Hawthorn

[Sedat]

Intellectual property is big business - the players created this Hokball brand and in a free and fair market they and the club should be able to profit from it (especially seeing as Hawthorn did what the useless AFEL should have done and formally trademarked the phrase). Of course, the AFEL hates this sort of rogue entrepreneurial spirit from players/clubs, and much like the pseudo dictatorship/govt overlord that they are, want to control/derive maximum revenue out all aspects of their commercial operation. Just as well Port knocked them off in the SF - if they made a run to the GF and a premiership, Hokball would have been a multi-million dollar money spinner and the lawyers on both sides would have had a field day.

Anyone who had/has young children knows the power of licensed merchandise - kids TV shows now are basically created to sell enormous amounts of merch at the back end, and the actual TV show is little more than a marketing/PR tool for brand owners to sell millions of $$ of merch globally.

[jeemak]

The "most marketable" players get most of the marketing money. Read that as the most inline with the vanilla and sanitised image the AFL can conjure, to which Hokball is diametrically opposed (if you understand its origin - how many parents want their kids spittin' on that thang?).

The AFLPA will eventually have its way here. Either the players will be given more freedom to appropriate their own images/ likeness outside of the AFL, or more AFL funds will be distributed to more players over time.