The Australian Football League will "allocate significant funding" from its forthcoming A$2.5B ($1.9B) broadcast deal toward "a university-style academy for its emerging executives," according to Caroline Wilson of THE AGE. AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan confirmed the bold plan "and did not rule out the game investing in its own learning headquarters," a structure that would "improve the prospects of struggling clubs, promote more women into senior roles and retain more talent within the competition." Conceding the AFL was a "brutal business," McLachlan said that despite his cost-cutting mantra at head office "one of the things we will continue to invest in is good people." He added, "In the end you live or die on the quality of your people." The AFL "has already handpicked" 20 of its brightest young exec stars, including Melbourne GM of Marketing & Communications Jennifer Watt and Sydney Swans Football GM Tom Harley, and placed them in a "season-long development course." McLachlan said that the prospect of a "physical structure housing executive AFL management courses could prove a romantic notion but remained a possibility" (THE AGE, 8/10).