World Footy News

World Footy News this week spoke with Alex Benjamin the creator and host of the Nashville Kangaroos ARFC Webcast channel on Justin.TV website. Alex’s trailblazing coverage of the USAFL and the AFL from an American standpoint is approaching its second anniversary on the channel this weekend.

How did your channel and show start?

In my fifth season as being a goal umpire for not only the team, but for the USAFL (US Footy), I felt that the sport was not getting the recognition that it deserved and also being a die-hard supporter of the team, I thought of branching out from doing the goal umpire duties to another venue, thus the channel.

As for the show itself, that came out of invention after the 2009 Nationals in Mason, OH, when my good friend, US Nationals Umpire Secretary Lisa Albergo (spoke about it) and I thought “Wouldn't it be nice to do a show with AFL and USFooty?” So, we took the initiative and began USFooty/AFL Weekly.

When did your show start?

On Justin.tv, the show started two years ago this month on Anzac Day (24 April US time), however, the original beginnings was on Yahoo Live back at the beginning of February with a laptop and a lot of being green, because I didn’t know how to produce or do much of anything on that, so technically overall the channel has been on for two years and three months.

As for the show itself, we started in November of last year.

What was your original introduction to Aussie Rules Football?

My original introduction to Aussie Rules Football was through ESPN back in the middle 80s as Aussie Rules was on late nights. I was fascinated with the game and instantly hooked to it. When it was discontinued in the late 80s, I was disappointed, but it came back in a different way when the Nashville Kangaroos came into focus.

How did you come to be involved with the Nashville Kangaroos?

Well, that was by chance luck. My girlfriend at the time, Evy, and I was reading the Tennessean newspaper (our local paper here in Middle Tennessee) and was talking about the team going for the MAAFL title against the Chicago Sharks. They needed a goal umpire and asked if anyone would help and I volunteered and the rest is history.

Side note: This will be my 7th season as goal umpire and will be doing my 100th game overall this season, a rare feat for goal umpires in the USA. As far as I know, only a very few ever make it to that point, so it will be a great honor to do that at this year’s Nationals in Louisville, KY.

Your show is broadly based in both coverage of AFL Footy and the US Footy scene. Do you think the association with the Nashville club turns away viewers from other USAFL clubs?

The answer on that is no. In fact, I enhance that, especially when brand new teams come onboard and I talk about those new teams. In the past two years that the channel has been on the air, we have had 5 new teams come onboard including the Sacramento Saints, Columbus Jackaroos, Iowa Roosters and the newest team that played their first game a couple of weeks back, the Houston Lonestars.

This year, as usual, I will be talking about the Kangaroos, but it will not be the only team that will be in the USFooty focus. With a lot of teams that had great seasons last year and have a disappointing Nationals in Mason last year, a lot of teams want redemption and naturally, I want to know how their team is doing and the fans want that. So, my focus will be equaled on all of the teams, not just the Kangaroos.

Who are your regular guests?

From time to time, I do get some regular guests to come onboard and we talk about their team or in case of the Nationals with Grilla (Rod Grljusich) , we talk on the year of certain divisions and our thoughts on that. Recently, we talked with Chet Ridenour of the Columbus Jackaroos and also with Amy Valentine and her husband, US Revolution coach Matt Bishop, who head up the new team the Sacramento Saints.

My co-host that joins me on Mondays is USFooty Nationals Umpire Secretary Lisa Albergo. Our friendship is unique as both of us are umpires. She has been at the Nationals for all except one. This coming year will be her 13th and my 4th. She is very knowledgeable on the AFL like I am with USFooty, so I thought of her when we began this show on Mondays.

What is the breakdown of where your viewers are located?

Well…that’s an interesting question depending on what shows we do. Lately, it has been a major mix of different countries. The majority is Australian, Great Britain and USA, but there is a major following in Brazil, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, South Africa, France, Iceland and Canada that regular come onboard to hear the shows. We have fans currently in 58 countries. It isn’t everyday that you have a channel that transcends different countries and cultures, but this channel does.

How many shows have you done so far in the two years of being on the air?

In the two years that the channel has been on the air…which is amazing in itself because Justin.tv itself is not much older than the channel at three years, I have done a total of 350 shows overall with last night‘s show (12 April). As far as USFooty/AFL Weekly show itself, we are just in its infancy on that, just 28. I have done several road trips in the two years, including the last two US Nationals (Colorado Springs and Cincinnati-Mason), gone to Milwaukee, St. Louis and Chicago so far.

How do we catch your show?

That’s simple. Go to www.justin.tv/nashvillekangaroos. There you will see quite a few changes since the channel was started. You can look at past broadcasts we have done, which is now about 17-18 pages long…gracious. You can also look to see when we are on next.
In November of last year, I added a Facebook page for the channel and two weeks ago, a programming blog page to get everyone into when we are on the air. Our Facebook page is under Nashville Kangaroos ARFC Webcasts on Justin.tv. As for our new programming blog, its http://nashvillekangarooswebcasts.blogspot.com/

What feedback have your received from viewers coming to your show from Australia that may have no knowledge of the US Footy scene?

When I started the channel two years ago, everyone thought our channel was a novelty, but the fans and people of Australia did not even know that there was a channel on Justin.tv that was strictly for Aussie Rules or for the fact that there was an US Footy scene. There have been times where I have been talking with the fans for a minimum of 2-3 hours at a time just talking on the teams of US Footy.

When a certain team is on and people talk about their team, for instance, Carlton Blues, I tell them we have a counterpart here in the USA and that brings the conversation to US Footy.

There’s a story that really signifies how far the USFooty and the channel has gone since we started this. When I went to the US Nationals last year for the 3rd time, the 2nd since the channel started. The channel was basically off the air for the majority of the 2009 season because the laptop had crashed and with my tight finances at the time, I couldn’t replace it until the beginning of the Finals Series in the AFL beginning in September.

As I began the two weeks of shows, including an unprecedented coverage of doing it at the hotel of the Nationals, everyone came back and then some and there was a captive audience of anywhere between 50-150 per night. That grew as the Nationals began as the channel, the AFL fans flocked to the channel and got their first taste of the Nationals and we had well over 6,500 views during the 4 days, even with the limited internet coverage there.

When I began the channel, we were the only channel that has Aussie Rules Football, now there are three, two that covers everything Australian via video feed and my channel. The difference is my channel also has USFooty and is the only channel that is on the Producers network.

To tell you how major of being a Producers channel, there is over 7,000 channels in Justin.tv, of which about 1,100 broadcast regularly (more than two times a week). Of that, only 565 channels is a Producers channel and my channel is the only sports channel that has that distinction and we recently surpassed our 100,000 view in 22 months as the beginning of the AFL season began in late March and within the first 4 weeks of the season, the channel has added an additional 12,000 more.

What other footy media do you follow regularly?

Right now, I am following Chris Adams and the team from USFootyNews as we begin the 2010 season with the top ten. I consider them a vital part to help me out on the channel and thank them every week when new information comes from them. I also keep one of my great friends in Justin.tv that lives in Adelaide, Nelliek9, who does the other sports channel with Aussie Rules, but he does it in a different way than what I do.

As far as AFL, I do the AFL web site and keep up with several teams in the AFL (Adelaide, Carlton and Collingwood) and listen to Sportsline.com.au on Wednesdays and SEN and Triple M.

Who would you most like to have on as a guest on your show?

Wow….that’s an interesting question. I would like to have all of the current AFL coaches and talk with them, one by one, on their team and what they see in USFooty and Footy all around the world. Another group of guests that I want to talk with is all of the International Cup coaches and get a perspective on how Aussie Rules Football is shaping in their country. I have had the fortunate luck to talk with one of the coaches from Iceland during the past year.

How do you think the growth of the game is going in the US?

When I began doing goal umpire, we had teams in 28 cities. Now we have teams in 34. The growth of the game is doing well, especially that we now have a team in every major city except Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

Where do you think the game will be in the US by 2020?

I am hoping that by 2020, those remaining five cities (see the previous question) will have a team and that we can be a feeder to the AFL and even have our USFooty as a fringe sport with TV coverage, hopefully.

What can the AFL do best to promote the game in the US and what can the USAFL do best to grow the game in the US?

The directors and coaches in USFooty are so very proactive and with the yearly Nationals at a different city, it brings people out to satisfy their curiosity of the sport and they get hooked right away. One story that signifies of how proactive our channel and USFooty is our reach into new cities with Iowa, Houston, Baton Rouge, Florida United, Sacramento and talk of other cities coming onboard.

What the AFL can do best is to bring the legends of the game to the Nationals every October and also some of the prominent players of the game to come to the Nationals to see what the USA has produced and continue to support USFooty.

One thing I am excited about is Kevin Sheedy, the legendary coach of the new Great Western Sydney team. He was talking about the west coast of the USA (California, Washington and Oregon) to produce more AFL players. He was at my first Nationals that I attended in 2007 in Louisville. He is an outstanding ambassador to the game. More players and current coaches should attend the US Nationals.

And I am excited about our first American as an AFL player in the VFL, Shae McNamara of the Collingwood Magpies. Yes, there is a major contingent of fans that is tracking him back here in the USA and is very supportive of his first game recently. We have a major interest here and we have a segment in the show that is all on him.

What things would you like to do with your show in the future?

This year is a jam packed year with the Nationals and with the channel. We are going to do something that no other channel has done. Live coverage of USFooty matches. I am about to experiment on that in May of this year in Louisville at the Thunder over Louisville matches. Later this season, I am hoping to broadcast live coverage of several home matches from Elmington Field (home of the Kangaroos).

After this year (which is also a lot of personal changes going, including getting married for the first time in June), the next big step for the channel to go to the International Cup in either 2011, 2014 or 2017 and do unprecedented coverage of the International Cup with the US Revolution. We did nightly coverage back in Smyrna of that in 2008 to rave reviews.

What are the details for your second anniversary show?

The channel’s second anniversary is on Anzac Day, Saturday 24 April. I plan on reflecting back on how the channel was started and go back through some of the highlights that I have had with the team and the US Nationals. Also, hopefully, we might have some special guests checking in as we celebrate this major milestone. It isn’t everyday that a channel on a major web casting website makes this milestone. So far, only 17 channels have been more than two years. The show will be on Saturday night @ 1900 USA Central time (0930 Adelaide-1000 Melbourne time Sunday).