The timing is impeccable. As Sports Flick’s seismic UEFA Champions League coup shows,the sports media industry is changing every day. The A-League,whose marked-down deal with Fox Sports elapses at the end of July,is well placed to capitalise,with the other major football codes all signed up to long-term contracts.

Foxtel,Stan Sport (owned by Nine,the publishers of this masthead),Optus,Amazon Prime,Paramount+,even little old Sports Flick - the marketplace has suddenly been flooded with new cashed-up players who need content. The A-League presents genuine value for money;a rough diamond waiting to be polished.

“It’s what the league needs,” Rudan,a former Fox pundit,said post-match on Saturday night. “We need rivalries all over the place. Love it. Why not? Why not take on the best and the biggest?” He was talking about his club,but he could have been talking about the whole game.

And then he did:“We need to build this game that we all love so much. People are talking about a new TV deal - if they haven’t seen this season,the goals that have been scored,the crazy games,I mean,what a product. It’s one of the best products in the world. Every game,you can’t wait to sit down and watch.”

A quick reality check:crowds this season haven’t been great and the pandemic only partly explains why. Clubs need to do much more to reconnect with their latent support bases and the millions of participants in this country. OzTAM ratings remain appallingly low,although they are increasingly irrelevant as consumers continue to ditch cables for streams. And the youth narrative is fine and all,but nothing penetrates the Australian mainstream like marquee star power.

The A-League,however,still has a pulse,which is far more than what many thought,and its potential is obvious to those who have bothered to look closely.

It may never become the commercial behemoth that was once foretold but it still has a serious role to play in Australian sport,if it can match the on-field brilliance with some off-field ingenuity.