This transcript has been lightly edited by AI
Sean: I mean, you talk about different products and the AFLW being introduced opens up new audiences but also different content products that fit for those different markets. It's off the traditional path. AFL and footy in general, we're in a mad footy town here in Melbourne with a lot of focus on the product on the field. But like you said, you're going to be 10-15 years out looking at what we're producing and a lot of that's also happening out of this market. This is a very mature market. They get footy but AFL's new frontier is still what's happening in New South Wales and Queensland so you've got to have that focus, pull yourself out of the back page of the paper and the day-to-day issues that swamp footy and keep an eye on that long term view with these kinds of plans.
Darren: Yeah. If you look at the title, growth digital and audience. If you want to grow we have to be relevant to women, we have to be relevant to the 5-12 year olds and the other area that we need to be relevant is geographically which is the northern markets which happen to be the biggest population and the biggest television audiences and the biggest commercial audiences. At the moment in some of those areas and regions in those northern markets we're not in the consideration set as a sport that people will either consider watching, following or playing. So we got a lot of work to do there. We think that focusing our efforts on the 5-12 year olds and particularly within the curriculum is a big opportunity for us. In our traditional markets we rely upon mums and dads and advocates of the game to promote the game.
Sean: I call it in Melbourne it's guilt level marketing. You know you meet another fan and they'll go hang on you're not a member yet.
Darren: And I think the biggest pockets of our traditional markets that lack growth in football is where there are not white guys. So we actually have to be cognizant that our population is changing and that we have a broader ethnic community and if you're an immigrant to Australia and you wouldn't have grown up watching AFL football but you grew up playing soccer or rugby union or another sport what relevance does AFL football have to you and to your children? Because that's just not in their thinking and we have to recognize that and if we're going to be relevant to those kids we can't rely upon their parents.
This is what we've traditionally done to advocate for the game. People say to me we sort of diverge into esports and they say “I don't get this it's crazy it's like how can anyone watch gamers on a big screen.” How does anyone watch digital, people on screen. I said it's no different to someone from China coming and watching an AFL game of football at the MCG, you know it has about the same relevance as me watching League of Legends. It's no different. So we've got a lot of work to do in that area but I think we have the tools and the strategy to make really strong inroads.
Sean: Yeah I think there was a point when I had Nigel Smart from the Crows on and he was talking about the audience extension piece that diving into esports happens and then you've got other pieces like the foray into China and having games in China both works in China to introduce the market here. But it also introduces to the Asian market here in Australia to make them interested in football potentially talking to their relatives about what this game is as well as doing things like multicultural round where you've got multiple broadcasters or in different languages that kind of thing to bring them into the fold to introduce them to footy.
