A return to telecasting State League matches on free-to-air TV is back on AFL Tasmania’s agenda.
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It was one of the talking points from the Future of Football Forum, according to the state CEO Robert Auld.
The TSL had trialed live streaming games late in the year and were encouraged by the positive response.
“We have been in some discussions of how we’d bring that to life,” Auld said.
“There’s no doubt that fans nowadays consume the game differently today.
“Live streaming has been a good pilot for us and we’ll take away three games we have live streamed this year.
“Ultimately, whether that transpires into free-to-air time will tell.
“But I do think we have to innovate and find ways to bring the game to fans.”
Integrating community football into a competition model provided a sticking point at the forum that gathered more than 40 of the game’s stakeholders in the state at Launceston.
“It’s fair to say it’s the area we had the most challenge with – and not surprising,” Auld said.
He pointed out that two key issues were the “talent pipeline” – sitting underneath the State League – and also creating new regional junior academies.
Clubs agreed the “logical starting point” was for the nine current TSL clubs to run junior academies from as early as 12 years of age parallel with existing state academies and the state development league.
“We’ve got some strong suggestions how we might bring that forward but we didn’t come out with a final template,” Auld said.
Clubs also found common ground on a standard competition model to include:
- a points system;
- a salary cap;
- a review of zones;
- school football integration
“The four of those were unanimously supported – in fact, I think it’s fair for me declare that it’s not a matter of if, it’s only when we bring those to life,” Auld said.
Both the NTFA and SFL in Hobart have already adopted the points system. Auld said the points system and salary cap has to “work in unison” to retain TSL players.