It will be an hour-long program. About 25 minutes in, Buddy Franklin will reveal where he will be playing football in 2014.
Not until that moment, live on national TV and toward the end of day one of the AFL’s 2013 free agency period, will Hawthorn, GWS, Brisbane and Carlton, who are all in the race for his services, know what he wants to do.
It’s certainly not the way things are done in the AFL.
And it almost certainly won’t happen, either.
But imagine the excitement, anticipation and intrigue such a program would generate. Hopefully, Franklin will at least consider it before ruling it out.
US basketball megastar LeBron James embarked on such an exercise in 2010, when, on ESPN, he hosted his own show, using it to reveal to the world that he would be leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and be heading to the Miami Heat.
Along with 13.1 million people, which made it US TV’s highest rating program that night, representatives of the Knicks, Clippers, Bulls and Nets learnt their lucrative bids to lure him their way had failed.
Crass? Yes. Over-the-top? Yep. Arrogant? Definitely. Polarising? Certainly.
So what. James is his own man. He copped a heap of criticism for the program and conceded some of it was warranted.
But in true, high-end, US sportsperson style, James didn’t really care what people said about him, and even went on to make a TV commercial where he took the mickey out of himself over the program.
James has become an even bigger megastar since The Decision, and is about to play in a third consecutive NBA championship series. His decision was clearly the right one.
There’s no one like James in Australian sport. Franklin loves US sport and is certainly the closest we have to anything like LeBron.
AFL life in 2013 doesn’t allow an individual to be elevated over his team. Franklin understands that, he is definitely a team player, and he goes out of his way to think team first.
That’s nothing but a positive in the eyes of most.
But the football industry needs to be a little careful here, because if we continue the recent trends of trying to have everyone conform to being a mere number, we could bore ourselves to within an inch of not caring as well as strangle all forms of expression out of those who are real characters.
AFL football club utopia would be to convince the public that each of the 45-plus players on their list drink nothing but soda water and pop nothing stronger than Panadol.
Clubs seek to control every single move of those who represent them. Hey, you can’t even be trusted to express yourself by way of dress Club polos emblazoned with sponsors logos only on match day, thank you very much.
They don’t bother with such player- control in the States, and it certainly hasn’t lessened the general appeal of the NFL and NBA.
LeBron James is not equal to his teammates. Even when one of those teammates is Dwyane Wade, who is happy to wear three-quarter-length suit pants with “normal” socks and shoes to a Heat playoff game.
Let’s face it. Buddy doesn’t have an equal at Hawthorn, or the AFL for that matter.
With the right legal representation, Franklin could surely argue there is nothing in the AFL rules prohibiting him from making some extra cash via a The Decision-type program.
I'm well aware that not everything in US sport translates neatly into the AFL world and concede that the thought of Franklin 'doing a LeBron' and revealing his football future in The Decision would be a decision loathed and tut-tutted by at least 85 per cent of the AFL industry. Maybe more.
But, really, if everyone was to take a deep breath before, during and after the event, what would be wrong with it?
The one person it wouldn’t adversely effect would be Franklin. And it would certainly liven things up in a period of the AFL calendar which desperately needs livening up.
Follow Damian Barrett on Twitter: @barrettdamian
