There might be no actual games being played at the moment, but to think that means a lack of sporting talking points would be foolhardy.
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With less going on, it feels as if — somehow — there's more to talk about than ever, with a wide array of issues being discussed across the sporting globe.
We at Outside The Box do tend to take a slightly more light-hearted approach to sport's more serious issues, but these are isolation times and anything goes — for one of the first times ever, we're diving head-first into actual mainstream sport debate.
There's a few things on our mind, so jump on board for some stream of consciousness and correct opinions.
Raising the AFL Draft age
With NAB League football sidelined — at this point indefinitely, but the entire season could be be easily missed due to coronavirus — some have taken this opportunity to suggest potential AFL draftees should need to be turning 19 in their draft year as opposed to the current age limit of 18.
There is some genuinely sound reasoning behind that call; doing Year 12 studies in the same year you are doing everything you can on the football field to show you could make it at the AFL level would be extremely stressful, and it's hard to imagine 100 per cent effort could really be given to both.
It's suggested that the NAB League, currently an under-18 competition, would become under-19s, and that allows developing players another year at the underage level to prove their worth and take the steps necessary to reach the professional ranks.
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has been among those leading the calls, with his reasoning including the idea players will be more physically and mentally ready for the challenges of AFL football if they are drafted as 19-year-olds.
OTB notes Beveridge didn't seem to have an issue playing an 18-year-old in the Bulldogs’ 2016 premiership season, when he played young gun Josh Dunkley in 17 games and benefitted from 15 disposals and seven tackles in an impressive grand final display — in the Dogs’ coach world, a youngster good enough to contribute to a premiership is robbed of that opportunity.
Generally speaking, club figures speaking about this issue are speaking from a — naturally — quite selfish point of view, hoping NAB League clubs will shoulder the load of another year of development and present AFL clubs with a more ready-made player after that extra 12 months.
And that's the biggest problem with this entire debate — players are not assets, or commodities, but are human beings and members of the larger society.
As far as we see it, raising the draft age to 19 only denies those who are ready to enter the workforce and starting earning a living the opportunity to do so for another 12 months.
If a player finishes Year 12 and is good enough to be added to a professional AFL list, surely it is their right to have the ability to do this — it feels as if club officials arguing to raise the age have completely ignored the young individuals it actually affects.
I liken it to America's broken college sports system, where potential professional athletes exit high school and, due to age limits, have to spend at least one or two years playing for free for a college team before being able to join the pros.
These are talented humans that in many cases are good enough to contribute to a pro team straight away, but due to an archaic system are denied the opportunity to start earning a wage and providing for their families.
There are cultural differences that make these examples not exactly alike, but it seems a path Australian football should not want to go down.
Has anyone considered what would really happen if aspiring footballers finished Year 12 and then had another year to wait before even being allowed to nominate for the Draft, because earning a bit of cash from a part-time job would hardly keep these guys mentally stimulated as they wait for that opportunity.
And those that don't get picked up have essentially wasted a year of their lives — they would then be 12 months behind their peers who have not spent a year in limbo, having actually been able to begin carving out some sort of career path.
There has to be a compromise here — leave the draft age at 18 as those that are talented enough have earned their chance to join the big leagues, but perhaps raising the NAB League age limit to under-19 might give some prospects a better opportunity to develop and earn a spot on an AFL list.
Victoria's coronavirus golf ban
OTB is pretty torn on the Victorian Government's call to ban golf as part of its state of emergency restrictions to curb coronavirus’ spread.
At the end of the day, it would be nice to be able to play golf, but the major message from authorities across the past month has been simple — unless you really need to, do not leave your house.
Classed as a non-essential activity, our state's golf courses are not currently allowed to be open, and that makes a degree of sense — surely, this is the time to go with a ‘'better safe than sorry” approach and be a little over-the-top cautious.
But personal exercise has throughout COVID-19 restrictions been allowed, and heavily-restricted golf would seem to be just another way of doing that.
Before the state-wide ban, clubs went to great lengths to create a safe playing environment; groups were limited to two players, carts were limited to one person, flags, bunker rakes and sand buckets were removed and groups were spaced out at approximately 10-minute intervals to avoid any interaction while out on the course.
And with all those measures taken, can it really be argued being out on the course would not be a safe environment?
It would certainly be safer than many other retail businesses still open through this state of emergency — a blanket ban on golf without delving right into the precautions that are being taken does seem a little dismissive.
It is rather ironic the premier calling the shots — Daniel Andrews — is an avid, life-long golfer who has said before if he had not gone down the poltics route, would be a poor professional golfer.
Perhaps Andrews — who has been a good friend of the golfing community to this point — is being deliberately restrictive to the sport he loves to avoid potential criticism for giving favourable treatment to one of his own passions.
But I'm certainly not copping the argument ‘other states are doing it, so why can't we?'
They're playing golf in New South Wales, the same state that let a cruise ship full of infected passengers in, and that went fairly well.
Private ownership of AFL clubs
Would this be the worst thing in the world?
As the AFL faces some form of financial crisis due to lost revenue via the coronavirus postponement, one potential solution floated has been allowing private ownership of clubs, which could save the league the near-$20 million in funding it gives that particular club each season.
Currently, a club's members ‘'own” the club and elect a president to call the shots on their behalf, and there's a degree of romanticism regarding each club directly belonging to its fans.
But if the AFL's finances are as dire as is being made out, OTB thinks this could be a good way to ease the monetary load on the league.
I'm not sure I buy the idea a club ‘'belongs” less to the fans if it is owned by a private party — perhaps literally, but not figuratively.
Look at English football powerhouse Liverpool; it is owned by American company Fenway Sports Group, but to suggest that means the Merseyside-based club's faithful fans do not feel the club is ‘'theirs” is laughable.
What about the NBA's Toronto Raptors; the Raptors are owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, but despite being just one of four major franchises the company owns, nearly two million people flocked to the street parade when they won last season's NBA title.
Private ownership are dirty words when it comes to Australian sport — and there are clearly many examples of it going wrong in Australia and around the world — but provided the right people are running the organisation, the proprietor needn't be what shapes a club's relationship to its fans.
Senior journalist