From memes to sports betting, AFL clubs blur the line between big business and fun | Brandon Jack

I’m standing on the Skydeck, which is the corporate schmoozers section of the stadium. There are two guys in all black suits who look like they’re either going to offer me some kind of hors d’oeuvre or ask me to leave. A photographer looks quantifiably lost as he looks up from the camera for a few seconds to watch the game.

I’m spending the day with the GWS Giants social media team, who have transformed Australian sports media. Several people so far have mentioned how weird it is that I’m writing on the team who does the writing. They walk by the desk clump, ask what I’m doing, I tell them, and they raise their eyebrows and walk off. I must admit I have a feeling like I am some sort of virus in a host body.

The Skydeck is simultaneously the most comfortable place to watch a game and the least. It is away from the action you pay to see. There is a constant barrage of advertisements, with the eight large TVs to my right creating one ungodly Mega TV, the tables reserved (but empty) for corporate sponsors. And then behind me, most interestingly of all, tucked away out of view, is something that I feel I wasn’t meant to see but have: the TAB Handball Test.

The sign on it says patrons must be 18+ to be in this area, but there’s a kid who looks about 10 running around the setup collecting balls. (A spokesperson from GWS said under-18s are admitted only in the company of a responsible adult and the area was operated in strict compliance with AFL and venue guidelines, and all relevant laws and regulations.) The two people with clipboards running the stall are taking photos and videos of everyone who participates while also trying to capture the balls as they ricochet off the plyboard setup, flying every which way on to the concourse.

The social media team is responsible for creating a super fun, likable voice and presence for fans online. In a meme pitching session, they discuss using a Kung Fu Panda meme if the team wins, and if the team loses, something from a Captain America movie. But there is a business beneath all this, or rather, enmeshed with it, that needs to function, and my head hurts when I try to figure out where the line exists between the two.

The “TAB thing” is the nexus point of it all. Here’s what happened: at 12pm on 7 February this year, the GWS Giants Twitter (X) account posted a 33-second video announcing the club’s partnership with TAB accompanied by the caption: “We’re on”. The comments on the post tell you all you need to know, saying things like “Gross”, “Very rare GWS L, ngl…”, “So [sic] no to gambling it destroys lives”, “not GWS platforming a betting company, take a giant L on this one lads”. It was like a standup comedian had been asked to stop mid-routine in order to sell a product to an audience that didn’t want to be sold to.

If we are going to discuss the prevalence of gambling money and the AFL, here are some notes: all Victorian based clubs have at some point owned and profited from poker machines. Carlton, Essendon, Richmond and St Kilda still do just that. The AFL (who are responsible for giving each club at least $10m to $11m each year) has a partnership with Sportsbet, featuring advertisements all over their (the AFL’s) website and app, sometimes multiple on the same page. Heck, under the fixture of two teams, the odds appear, as though they are as significant as any other detail that allows the match to take place, and the way the page is designed, all other information seems to create a vector that tracks you to the clickable odds buttons as the salient point as if to say: “Welcome, you’ve arrived at your destination.” And if you do place a bet, then the AFL receives a cut of it known as a “product fee”.

But it doesn’t stop there. The media stations and programs that contribute to the generation of this overall product known as the AFL are in on it too. Fox Footy has its Head over Heart segment with PointsBet, which follows the same format of blending “expert knowledge” from former players, some of whom dribble a bit when they speak and burst into bouts of excitement occasionally, which is really quite jarring to watch. There’s also the In The Back Pocket show, aligned with Fox Footy and Sportsbet and featuring more former players. SEN (who produce the glossy magazine record sold at games) display PointsBet ads on their website featuring (possibly the man with the most endorsement deals in the world) Shaquille O’Neal, and it took a total of one minute listening to the station for me to hear an ad for the Sportsbet Same Game Multi.

The social media team have a spreadsheet with the value of all their creative assets, which is about 15 columns across, essentially covering which platforms what content goes on, how frequently posts occur, and an overall value of the asset. Everything can be counted and a value extrapolated.

If you view the AFL as one big product, one business, one ecosystem, then separating the gambling money from the rest is like trying to siphon grains of sand from, well, other grains of sand. And with this in mind, clubs, who take a seemingly noble stance on anti-gambling, drip in a level of hypocrisy that is in itself deserving of a response, but who exactly has the legs to stand on?

This is not a piece on the morality of gambling and gambling sponsorships in sport. What interests me, and where I’m getting to with all of this, is how they do it.

The Giants, and other teams, have been rewarded for putting their faith in people who understand the intricate ecosystem of memes that are so desperately craved by footy fans sick and tired of the cliches. But where is the line between business and fun?