Brian Roe | Sports broadcasting fails to go distance

And that it be allocated sufficient air time to be able to do just that - and perhaps most importantly without any inherent bias.

The past week has provided some striking examples of why the current fare, as limited as it is, fails to deliver.

On Wednesday night a recently-resigned high profile football club president interviewed a recently-resigned prominent company director about who might best lead the Australian Football League in a professional capacity in the future.

Now there is no question that both men have acquired the knowledge and expertise to speak on the subject, but right now any truly objective producer would surely have struggled to justify them as the best options to prognosticate on the subject on air.

But for shows like Footy Classified that are essentially privately owned and produced, there is no requirement for objectivity.

The problem is there is no equivalent either in the specific genre or covering sport generally that might make such calls accountable or provide an alternate assessment.

Have we reached the stage where we might not care about such matters any more - perhaps content just to agree with those of similar views within the limited scope of our personal social media channels?

However, what got me personally riled up was last Sunday's edition of the ABC's Offsiders program.

More than half the 30-minute show was allocated to commentary on the previous day's AFLW grand final. In my view the match was a pretty ordinary affair.

No doubt the decision to allocate time in this way was due to the growing obsession with the notion that women's sport was only invented a few years ago when the remaining footy codes joined soccer in providing a higher level option for females.

In stunning contrast not one second of the program was devoted to the national championships in athletics and swimming, nearing completion as Offsiders went to air.

These are two sports in which Australian women have excelled for generations at world level and continue to do so.

So too of course the males but this comparison is more directly about just how good our women are, and about the coverage and respect they deserve.

Although the swimming championships were not also the Olympic Trials, our stars like Cate Campbell, Ariane Titmus and Emma McKeon were on song - as usual delivering world-leading performances.

The Athletics Nationals were also the trials for Tokyo and produced a swathe of globally competitive performances not seen in years.

For more than a decade, too many Australians in track and field have reserved the "QF1" option to make national teams. In other words if it doesn't work out at the domestic trials then late-season European competition will provide the solution.

But the pandemic has forced Australian athletes and coaches to believe Olympic and world championship qualification can be achieved at home just as it was in the past.

The standards for qualification by performance for an Olympics have never been harder than they are in 2021 but a big group of Australians have developed their skills and belief to achieve them.

Others have competed well and often - and consequently should be rewarded by eventual qualification on world ranking.

It is the women who have shone most. Led by Nicola McDermott who last Sunday became the first Australian female to clear two metres in the high jump - in winning the national title, the list is significant.

Hana Basic has emerged from obscurity even within the sport to become the country's fourth-fastest ever over 100 metres. Then there is the petite refugee Bendere Oboya whose graceful domination of the 400 metres provides a wonderful tale.

In middle distance there has been the fearless front running of Catriona Bisset and Linden Hall, and in field events the bounce back of Brooke Stratton in the long jump and the return to form of Kath Mitchell, Kelsey-Lee Roberts and Dani Stevens in the throws.

Each is world class - and they are not alone. At least the national broadcaster's flagship programming should be acknowledging them.