I make no secret - nor apology - for my obsession of American sports.

In fact, each and every off-season I try to visit the United States to catch some of my favourite sports in person.

The NFL in particular, was a love that grew on me once I was an adult. Before then I was devoted to the NBA, whilst March consumed my life as the madness of the NCAA basketball tournament rolled around.

The NFL is the most well-run, successful sporting competition in the world and it won another lifelong fan in me, thanks to its blend of on-field brilliance and competitiveness and off-field fan engagement and insightfulness.

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Like the NFL, what we have here in the AFL is a remarkably good product. We operate at a superior level to other sporting codes in the country, and almost all professional and amateur competitions use the AFL to measure themselves against. That is something we can be extremely proud of but as I have continually stated, just because we are onto a good thing, it does not mean we lay idle on trying to improve the game, its operations and the way we market and entertain our fans.

Like most AFL clubs, at the Crows we have a large portion of the playing and coaching group who watch the NFL (very few will be up at 3am watching four games at once like me however!) and a few who love the competitiveness of playing fantasy NFL even more than watching the games.

A major influence in sparking the interest of even the most casual fan is the Hard Knocks television series on HBO. For those who have never seen Hard Knocks, the NFL has an agreement with HBO which allows full, unprecedented, uncensored access to an NFL team as it prepares for its season. Cameras and crew members are given unlimited access to the team, its players, coaches, front office staff, family members and fans in an effort to provide those of us outside the walls of an NFL team with the day-to-day happenings of a team.

As viewers we see everything! From players being cut after just a few training sessions to NFL superstars playing family man and dressing their kids for a day at school. The only complaint I have against Hard Knocks is the fact that there are only five episodes each year.

Currently, we in the AFL world cannot create entertainment of that quality because clubs are very restrictive of what messages and information comes out of the club. To an extent that is fair enough - there are dozens of sponsors and partners the club must look after. But instead of looking at player commentary with extreme caution, AFL clubs should look at exposing players and their personalities as arguably the greatest tool in the ongoing chase of ultimate fan engagement.

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The key aspect that is missing from the AFL is access.

Access to AFL players and clubs is sheltered at best. Before every player steps in front of a camera he is buttered up with specific lines to use and what to look out for from the awaiting interviewers. Ask veteran footy journalists like Adelaide's Michelangelo Rucci or Croc Media's Craig Hutchison (an openly major supporter on the NFL-style access concept) what it is like today trying to get useful, entertaining information out of players who have been pre-warned about what not to say to reporters, and I'm sure they'll just shake their heads.

The beauty of Hard Knocks - and most of what the NFL makes available for its fans - is the raw footage of what actually happens within a sporting team. The in-house jokes between players, the conversations between coaches and players as well as insight into the daily lives of a professional footballers.

What I am proposing should not come as a shock and while I expect many players to be initially gun-shy, in the end it will be an incredibly positive shift in the way we view our favourite players and teams. Throw a microphone on a few different players and coaches and we can forever document, recall and view the game's most memorable moments.

A former athlete who benefitted remarkably from wearing a microphone is ex-Sydney and Adelaide forward Ryan Fitzgerald. Today, 'Fitzy' is the award-winning breakfast radio host and television personality who is the hilarious bloke-next-door who we would all love to buy a beer for. Fitzgerald was once protected by the insulated walls of an AFL club. He played 23 games with Sydney and Adelaide but injuries won that battle and his career was cut devastatingly short.

Michael Voss and Ryan Fitzgerald at the 2015 ASTRA Awards. Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for the ASTRA Awards

Unless you missed the phenomenon that was Big Brother in its early days, then you will know that the big fella actually rose to fame with the help of a microphone and camera being thrust upon him 24 hours per day for 83 days straight. Before that - and after his AFL career ended in 2002 - Fitzy tried his hand as a sales assistant at a printing company as well as a barman at his local South Adelaide Panthers pub.

While Fitzgerald did not win the battle for Big Brother's prize money, (he came fourth in the 2004 edition), he certainly won the war as the raw footage that was beamed back into Australia's lounge rooms ensured Fitzgerald instantly became 'Fitzy' to his new legion of adoring fans. Had we thrown on microphone on Fitzgerald when he was forging a footy career at the Swans, we may have learned about his fun-loving, hilarious ways years earlier and not needed a reality show to see his 'real' side.

Thankfully, 'Fitzy' is a Crows fan and I was lucky enough to have a chat to him about his time in the Big Brother house and what being able to expose his real self did for his now-unstoppable media career. I had a bunch of questions lined up but typically, he just wanted to have a yarn about the Crows and whether we could beat the Eagles that upcoming weekend. As I said, he's the bloke next door who you simply have to love. So, once I remembered I was on the phone to help me construct a column, I asked him about my idea of throwing microphones on AFL players.

"In Big Brother I was wary for two weeks (of what I said), then I completely forgot about it," he said. "In the AFL, it has to get to a point where guys who are mic'd forget all about it and be their true self."

Fitzgerald's comments are spot on - unless players learn to just be themselves, the introduction of microphones would be a waste of time but just as he did in the Big Brother house, you eventually just be yourself - and the viewing public will either love you for that.... Or they won't...

Before I had the chance to raise it, 'Fitzy' made mention of Hard Knocks, saying "it's brilliant. It should be the preface for every sporting show in Australia. That is true raw emotion."

'Fitzy' noted, as only he could, "the mic in the Big Brother house taught my parents more about me in three months than they ever learned in 24 years of my life."

Recently, superstar Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers spoke about how he disliked being mic'd up and felt that it actually placed him at a competitive disadvantage. I am too far removed from the NFL to know whether he is correct in that opposing defences and coaches are gaining information from him wearing a mic or he just simply does not like wearing it. But what I will say is that the competitive authenticity should never be altered for entertainment purposes. In the end, the spirit of the contest is worth more than any microphone or camera.

So I hear what Rodgers is saying but what he fails to remember is that the microphones, added cameras and insightful access to teams is a major reasons why the NFL is the dominant force it is today. Therefore helping tip $22 million into Rodgers' pockets each year!

Kansas City wide receiver Eddie Kennison takes the camera during a Hard Knocks filming session in 2007. David Eulitt/Kansas City Star/MCT via Getty Images

Call me biased but NFL Films - an extension of the NFL Network - is the single greatest video archive in sporting history.

Think about any of the great moments in AFL history... then imagine if there had been a microphone fitted to a player's guernsey and a camera crew sneakily filming everything. Your favourite memory would no longer just be a memory - it would become immortalised with audio and video evidence, all documented for all to watch forever ever and a day.

On introduction, AFL clubs, players and officials will likely dismiss the introduction of microphones on its players and coaches. But, eventually, once we start producing some sensational and ever-lasting videos, everyone will soon be on board.

Especially once we all realise it will actually be putting money in the coffers of the league and its teams.