Instead we get to watch footy every night.

Channel Seven would be losing considerable sums as advertising income during the Summer Olympics is a bonanza.

In that regular situation, Seven would have had to compromise significantly, juggling its football rights with the Olympic coverage, especially with Tokyo in the same time zone and high profile events from late afternoon until midnight.

But with the happy coincidence that the AFL's call to conduct the condensed section of its roster now has perhaps provided Seven with some welcome compensation.

If all goes well the juggling exercise just moves ahead in time by 12 months.

Maybe if successful it can do the same next year either before or after the Olympics, leaving the Games' fortnight free of the conundrum AFL games present both for Seven and diehard sports fans.

And that might not be a crazy contemplation. Much will have been learned by the greater football industry from the changes and compromises it has had to accept in order to make this season happen.

After a few glitches here and there this probably won't involve permanently replacing "Roaming Brian" Taylor with player's team mates already in the rooms. If there is a 3.5-second delay not sure why the sensitivity button has not been able to be pressed.

But then there are many, including the players, who probably have the view that it should be constantly on lock whenever Taylor has the mike in hand.

What it might include however it more same-day travel - which for many it seems has been a fully positive revelation to all.

Clearly until now the AFL and club bean-counters who would have preferred to save the cost of overnight accommodation, sometimes for two or three nights, have been unable to convince the coaches, phys-eders and players that it's an unnecessary extravagance.

The finance boffins will be delighted to learn for the long-term that, albeit for performance, they have had a great idea all along. Perhaps they should all double-up as assistant coaches and save even more.

Folk who have been involved in Olympic sports like athletics have known for decades that performances can often be very good immediately after travel. And here we are talking about real travel - flying from Australia to Europe and then competing within 24 hours.

Many excellent performances have been achieved off the back of that well-established theory.

The quid-pro-quo however is that it is equally well accepted that it's preferable not to then try to compete for the next seven days. Although that has more to do with the changes in time zone than the travel itself.

For the longer domestic trips even within Australia the experience over time has validated the same sort of theory.

The next ten days in AFL-land will tell us a lot about the impact on teams that have to travel when they have to play again in quick succession.

The most fascinating aspect may be how coaches and high performance managers view hub-life and its impact on players.

Adam Simpson's is probably already obvious. West Coast looked hopeless when living the fortress-life on the Gold Coast, but after a thumping win over Collingwood they are now, in the eyes of some commentators, the premiership favourites.

But we may be surprised if it does play out like that. Simpson may rationalise that being holed-up away from home provided the focus and bonding experience his charges needed to rise again.

It's not hard to imagine the decision to include families in the big experiment will provide the most divided range of opinions.

There will be some players who will insist that it provided them with normality and removed constant fears about how their loved ones were coping. But there will be others who will conclude that constantly worrying about how to keep them occupied in lock-down was a real distraction.

But that may not even be a consideration in the future, as any repetitions of hub-life will be shorter in duration and without the bottomless pit of cash that the AFL has been obligated to provide this time around.

Perhaps just a mid-season fortnight during a cease-fire in hostilities for the Olympics. Could be lots of winners there.