Why the AFL should be wary of a code on the up and up
RICHARD HINDS
March 20, 2010
Hindsight
Illustration: Edd Aragon.
Tell the bloke from Adelaide in Sydney to watch the Crows play the Swans. Tell the Melbourne businessman rushing back to the airport because he doesn't want to miss the Essendon game.
Tell them there is an Australian football code that is going gangbusters. A game that has been enlivened by a new generation of freakish athletes whose skill set and performance have no historic precedent. A game watched by a large and loyal following that should underpin future prosperity. A game that has confronted its antiquated administrative structure and produced a business model that takes decisions out of the hands of the backward-thinking and the self-interested - well, at least might.
A game that is being played as close to the borders of pure perfection as its rules allow. A dynamic, pulsating game that, because of the size and power of its athletes, retains a hint of menace and mayhem without the cheap-shot artists.
Tell the southern visitors this and they will reply: ''Yeah, well, that's why Andrew Demetriou was paid $1.8 million last season.''
It will not occur to them that the game is rugby league. That the NRL has entered a golden age. Partly, this is the consequence of the innate belief of those in the AFL heartland that they invented the one true football. And, as with all matters of taste, this is impossible to dispute.
Some will have read the death notices for the NRL posted when players were being picked off by rugby union. Few will have witnessed Lote Tuqiri's symbolic first-touch try for Wests Tigers on Monday night, have read Sonny Bill Williams pines to play the role of prodigal son or understand that, right now, boring and bankrupt rugby union is as cutting edge as dancing the Macarena.
Almost every southerner still believes the NRL died of shame. They will not realise this annus horribilis (and, no, we are not referring specifically to Nate Myles) gave chief executive David Gallop the whip hand and allowed him to confront the culture of cover-up and denial that allowed such atrocities to grow and fester.
Outsiders might not know the NRL is on fire because even the Sydney rugby league media has taken some time to embrace the new zeitgeist. Yet, after years of self-loathing and introversion, players and games are again being analysed and celebrated. There is a sense of respect, even childish awe, in the reporting of the game absent in the past.
More significantly, outsiders will not know about the NRL's resurgence because the game has contracted where others have grown. Because, with a free-to-air television ''partner'' that acts more as censor than propagandist, the NRL's light is hidden not so much under a bushel as a series of home shopping shows. (Outside NSW and Queensland, the Friday night double-header would be more accurately titled the early Saturday morning double-header.)
Given the game is on a natural high everywhere outside Newcastle, why does it matter that millions of heathens whose choice of code was pre-determined before birth do not know the NRL is booming?
Because, as the game deserved the opprobrium it received last year, the NRL deserves to reap the rewards of its on-field excellence.
In two decades, rugby league has been transformed from a lumbering hippo to galloping gazelle. Superstars such as Jarryd Hayne, Benji Marshall, Greg Inglis, Johnathan Thurston and Scott Prince deserve the type of national stardom that Harry Kewell, Mark Schwarzer and even a few elite AFL players enjoy.
More importantly, if the NRL is to cash in on its on-field renaissance, it must maximise exposure and milk more from the southern states if it is to fight toe-to-toe with the AFL at home and - eventually - away.
Possible changes to the anti-siphoning legislation might help increase exposure if Nine is given the opportunity to show NRL matches on its digital channel. If not, the NRL should insist that Foxtel is given permission to show games live outside Queensland and NSW if Nine will not do so.
Of course, providing access to NRL is only a small step. AFL, outside the occasional Swans game, still rates poorly in Sydney, which is why Demetriou is building new franchises he hopes will capture hearts and minds. Less obsessed with the missionary position, the NRL now needs some of this missionary zeal to promote its outstanding product.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/why-the-afl-should-be-wary-of-a-code-on-the-up-and-up-20100319-qm8b.html
Even the Mexicans are begining to notice, and yet we still have to put up with being treated as second rate. How insulting are these arseholes at Fox. You better start behaving or else.
Dickheads!!!
