Carlton chairman Mark LoGiudice seems easily pleased with another poor start to a season. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Early last week the Carlton Football Club was holding a function when a number of TV sports reporters with cameramen in tow appeared out of the ether for a statement by club chairman Mark LoGiudice.
Knowing how these things work, it is fair to assume that a press release was issued to all of the AFL’s media partners in the days leading up to the function informing them that the club chairman would be available for comment.
With a message that he wanted heard, LoGiudice would have told the head of his club’s media department that he required a strong media presence.
Given that there was no major story circulating about the Blues, a good turnout, especially from primary targets such as network and pay television, can be put down to a good media manager with plenty of the right contacts.
Now here is the important bit. All sporting organisations in Australia would love to have the power to be able to summons the big television networks at the behest of their chairman.
You can imagine an A-League club or Super Rugby franchise struggling to get much of a roll call under similar circumstances.
Head lower down the totem pole to off-Broadway sports like athletics or yachting and getting anyone to turn up to report on nothing more earth-shattering than “how we’re travelling at the moment” would be as likely as getting Rohan Connolly and myself to ditch our wives for the night and head off together to see boy-band concert.
AFL football remains the “Mac-Daddy” of Australian professional sports, and all 18 clubs can and do trade off that fact when dealing with the media. Furthermore, within the 18 AFL clubs there is a hierarchy, and whilst the on-field struggles of the former superpower has taken some of the gloss off Carlton, the Blues remain one of the more sought-after clubs on which to report.
All of that being said, even for a strong club in the strongest sporting competition in the country, there are only so many times you can successfully summons big numbers of desirable media partners for what is little more than a club announcement to, primarily, its members.
Therefore, clubs need to be judicious when sending out “important press releases”, because just like the boy who cried wolf, if any AFL club gets a reputation for getting journos to turn up for announcements that aren’t newsworthy, they will be soon be addressing plenty of empty seats, no matter how worthy the story may be.
That brings us back to last week, and LoGiudice’s statement to the press at that function.
Remember, this would have been pre-planned, favours called on to guarantee the best media turnout, and as I have explained, taking advantage of a resource that that is far from inexhaustible.
It was a precious chance to make an important statement on behalf of his board knowing that it would be widely heard. If it was momentous enough, it would have become a story in and of itself that would be further reported on and stay in the spotlight for days rather than one day.
So did Mark LoGiudice seize the moment? You be the judge.
He looked down the barrel of various network cameras and said that he was pleased to be able to say that the club was now moving in the right direction.
I reckon he said absolutely nothing. He said the reigning wooden-spooner was moving in the right direction. Well, given the AFL has no relegation, it seems the only direction Carlton can move is up, which is certainly the right direction, but hardly something to go to the press with (by the way staying in 18th place is remaining stagnant, which is technically not a direction in which one can move).
Consider this.
In his four full years in charge at Carlton, which span 2015 to 2018, LoGuidice has seen the Blues finish last twice, end the year no higher than 14th, and over the 92 rounds during that period sit in the top eight for exactly zero weeks.
In each of those years, Carlton lost the first two games of the season.
Carlton once again lose the opening two games of the season. The chairman speaks to the Carlton faithful via the nightly news less than 48 hours after its second loss, and ticks off on the both the coaching department and the playing group by saying that the club is heading in the right direction.
No rocket lit under complacent backsides, not the slightest disappointment on behalf of his members, just a nod to the team to keep doing what you’re doing.
It is little wonder that Carlton fans are up in arms. Gone is the arrogance and air of superiority that came with being the best Australian Rules club in the land, only to be replaced by the acceptance of mediocrity and a smell of failure that has lingered far too long.
Thanks for the great show you guys. The chemistry is grouse. I reckon you should both be cranky about Channel 7 nicking your car driving routine. Fineys complete recklessness behind the wheel was television gold and should have been patented. You’d be rich by now.
Anyway, off to Andrews burgers, and then to Kardinia to watch my boys hopefully thump the plastics. Heres hoping the rustic folk don’t gob on Rohan if he makes it down.
So how would you turn the club around…other than a rocket up someones backside?