RFC website [merged]

[Tigermonk]

Richmond website is the worst updated site in the AFL
still features alot of last season stuff
kids cant even get new wallpaper or screensaver they get each year
send emails to the club & they dont even bother to respond or fix the problem
dont they have any nerds down there working for them 

[1980]

I wish we did too Ramps but until the club receives $2m from some other sponsor to do it then I guess we're stuck with the crappy website from Telstra  .

Not sure what this means. Do we get paid $2m by the AFL for letting Telstra run our website?

Yep something like that 1980. Telstra have paid $60m for the AFL internet and mobile rights and I believe each of the 15 clubs get a $2m slice. Essendon thanks to Yahoo, Seven and 3 have their own independent site of course.

I'm not sure if its just the TV money that gets handed to the clubs or this as well. Either way, you'll find the way the market is going that the club would make a lot more than $2m over 5 years from advertising on its internet site.

Someone should tell them
 

[Jacosh]

What is it with the RFC website? 
I would have thought it would have been logical to at least acknowledge Matt White's and Axel's wins in the GF sprint and handballing competition respectively. While I commend the guys that put in time going to schools/NT etc.  We are a football club after all, wouldn't you think they would at very least put the fore mentioned items on the website.

[mightytiges]

What is it with the RFC website? 
I would have thought it would have been logical to at least acknowledge Matt White's and Axel's wins in the GF sprint and handballing competition respectively. While I commend the guys that put in time going to schools/NT etc.  We are a football club after all, wouldn't you think they would at very least put the fore mentioned items on the website.

Telstra site - say no more.

[Jacosh]

Telstra site aside. Surely RFC has some input of the content, or is that just blind optimism?

[Ekto]

It was a GILLETTE grand final sprint.

It was a CH9 handball comp.

No matter how hard I try....I can't spell TELSTRA or QANTAS with those letters.

How did the WHALE look as it floated over the MCG on Saturday?

[Infamy]

Every year in the membership survey in the comments I put that the club needs to run it's own website and it's embarrassing that Essendon leads the field in this area.

[one-eyed]

Light at the end of the RFC website tunnel? 

-------------------------------------
AFL urged to take back control of its website
Michael Gleeson | December 2, 2008

THE money that has underpinned football has been driven from broadcast revenue, but that money will be increasingly derived from new media and the AFL ought to regain control of its website to potentially produce a better product and generate superior cash.

That was the sentiment of Justin Shaffer, senior vice-president new media for Major League Baseball, who was brought to Australia by the AFL to address the two-day football conference last week and explain the success of the MLB's website.

Going by the MLB experience, the AFL appears to have erred in outsourcing its website to Telstra, which could never understand the product as intimately as the AFL. "I can't speak highly enough about having a go at it yourself with the right group of people," Shaffer told the conference.

Fifteen of the AFL's clubs committed to the centralised management of their websites — only Essendon stood apart — and the AFL sold the design and management of the site to Telstra which then on-sold content provision.

Fundamental to the MLB's approach is that the online business does not cannibalise the TV viewing business, because given choice, people will always prefer their TV to watch the game on than a small computer screen.

"What we have got online to date has made the internet look an awful lot like a TV and that is a substitute when you can't be at your TV. We don't believe in cannibalisation," Shaffer said.

The MLB website won an Emmy award for its mosaic, which allows six games to be watched simultaneously.

The MLB site has more than 200 editorial staff employed to provide commentary while a dozen people are now employed to work exclusively on the mobile technology, which is undoubtedly the new frontier for broadcasting.

MLB, as opposed to the AFL, has embraced the social networking website Facebook, and has created software for a Facebook link that costs it less than $100,000 to develop but now has access to 90 million fans.

The technology is evolving to allow fans to watch a game live online while simultaneously viewing friends watching the game through webcams and discussing the game with these friends while still accessing Major League Baseball's statistics and highlights.

"These are the types of thing you only get when you spend time investing in your intellectual capital and building an organisation focused on this around the clock," Shaffer said.

"If you are outsourcing it you are following, because everything we have done here was groundbreaking."

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/afl-urged-to-take-back-its-website/2008/12/01/1227979934253.html

[Smokey]

I wonder if the egotists at AFL Headquarters can swallow their vanity and admit that what everyone has been telling them was actually right - the AFL website stinks and Telstra have made it less accessible to most fans.

[mightytiges]

Can the AFL see past the $60m they get from Telstra for the rights?! I won't hold my breath. The Essendon site puts ours and the Telstra ones to shame  .

[WilliamPowell]

Being a baseball fan I can say the MLB sites are fantastic and far superior to the crappy AFL sites.

Will admit the layout for the MLB sites are the same (like how the AFL club sites all look the same bar the colours) but the info and news for each MLB site is great

Here's a link to the New York Yankees site 

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com

And the Chicago White Sox

http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com

And to show I am fare here's Boston's

http://boston.redsox.mlb.com

[Ramps]

This is what a sports club website should look like. Clean Professional. All the info you want. Puts other websites to shame.

http://www.smfc.com.au/

[one-eyed]

Telstra hold on footy websites queried
CAMERON NOAKES
December 20, 2009

SPECULATION is mounting that Telstra will lose control of the AFL and the NRL websites, which includes mobile phone coverage, as the Federal Government continues to pour pressure on the telco to separate structurally.

Although the company is resisting separation, and many of Telstra's rivals are cynical about whether any significant separation will be achieved at all, the price tag on the next five-year deal for the AFL's internet rights is expected to at least double to $120 million, possibly pricing Telstra out of the picture.

AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan declined to comment, but industry insiders believe $120 million is a conservative figure and, with football fans becoming technologically savvy, the next rights are expected to include live streaming of games to mobile phones and could even soar to $30 million a year.

At the start of the decade, Telstra paid $5 million a year for the AFL online rights; the current deal, which ends in 2011, cost the company $12 million a year.

Telstra is refusing to comment on the structural separation, but a spokesman told Pssst the premise that the telco's financial clout would be diminished was incorrect. He would not speculate if the telco would host the football websites in the future, however it has been suggested that Telstra could make a joint bid with NineMSN.

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/stuntman-lifts-lid-on-esky-jump-20091219-l6wl.html

[the_boy_jake]

Being a baseball fan I can say the MLB sites are fantastic and far superior to the crappy AFL sites.

I think the NFL surpasses even MLB in this regard. MLB seems to have a more complicated TV deal structure.

But if you go on the NFL site you get

* highlights literally a minute after they happen
* the option to buy one off games
* free video during the week including panel shows and analysis

The big problem that we have (and even the Premier League in the UK) is a traditionally protectionist view towards our broadcasting. If you go on the ABC website overseas you can't access the content, just as we can't access the BBC content. If they wanted to join the US in the 21st century, they could ask for a small payment from overseas visitors, or place some ads on the site with relevance to where the person's proxy determines they are. A user pays system would be great for everyone.

Part of the problem is that the deals that the AFL secure are too long-term to be flexible in terms of keeping up with technology.

[1965]

Being a baseball fan I can say the MLB sites are fantastic and far superior to the crappy AFL sites.

I think the NFL surpasses even MLB in this regard. MLB seems to have a more complicated TV deal structure.

But if you go on the NFL site you get

* highlights literally a minute after they happen
* the option to buy one off games
* free video during the week including panel shows and analysis

The big problem that we have (and even the Premier League in the UK) is a traditionally protectionist view towards our broadcasting. If you go on the ABC website overseas you can't access the content, just as we can't access the BBC content. If they wanted to join the US in the 21st century, they could ask for a small payment from overseas visitors, or place some ads on the site with relevance to where the person's proxy determines they are. A user pays system would be great for everyone.

Part of the problem is that the deals that the AFL secure are too long-term to be flexible in terms of keeping up with technology.

MODS

We can't have this...

Jake sounds like he knows what he is talking about.

Where's Daniel or WAT when we need them.