Don't Believe In Never - Part 3 - Richmond Tigers
- Tuesday, March 20 2018 @ 09:18 pm ACDT
- Contributed by: Wesley Hull
- Views: 2,756
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Welcome to World Footy News Saturday, April 20 2024 @ 06:52 am ACST
In a dawning of a new era for football clubs and franchises worldwide, the Essendon Football Club has entered into the arena of eSports. The following article comes directly from the club’s website and details the concept and rationale behind it as the club continues to explore new and exciting ways to develop new markets into the future.
Essendon Football Club has acquired a professional eSports team and will compete in the League of Legends, Oceanic Pro League and Oceanic Challenger League next year.
In partnership with Executive Sports and Entertainment (ESE), the Club has secured the licence of top tier eSports team, Abyss, and will relocate the team to Melbourne.
The operations and management of the team will be fully integrated as a division of the Essendon Football Club, with a new name, brand and logo to be established.
The following media release from the AFL details the draw and rules for the new and exciting AFLX competition next year. Played as part of the pre-season build up to the season, AFLX follows in the steps of Rugby, cricket and even tennis with a revised, fast-paced format. The release states:
The AFL wrote to the 18 clubs today outlining the addition of AFLX, an alternative version of the traditional game, to run in the lead up to the 2018 JLT Community Series.
AFLX, a fast and exciting version of Australian Football, is to be played on a rectangular field and aims to showcase the unique and most thrilling aspects of the game to attract new fans.
The public will get their first chance to see AFLX in February 2018 when Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney host individual tournaments featuring all 18 AFL Clubs.
In part one of this feature the case was argued that for the good of both the AFLW and international footy (both women's and men's) the AFL needs to allow and encourage international rookie spots on AFLW lists starting now, ready for AFLW 2018.
The benefits include a pool of internationals ready to: boost the standard and colour of the AFLW, to promote the sport back home, to demonstrate a semi-pro pathway exists, and to one day provide opposition that will allow Australian women the chance to pull on an Australian jumper to play a true Aussie Rules international (a potentially alluring but difficult to quantify enhancement to AFLW).
All this for virtually no cost as the spots should be in addition to the regular lists, they don't even need to include payments (better if they do but initially I think most will agree we'll take what we can get). These women will put their lives on hold for a precious opportunity and will repay the game many times over in return. Just allow the free hit list positions and, like in the AFL men's competition, allow rookie elevation to replace an injured player (there were plenty last season) if the international is deemed good enough. And if she is good enough then presumably she'll be given a regular list spot the following year.
I've put out the call myself, I've shown the backing for this or similar ideas from people in the international footy community from our own Troy Thompson to Peter Holden on Girls Play Footy to former USAFL President Denis Ryan and Great Britain Swans Team Manager and GB Bulldogs player Jason Hill.
Now let's hear from AFL club the GWS Giants, from an international team captain, from a current AFLW player very familiar with international footy, and a player who could've benefited from such a position during 2017.