I come from NSW and have supported the Sydney Swans since they formed in Sydney. Since moving to Queensland I still want to support the Swans, but the problem has been seeing the matches. Unless I get pay TV I have to be content to only watch the occasional match. I am not interested in other teams and do not sit and watch AFL all weekend.

However this year I have only been able to watch one match out of 19 and it is all because the regional TV stations are only allowed to broadcast 4 matches per week and they are to give preference to the local teams. Example, all the games that Brisbane and the Gold Coast play are broadcast every weekend and that leaves very little chance of other games being broadcast. In SA it is the Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide that are all broadcast and in Sydney it is the Swans and Giants that get the preference.

I think that the AFL is deliberately trying to force fans to follow their local team by showing all their games and ignoring all the others. It is just pot luck if you support another team and it happens to be shown or it plays the local team.

I think it is grossly unfair that out of town supporters of AFL teams have to use pay TV while the locals get all matches broadcast on 'free to air'.

AFL does not reply to specific emails.

Nothing to do with social engineering, Henry; it's all about where the money is for TV moguls. I do understand your frustration, but I prefer to entertain myself, not watch other people doing stuff.

It seems reasonable, & rational to me for a TV station to broadcast the games that most in the broadcast area want to watch. I think the local population would have a perfect right to complain if their screens were full of teams from a thousand or more kilometres away, in which they had little interest.

Personally I would like to see all football codes receive considerably less time on news broadcasts, my interest in a bunch of Victorian teams running around a park could not be less if the game was played by ants.

I'm afraid Henry it's a case of, when in Rome, watch what the Romans watch.

I don't know about AFL Henry, but I have a son who is extraordinarily interested in another football code. He chose his mobile phone network company because they broadcast on the phone, all, or more of the games of that code, than the local TV stations. There may be one doing this for AFL.

We get rugby in SA when state of origin comps or whatever they are called are on DESPITE that fact that rugby is not played in SA.

HenryL,
Can't you lifestream NSW TV over the internet? I have with the ABC, and I assumed it could be done with the commercial stations too, though I've never had any reason to check.
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ttbn,
Those State of Origin games are Rugby League.
That's a completely different sport from Rugby.

Both Rugby and Rugby League are played in SA, though only at an amateur level.

steeetching it a bit too far the threads title NRL is my game and we too suffer
Not because of hilarious view it is social engineering but because ratings power the TV