Last week on the show John highlighted how the opening round of the state hockey championship which would boast the best talent in any local league anywhere in the World did not receive any publicity in the newspapers or on the commercial television stations for its opening round.
This writer during his brief stint at Football West called all the commercial television stations and the ABC to ask what time they would need the State League football results in order to feature them on their six o’clock Saturday news bulletins. “Why would we want them, we don’t carry state competition results.” Was the pretty standard response, with slightly different words used.
“But you do,” was my response, “you cover the WAFL, so what time do you want the State Premier League Football results?”
None took too kindly to being asked that if they were not covering state competitions when were they going to stop featuring the results from this particular state competition?
John O’Connell this week on his International Football Show on 990am highlighted the fact that last week there were 129 stories on sport run in the West Australian and the Sunday Times from Saturday 02 April – Saturday 09 April. There were 77 on the ‘sport that we do not mention.’ The West only had stories on The English Premier League and European Champions League when it came to football, while the Sunday times had a page; fortunately negotiated by Football West, otherwise there would have been nothing on the World game.
The situation is beginning to become ridiculous. As mentioned previously the Australian Cricket team were relegated to ABC Digital when playing their Quarter Final World Cup match against India, so those without digital radios had to endure the sport we don’t mention.
Our Australian cyclists – the bulk of whom are from the Western Australian Institute of Sport – excelled at the World Cycling Championships, yet did their achievements warrant the back page of the paper? No sadly not, once again a lightweight story on the sport that we do not mention.
Surely it is time that fans of other sports united and used social media to make their voices heard. Maybe a week in which everyone boycotts the purchase of the West Australian and the Sunday Times could be a starting point.
Any suggestions welcome as it is time that the media delivered what the people want, not what they think they want. Believe it or not such a move may actually help dwindling sales!
