Bursting the Bubble: More connected to the other side of the world

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This week I came across a very interesting article on The Roar.

Ignoring the title and the somewhat 'old-soccer, new football' undertones the writer brought something to my attention.

He is undoubtedly a football fan, and finds himself in a similar position to my own and one shared by many of you, he is a keen follower of both A-League and EPL, however his own story somewhat represents the antithesis of my own.

As I take an interest in foreign football after first following our domestic A-League, he experienced quite the opposite turning to the A-League after being brought up on a football diet of Chelsea and Manchester United.

Why do I bring this up? you may ask. Well the answer is simply to illustrate how varied people's own connection to football is.

On one hand I felt disconnected to the EPL by the sheer physical distance of the game, he on the other hand growing up at a time of the old NSL couldn't connect to the game's domestic mentality (than isolated to main cities and the perception of strong ethnic ties).

It turns out that broadcasting is more important than many perceive as even today top notch presentation of English football keeps billions (yes, billions) of fans around the world more interested in what to them is a foreign league than their own domestic leagues!

SBS2 will provide what I hope to be an under-appreciated platform for growth in the A-League as free to air TV finally gives those disconnected to the game an opportunity to share in the stories and heroes of our A-League.

In my own experience, the absence of foxtel from my life never gave me the chance to follow the EPL without significant effort and until recently I realsied this is what domestic football must be like.

Significant effort is required to even sample the A-League with either a heavy investment in pay-tv or a day off to go to a game.

Free to air broadcast and the quality of will have a massive impact on the game's growth by simply allowing people to effortlessly try out the domestic product.

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