I was a freshman in college in 1984-5. That year was the year they installed cable TV in the dorms. The women's dorms, that is. We guys had to wait until the fall of 1985 to watch cable.
College guys and cable TV seemed like a perfect partnership in 1985. ESPN was relatively new and getting established. At that time, Australian rules football was a staple in ESPN's programming. In the guys' dorms, we watched a lot of Aussie rules. It was one of my favorite sports.
Still is. Thing is, we haven't much watched Aussie rules since then. Nope, ESPN has become the world leader in sports and some of the enjoyable programming they had in the early days had to go away to make room for American football and baseball and...
Tonight, ESPN Classic will broadcast the Aussie rules championship at 11:30 CDT. I'm really looking forward to it.
It's ironic that the sport that filled so many hours back in the "classic" days of ESPN will air live tonight on ESPN's Classic channel.
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3 comments:
I hope you enjoyed the game as much as the many Aussies around the country that are also as happy to see footy back on ESPN. Next year they promise it to be on ESPN2 each week, gotta love that.
Cheers
Krazza
Krazza: Yeah, I enjoyed it but watched less than an hour of it. That whole spirit was willing, but flesh was weak thing.
We'll believe ESPN when we see it.
Long saga to how the sport ended up back on ESPN. Your story parallels mine and many of us who founded the Australian Football Assoc of North America 14+ years ago. The sport never went away, it's been somewhere on US TV every year since except for the year right after ESPN dropped it. Stop by afana.com and check us out or drop me a note any time.
We also have the definitive information on US TV coverage. Yes, it will be on ESPN next year. We hope that means ESPN2 for 4 games live, as promised, but ESPN Classic is still very good. More Americans saw this Grand Final than any AFL game in history.
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