Easy come, Easy Go

[London Dave]

found this trawling Newcorps site. Looks like you won't have to put up with Bruce Macavaney and the rest of those tossers for much longer. Eddie may be even busier!!!. Alf, take note of the hot dog story at the end, looks like it was policy to let Waverly go!
[url=http://news.com.au/newspulse/pulseframe/0,4711,1412341^2,00.html]http://news.com.au/newspulse/pulseframe/0,4711,1412341^2,00.html[/url]

Record AFL TV deal by Christmas

By MICHAEL DAVIS and ALISON CROSWELLER
14nov00

THE AFL's richest ever agreement for free-to-air and pay TV rights involving Channel Nine, Channel 10 and Foxtel, as forecast exclusively in The Australian last Saturday, will be signed before Christmas.

Although club presidents denied the figure was as high as the reported $500 million, they gave the agreement the thumbs up, listening avidly yesterday as details of it were outlined to them at AFL headquarters at Colonial Stadium in Melbourne.

Under the agreement, Channel 10 will televise live matches which Channel Nine, with its commitment to rugby league, cannot cover. And Foxtel, with its greater share of the pay TV market, will give the code greater penetration in NSW and Queensland.

The present holder of exclusive TV rights, Channel Seven, is the big loser. Its contract with the AFL ends at the end of next season.

However, the AFL continues to be haunted by Waverley Park with the catering company, AVS Catering, which serviced the closed but heritage listed football ground, seeking more than $7m in damages.

AVS Catering, which dished up hot dogs and meat pies when the ground was still VFL Park, claimed in a Melbourne court yesterday that it has a contract to cater at Waverley until 2007.

Lawyers for AVS told the Victorian Supreme Court when it was told of the impending closure it was asked by the AFL to suggest a compensation package in return for termination of that contract.

But in 1999 the AFL, after seeking independent legal advice, withdrew the offer telling AVS that it was not required to offer compensation.

More than two years of mediation between the company and the AFL has failed to settle the issue and Justice Philip Mandie will now decide if the league was obliged to schedule matches at Waverley and if its failure to do so required it to compensate AVS for potential losses and early termination of contract.

The catering company originally told the AFL they would seek compensation of $10m but yesterday said it was seeking about $7.25m in damages.

Alan Myers QC, for AVS, said the contracts between the AFL and the catering company gave a guarantee from the football code that they would schedule matches at Waverley.

The AFL says the renewal of the contract did not spell out any such commitment despite earlier contracts, which date back to 1988, doing so.

The caterers also paid a monthly fee to the AFL and put a considerable amount of money into upgrading catering facilities at Waverley, Mr Myers said.

A 1997 letter to AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson from AVS managing director Jonathan Tribe said the company re-negotiated the contract in good faith despite the expansion of the Southern Stand at the MCG and the development of Colonial Stadium.

In the letter which was read to the court, Mr Tribe accused the AFL of a "deliberate policy not to give the stadium (Waverley) the care and attention it deserves," Mr Myers said.

[CQ]

what are channel 9 going to do with waverley?
anyway as soon as i heard about this i thought not eddie AGAIN, it seems every time i put the tv on he is on it. the footy show, who wants to be a millionaire (TWICE a night i saw it!), the races, BLOODY EVERYTHING!!!