BRISBANE Lions CEO Greg Swann has predicted a fight to ensue between players and the clubs over who reaps the most benefit from the AFL's enormous new broadcast rights agreement.
The AFL announced a six-year, $2.508 billion deal on Tuesday that will run from 2017 until the end of 2022.
With the players set to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement to start in October 2016, Swann said there was no doubt they deserved a big piece of the pie.
But he said it was important the clubs remained a big focus as the League looked to reinvest the revenue in four key areas outlined by AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan on Tuesday: supporters, players, community and the clubs.
"I think once the dust settles on this, the biggest fight will be who gets what," Swann told AFL.com.au on Tuesday.
"Everybody has their hand out and we won't get to the back of the queue, hopefully.
"Everybody knows the players put on the show but I think at the moment, from a club point of view, there's a lot of clubs struggling financially and a lot of those are structural issues.
"This sum of money should be able to hopefully eradicate those and get us all back on an even keel.
"I think Gill was right to say that at the end of this six years, you'd like to think that every one of us is healthy and we're not all dependent on the AFL and we've put in place resources and money coming into the club that have made us all self-sufficient.
"I think there's a great opportunity for that and obviously the players will get their share but you've got to balance that out with the community footy and infrastructure and everything else."
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Meanwhile, Tuesday's announcement caught the AFLPA by surprise, with the union expecting the decision to come closer to Christmas.
But AFLPA CEO Paul Marsh said it was a pleasing revelation that could hopefully see collective bargaining agreement negotiations started ahead of schedule.
"It means we can probably start soon, which is a good position to be in," Marsh told AFL.com.au.
"The current deal expires next October and these things tend to take a little while.
"It's a great starting position to be in for the biggest revenue stream in the sport and it's a pretty critical component of negotiations and we're looking forward to sitting down with the AFL and starting to work through the issues."
Marsh wouldn't elaborate on specifics of what the players were seeking, with the broadcast rights not the only factor to shape their wish list.
He said the AFLPA was prepared to deal quickly if the AFL came to the party but were also prepared to draw talks out if necessary.
"It just depends on how far apart the two parties are," he said.
"We just haven't really had any genuine conversations about this yet with the League so that's ahead of us, but from our perspective we want to get a good deal and that will take as long as it needs to take.
"If we can get a good deal that's done quickly, we'll go down that path."
