AFL and NRL grand finals TV coverage marred by vaudevillian commentary and one-sided analysis

As much as sport has become a product to be neatly packaged and presented in the highest-rating TV timeslot rather than the one most convenient for attendees, some of us still prefer to go to the game.

This was the first winter in 30 years that I could not attend an AFL or NRL match. The result was an unusual and inevitably unsatisfying reliance on TV coverage that made me yearn for my hard, moulded-plastic seat.

This is partly a matter of perception. As has been explained adroitly on this site by Russell Jackson, the TV cameras do not — and perhaps cannot — capture the vast Australian rules oval (and even the smaller rugby league grid) as completely as the human eye.

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Then there is the experience of attendance: the…