In the AFL, the concept of brand includes all the above attributes, particularly in the modern era of information overload, and more reporters than players allocated to the game. The AFL employs brand managers, as do some of the more alert, and financially-strong clubs.
When it all began, a club was a club, the game was the game. Sure, there were spruikers, but more often than not these were fans masquerading as journalists adding flourish and flair to the coverage of a game they loved. Objectivity from the press box applied for items of the moment, but any analysis of early texts would show that reporters saw some of their role as spreading the word.
There is much to the argument that suggests two of those who co-wrote the original Laws of the Game, in 1859, James Thompson and William Hammersley, journalists both, did more to promote the fledgling game of Australian Football than any other - even more than the great players of those early years.
They were the early unofficial brand-builders, and they did it in a time when brand meant no more than a hot slab of moulded metal slapped into the rear end of valuable livestock.
These days the brand of the game, its clubs and its players is a multi-headed monster, in nobody’s hands, yet in everybody’s hands.
It sits in cyberspace, able to be gossiped and trashed with immunity by anonymous twitterers; it also sits neatly in the hands of the media in all its normal guises - print, radio, television, internet - a media that knows well that it is not only on-field beauty that sells; the marketers still have their hands on it, but with little capacity to do more than react rather than drive; the spin doctors have created their own niche business; the players must work not just their own brands, but that of their clubs - and generally the two are inextricably linked.
And then there’s the coach.
For some years, I’ve considered the coach as the most important person in any football club and not for the reasons that old-timers considered - as the person who created on-field success- but as the person responsible for the club in all parts of its operation.
The coach, in the modern era, is the true owner of the brand.
This story is about one such coach, and how the ever-present media had coloured my view of his brand, and how one radio interview, and then one meeting more than 12 months later, have turned that initial negative view on its head.
That coach is Ross Lyon.
When he took over the reins at St Kilda in 2007, he was clearly uncomfortable with the media, despite many years as a player and assistant. He came across as introspective, uninterested in the key role of communication to his supporters, and he looked gruff and grumpy, almost monosyllabic. I gained this view from the same place as any other follower of the game - via TV, and radio, the first point of brand-building.
Then came the interview that changed it all for me. Three days after St Kilda had lost the 2009 Grand Final to Geelong, a game that seemed in the Saints’ hands at three-quarter time, Lyon agreed to an interview on 3AW’s Sports Today program. It was shortly after 7pm and Lyon was driving home. I listened intently, expecting platitudes.
It was nothing of the sort. The interview was far-reaching, dealing with matters well beyond the mere loss of a Grand Final. This was clearly the Ross Lyon that St Kilda had hired: a man of broad views, able to put wins and losses into perspective, a leader with a vision for himself, his players, and his club.
I filed that memory away until February this year, when I visited St Kilda’s new premises at Seaford, a visit whose aim was to confirm - or not - St Kilda’s approval for AFL Media to shoot a documentary on the club, a club that had been under unreasonable, and unseasonable, pressure throughout the summer.
Ross Lyon’s approval meant St Kilda’s approval.
We sat in a meeting room, waiting for the coach. In he strode, a tall, imposing figure, bright of eye, alert, interested in our conversation, a conversation that quickly moved far beyond the purpose for our visit.
We covered our reasons for wanting to shoot St Kilda, from the inside. To show the humanity of a footy club - any footy club, not just one under pressure - to allow the players to have their say, freely, without prejudice or manipulation or spin. And to name the show The Challenge, a title that would cover both on-field and off-field issues.
Lyon listened, but had already made up his mind. He trusted the film-maker, Peter Dickson, and he trusted our concept. Unsaid, but clearly present, was that he trusted his players.
He said he had run the idea by the squad, who were fully supportive, and he would allow us total access, and would veto nothing.
Our conversation then went much beyond film-making.
Lyon listened intensely to a range of views about the game, and its history, and contributed beyond any usual discussion between people unfamiliar with one another. He was amusing, involving, a clear fan of the game in its totality. He was broad in his views, while seeking solutions for problems that many coaches would not believe was part of their domain.
He spoke of the responsibility that clubs have, not just for the players themselves, but for their wider family, friends, and community of origin.
He spoke of spreading the load, of individual and group accountability.
He explained the concept of culture within large groups - is it, he said, the culture of the few or the very many that defines the group?
It’s a question that defines brand - brand-building and brand re-building.
In the modern AFL, it also defines the role of the coach - to stress what’s important, to expect individuals to play their roles, and for all to stand up to the consequences. It’s also the essence of The Challenge.
The Challenge will broadcast on saintsfc.com.au on Wednesday from 11.15pm AEDT
