AFL v NRL - The Answer is Obvious

[Rockin Ronny]

Everyone seems to forget one thing. Rugby league is owned and run by News Limited to make profit. It is no longer a community sport.

News Limited don't want you at games - they want you at home watching 5 matches in a row on PayTV while reading the Telegraph.

Meanwhile:
1. News Limited are dragging as much money out of the game as they can whilst cutting out any costs they can (country, juniors, promotion etc)
2. TV rights? News Limited (NRL) negotiating with News Limited (50% Foxtel). Gee, wonder why didnt we get a good price like the AFL?

Victoria? You don't get to see a game until midnight.

Promotion? Compare NRL v AFL. It's embarrassing - because AFL are a genuinely strong national competition that grows its game. AFL doesn't have News Limited lackeys running its sport.

If you want to refer to rugby league as a "product" , then don't complain when it gets treated like a product.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

lol @ AFL being a genuinely strong national competition.

 

[Misty Bee]

Good post RR. News Ltd is not about promoting the code - never was, never will. It saw League's huge potential, and how the ARL grew it into the biggest TV sport in Australia (it was in 1994). News was always about harnassing league's earning potential for it'sown need. Greedy, short sighted Traitor League clubs allowed it to happen.

But I must pull you upin one area. I hate the 'AFL is a national sport" tripe, because AFL only has clubs in 5 locations. Australia is a hellof a lot more than 5 capital cities and a huge chunk of desert. The NRL is more national demographically, because more people have access to it. Only in Melbourne is it shaded by another sport. Conversely, the AFL in Sydney and Brisbane, and, when it get there, Canberra and Gold Coast, is dwarfed by League.

We also forget the Warriors. The NRL spans as many states/territories/provinces as AFL, except that League covers the regions as well.

TV ratings are a perfect example. Oztam figures cover areas involving all 16 AFL clubs, but only 9.5 NRL clubs (Illawarra misses out). When the ajustment uis made to include NQ, Newy, Canberra, Illawarra and Gold Coast, we still forget that there is an audience in NZ.

League maybe doesn't need the advertisement that AFL needs.

 

[djst]

It would be interesting to see how the game would be without Murdoch and Packer,No Newslimited influence,foxtel and Nine.To be honest,living in an Afl city,i did not now nothing about Rugby League until Foxtel came along.It appeared to me at the time that foxtel was heavily influenced by Rugby League.If not for Foxtel,It would interesting to see how the exposure of the game,would be worse than it is today or better,moreso for places that are not or were not league Heartlands before Foxtel.:?

 

[Razor]

To be honest,living in an Afl city,i did not now nothing about Rugby League until Foxtel came along. It appeared to me at the time that foxtel was heavily influenced by Rugby League.If not for Foxtel,It would interesting to see how the exposure of the game,would be worse than it is today or better,moreso for places that are not or were not league Heartlands before Foxtel.

If you didn't hear about it because of Foxtel, you would have heard about it because of Optus - who actually broadcast 10 first-grade and 2 reserve grade games a week to Melbourne the year before Foxtel broadcast any matches down there. Foxtel reduced Rugby League coverage Australia wide in 1997 - to just 5 first-grade matches a week, compared to Optus in 1996, with their 12.

AFL basically got no coverage up in Brisbane either until pay-TV. So it wasn't News that made Melbourne aware of Rugby League, it was pay TV that did.

Foxtel had basically sport at all except minor sports. Optus had ARL, AFL, Cricket, EPL, Swimming, Athletics, NSL, All 15 major tennis events except Wimbledon, all golf majors, All major American sports except MLB, and many more. It's also good to see that we now have reduced coverage of every single one of those sports, except for those that was and still is on ESPN.

That's why News Ltd formed Super 12 Rugby with the assistance of the ARU, and formed Super League. If Foxtel had rights to at least some sports; then News wouldn't have thrown all of that money into Union and took over League.

 

[djst]

I am not sure about Melbourne due to living in Perth,but from what i can remember league was virtually an unknown to the general public in Perth until foxtel arrived,Although there was a pay tv service called Galaxy that went bust before foxtel arrived,which could have been optus based although i dont know.
But in General terms foxtel exposed league to people in areas of Australia that had not known a great deal about the game beforehand.
Whether the game today would have more free to air coverage,or any more than it had in these areas of Australia than it previously had before foxtel arrived,Who knows.
Some people say Murdoch/Packer and Newslimited are holding the game back,but where would the game be without them.
I am not sure that we would be receiving the amount of coverage in Perth and other non league areas as we do now without Foxtel,maybe on the Eastcoast where there are established strong holds this makes the situation entirely different.