Here’s my take on what I heard on Sports Geek trip in the US.

http://www.sportsgeek.com.au/index.php/2010/02/08/working-with-league-brands/

As for the paywall I must admit as an Essendon supporter I haven’t subscribed to the tv part of the website (nor have I with Liverpool FC, the majority of Premier League clubs have a similar thing) but I have subscribed to NBA.tv. But only because you get whole games and every game. Until the AFL gets that happening like you were saying I can’t see paywalls being that successful. And from your figures clubs would need to sell alot of extra memberships/paywall subs/advertising to recoop the Bigpond money.

I too lament the lack of innovation by the AFL and club websites. But the issue is fairly complex. Telstra Bigpond purchased the rights to all AFL/club websites for about $12m a year (expiring in 2011) – this is expected to double (at least) when the next deal is made (see here: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/stuntman-lifts-lid-on-esky-jump-20091219-l6wl.html). The only club that refused their share of the money and go it alone was Essendon. Presumably they recoup some, if not more money via advertising and a subscription-based service to access their television content. This creates another dilemma for clubs looking at going it alone – do they create a paywall to recuperate some of the costs and potentially alienate fans? Some of the smaller clubs (like my beloved North Melbourne) may not be able to recuperate the same money as the Bigpond contract provides either.

But one things for sure, things will only get more interesting when a National Broadband Network gets up. The possibilities re: direct user access to live broadcasts via IPTV technology are enormous. Potentially, the AFL TV broadcast deal, worth around $150m pa at the moment, will be near worthless in comparison. Whether clubs want to lock themselves into incredibly restrictive contracts like Bigpond’s in such an environment will only become increasingly complex.

Interesting too that many of the screengrabs you have here might as well be Prem League clubs, which only underlines how ‘stale’ the designs have become if they can’t be differentiated between completely different sports and countries!

I recommend your readers check out http://mcfc.co.uk, Manchester City’s newly redesigned website, which was the catalyst for my original post. They’ve gone completely outside of the box and they’re reaping the rewards of putting their supporters first with huge social media traction and presumably traffic.

Great post, and like you I can’t wait until each sports club, regardless of sport, treats their sites as they should be treated.. and not create them from a large cookie-cutter machine!

Cheers