World Footy News

The exciting USAFL television deal with ASTN, to broadcast US Australian Rules football matches, is now being put into place for the 2005 season schedule.

The All-Sports Television Network agreement will see some US games telecast to millions of homes across America. It by no means guarantees success for the various amateur leagues in the country, but it is a great opportunity. See our previous story, USAFL signs three year television deal, for background information.

The latest news is that the network, in order to limit production costs and given logistical issues, wishes to broadcast from four or five regional TV events, to be held from April to October 2005. Ideally five or six sides would gather to play a series of games, with each team playing two matches over the weekend. These matches would count towards regular season premierships if the respective leagues wanted them to. Preliminary dates discussed include a tournament in Denver in early June, and Seattle in late June. It could be that each regional league hosts one such event (the leagues being the fledgling Northwest Pacific AFL, a new western US league, the MAAFL in the mid-west, and the NEAFL in the US north-east), however this is just speculation.

Further details of bid requirements are proposed to be available to the leagues by December. It will be very interesting watching the positive changes that this contract creates in footy across the US.