The price of publicity may cost AFL its soul

The date was the 29th of July 2009 when Australia's sporting world was left dumbfounded and baffled at the news that representative and premiership player Karmichael Hunt had just penned a multimillion dollar deal not with the Broncos or Rugby but with new AFL franchise the Gold Coast Suns.  This seemingly bizarre deal was initially reported to earn Hunt close to $3 million dollars, a figure that many AFL executives including CEO Andrew Demetriou confessed had been recouped by the AFL in a mere two weeks worth of publicity but was repeatedly denied to be a publicity stunt.  Well we are 20 months down the track and following Hunt's less than impressive showing it is safe to assume the generated publicity from his code jumping is on a downhill slope.  

Source - Herald Sun

There is no doubt that the fight for superiority in Australia's competitive sporting market is heating up particularly with the NRL and AFL both fighting for television deals rumoured to be worth over $1 billion dollars and with Rugby Union's show piece event the World Cup to be staged later this year the footy codes will be doing absolutely anything to get one up on each other.  Code jumping has been present amongst the Rugby codes for years, although with the AFL now joining the party it seems the war will now be taken to a whole new level and there is no telling what the carnage will be.

The signing of league superstar Israel Folau to the newly established Greater Western Sydney franchise almost a year after Hunt's defection as well as the heavy speculation linking Greg Inglis with the Essendon Football Club in late 2010 further illustrated the AFL's strong intention to lure league's best with promises of money and fame.  This approach may generate short term hype and interest for the AFL's newest franchise's although what is to happen when a year or two from now both Hunt and Folau prove to be complete flops?  Do they get dropped despite the fact that they both signed three year deals and occupy a large portion of the clubs salary cap?  Judging not only by Hunt's debut and Folau's first taste of the sport where he failed to record a single disposal, these questions unfortunately seem to be an inevitable proposition for Demetriou and his staff responsible for both athletes defection to the AFL. 

With great young talent such as Nick Naitanui, Daniel Hannebery and Anthony Morabito it leaves many passionate AFL fans wondering why the games powerbrokers are not only pursuing but throwing major money at athletes who have never even kicked an AFL footy in their lives.  At the moment the outlook seems bleak for the game's first League-AFL converts but only time will tell whether this obsession of chasing down the flashy short term headline will ultimately cost the code its soul and integrity?