NFL Rocks Up to the G and Steals Our Ground, Not Our Game

So the Yanks came to town and 100,000 of us turned up to watch a sport where they stop every eleven seconds for an ad break. Carn the Pies, but fair’s fair – that’s a serious crowd, and it’s got me thinking about a few things.

The MCG hosted the 49ers and the Rams on Friday night and by all accounts it was a proper occasion. Good on the Yanks. But as a rusted on Collingwood person I’ve got opinions, and you’re gettin all of them.

100,000 people watched HOW many stoppages?

Can we just sit with that number for a sec? A hundred thousand human beings packed into our cathedral to watch a game where blokes run ten metres, get tackled, and then everyone has a fifteen minute committee meeting before the next play.

I’m not knocking it. Genuinely, good on the NFL for pulling a number like that. But it does make you wonder what they’d reckon if they came back in a fortnight and saw the Pies and the Hawks slugging it out in the mud with no ad breaks, no timeouts, just relentless end to end footy for two hours straight.

They’d probably need a lie down. Our game is a different beast and I reckon deep down everyone at that game knew it.

The MCG copped a hammering and I’m not thrilled about it

Here’s my gripe, and I’m allowed one. That surface is sacred ground. Every Anzac Day, every granny, every time the Pies have walked out there since 1892 give or take, that turf has meant something.

Now it’s had an American gridiron painted, scraped, and stomped into it mid-season. The curators will tell you it’ll recover in time for finals footy and I’m sure it will, they’re professionals and they know what their doing. But it still gives me the irrits a little bit, watching our home get borrowed out like a function room.

Would it happen at the SCG? Probably. Would it happen at Marvel? Definately would, they’d rent that place out for a school formal if the price was right. The G though – that one stings just a touch more.

Jonas Brothers rocked it, I’ll give them that

Look, I’m 51 and my knowledge of the Jonas Brothers begins and ends with my daughter’s phone case, but by all reports the halftime show went off. Crowd loved it, big lights, big sound, the whole showbiz package that we just don’t really do at footy.

Could you imagine that at the MCG on Grand Final day? Some pop outfit doing a three song medley at three quarter time while Bucks is trying to settle his blokes down in the huddle? I’d riot. Peacefully. But I’d riot.

Fact is the Americans know how to put on a show around their show. We could probably learn something there, even if I’d never admit that to a Yank’s face.

What’s in it for AFL footy, actually?

This is the bit that matters to us. The NFL isn’t here for a holiday, they’re here to grow the game, and you’d be silly to think that doesn’t put a bit of pressure on our competition long term for eyeballs, sponsorship dollars, the lot.

Does it worry me? A little bit. Does it keep me up at night? Nah. Our game has been around since before Federation and it survives because it’s ours, it’s tribal, and you can’t manufacture what happens at a Pies-Cats final in September with a marketing budget, no matter how big the halftime act is.

Still, the AFL boffins should of been watching that crowd number closely. A hundred thousand for an exhibition game between two teams half our fans couldn’t name a single player from tells you Aussies will turn up for a genuine spectacle regardless of code. That’s worth remembering next time someone wants to cut a member deal or shift a marquee game to a tin shed interstate.

The umpires probably wish they had NFL rules

Can you imagine our men in green with access to a review booth for every contentious holding the ball call? They’d never leave the box. Might actually improve some of the decisions we’ve copped this year, and don’t get me started on how the Pies always seem to draw the short straw on free kick counts in tight games. I’m not saying it’s deliberate. I’m just saying it’s a funny old coincidence that keeps happening to us specifically.

The Yanks review everything to within an inch of its life and their games still take three and a half hours. So maybe there’s a lesson there too – sometimes you’ve just got to let the umpires call it and get on with the footy.

Where does this leave us?

Look, credit where it’s due. The NFL put on a genuine show, the crowd was proper, and the game clearly has appetite in this country if you package it right. Fair play to them.

But footy is footy. It’s ours, it’s been ours for a century and a half, and no amount of gridiron on our turf or Jonas Brothers on our stage changes what happens when the Pies run out at the G in front of their own with a flag on the line.

Let the Yanks have their weekend in the sun. We’ll take the rest of the year, thanks very much.

Carn the Pies.