Please

Please

The AFL site sucks, and so does Bigpond

14 September 2005
Filed under Football, Politics, Text, The Interweb

The AFL website is among the worst websites I visit on a regular basis. For the purposes of this post, I’ll put to one side the general aesthetic crappiness, the awful navigation and the bizarre choices that have been made about information placement on the front page (the ladder? what ladder?), and concentrate on the most infuriating aspect of all: Broadband Features.

Not long ago, I was trying to explain Australian Rules Football to a foreigner, who until that point had been oblivious to the code’s existence. Being an American, he found comparisons with Gaelic football basically unhelpful, and while the Wikipedia entry on the subject is fairly comprehensive, there’s no substitute for actually seeing the game in action, so I went in search for a clip or two I could direct him to.

In my naivete, I thought that the online ambassador for our great game might have a section on ‘AFL for Foreigners and Queenslanders’ – the powers-that-be are always banging on about the importance of spreading the word – but it wasn’t to be. It seems that one’s only option for viewing AFL online is via the Broadband Features section, which is only available to Telstra Bigpond customers or to foreigners who subscribe to AFL-on-demand. There’s no freely-available history-of-footy showreel, no highlights from the last round, no nuthin’. Local customers of other providers (which I believe amounts to more than 50% of the broadband market) can simply fuck off.

This is simply bizarre: the AFL isn’t owned by Telstra, and Telstra isn’t listed as a Corporate Partner on the website. The telco doesn’t have a significant presence (other than the involvement of its pay-TV bedfellow, Foxtel) in football, and isn’t a major sponsor of any of the teams. And yet the website is covered with Telstra advertising disguised as football information (“Live scores, match video and more” for your Telstra phone), and heavily promotes Telstra’s internet offerings. In essence, the AFL website is in fact an extension of Telstra’s marketing regime, and Telstra’s rampant self-promotion runs against the league’s best interests.

The AFL is getting royally screwed, and so are its supporters.

Views from the Floor

chris says:

I gets worse, I believe they have a very similar deal with V8 Supercars.

Only smallpuddle customers get access to live feeds, etc.

Adil says:

Yeh this sucks, bigpond is an asshole doing this they are an asshole and ruining their reputation big time!!!!!

bert says:

hello. you are obviously an absolute moron. I have a couple of things to say..

1) if you love your AFL so much, pay for the f*&*ing service.

2) "The AFL is getting screwed".. umm, no actually they are getting paid a fortune for it..

that's all. have a good life.

Virginia says:

Thanks for your insightful remarks Bert.

Sean says:

I hear you, and it aint going to improve in the near future, because they have just signed up with telstra again.

b.harvey says:

what a wanker u are!!!
cant u use your goddamn mouse or what???it is a basic format page/s & there is always audio /video available on offer!!
wake up champ!!

Virginia says:

Brent? Is that you? A few too many knocks to the head, perhaps.

Mike says:

Forget about trying to find footage.
The whole site is a complete screw up. it is the most difficult to navigate sites i have ever come across.
and as for trying to find useful information?
Earlier this year i wanted to check out the results from the pre season games. Despite being the official AFL site - non of the games were listed.
I emailed the AFL (Telstra) they said that they don't record that information.
Sunday night i wanted to know the finals arrangements. The AFL (telstra's) you need to watch the video of Dimetriou announcing the draw. If i wanted to watch TV i would watch TV.

PK says:

I'm an overseas subscriber to the AFL and I'm absolutely appalled at the bigpond website. The main issue is the slowness of the video - OK. I'm overseas but when I was in Germany, I had no problems accessing ESPN video footage which was overseas too.

Secondly, there is a real issue with the streaming. If on an erratic connection, the streaming DOES NOT display video correctly. It either jumps around or simply stops playing.

Have a look at other sports sites Bigpond - and pull your finger out of your a$$hole$.

Speak, friend, and enter


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