legislation all work to stop The Common Man from being able to watch live sport.

In hindering live sport being shown through protectionist legislation all facets of the gambling industry suffer. The more live sport, the more punters will want to wager, the more money will be turned over by bookmakers, the more tax the government receives, the more demand there is for sports information and the more money there is available to pay bearded sports columnists to pen incoherent screeds. Industry representatives on both sides of the ledger should be espousing such views to those with The Power.

Live sport is beneficial to punters. No argument. More opportunities and more information.

The proposed legislation is an improvement on this current situation but hardly changes the scene in any substantial manner. The movement to a use or lose situation is one step in the right direction but the ideal situation is a mile from being viewed. It is legislation designed to suit the greedy free-to-air heavyweights and being sold by a minister so incompetent that she makes that rat Stott-Despoja seem useful.

The legislation needs balls. Big ones that will shake things up and break down the shackles of protectionism.

The first thing that needs to occur is increased competition in the free-to-air television market. More licenses, more owners, more channels. Combined with multichanneling, where TV networks have a number of channels, this would see more live sport. TV networks would attempt to appeal to tangible niches by devoting one of their channels to sport. With more networks and more channels, there would be more airtime for live sport.

If these channels chose not to show a particular sport, pay television would have the right to purchase live broadcast rights. Even further live sport for all.

The anti-siphoning list, that holds over 1300 sporting events for free-to-air television, needs full reform. Sporting organisations should be free to negotiate broadcast rights directly with any potential purchaser and the rights distributed as such. As each organisation will be seeking maximum coverage, they will no longer sell exclusive rights but partial rights, as is done in the United States.  

There also needs to be greater efforts made to make pay television more accessible, as is the situation in the United States where 83.7% of households have cable. Making pay television more accessible, namely through pricing as well as in terms of infrastructure, would allow more people more access to more live sport and is the underlying key to increasing the overall viewership of live sport.

More licenses. Removal of ownership restrictions. Multichannelling. Anti-siphoning list reform. Pay television reform. The steps to better sports watching.

Perhaps this wasn’t the articulate prose agreed upon early in the piece. Promises were made but the slope got steep and drinking red wine and dealing with a team of plumbers frazzled the nerves and left many of the poetic words out there in the ether. So be it. Points have been made and the education process rolls on. My part has been done and, presumably, payment is in the pipeline of Australia Post.

And to bed with all that.