News Corp threats against NRL's Dave Smith are empty
With the premiership seasons of both major football codes now over, the barrage of attacks and threats News Corp's newspapers have levelled at rugby league boss Dave Smith can now be seen for what they were: silly and empty.
Since News subsidiary Fox Sports was cut out of the NRL's new $925 million broadcast deal with Nine Entertainment Co in August, the Murdoch beast has been squealing for Smith's scalp.
A week later, executive co-chairman Rupert Murdoch and chief executive Robert Thomson fronted the cameras to trumpet their new AFL deal with Seven's Kerry Stokes and Telstra's Andy Penn.
"We have always preferred Australian rules," Rupert said, somehow maintaining a straight face. It's just three years since News ceded joint control of the NRL to an independent commission, two since it sold NRL club Melbourne Storm and not 20 since the Murdochs and Packers called a truce in the super league war.
Beside him, Thomson promised News would "use all of its media clout to promote [AFL] in the rugby league heartlands in NSW and Queensland."
Incoming News Corp Australia chief Peter Tonagh continued along those lines. "There is plenty of opportunity outside Victoria to leverage those big [AFL] fan bases… We will be putting the weight of our newspapers behind the investment we have made."
But while The Australian's corporate flog Darren Davidson beats his drum (Lurch must've been a star timpanist in the school orchestra; the timps look simple because they are; nuance optional!), none of News' actual weight or clout has got the message. Or if they have, they're ignoring it.
"No finer finale," the Daily Telegraph said of last Sunday's epic NRL grand final between North Queensland and the Brisbane Broncos. The Sydney tabloid, edited by Paul "Boris" Whittaker, ran dozens of glowing articles, including one called "Why NRL final smashed AFL" and a double-page spread on "Top 50 most dramatic moments of the 2015 NRL season."
Last month Brisbane's Sunday Mail, edited by Peter Gleeson, launched a brand campaign to promote its new-look sports liftout, fronted by Cowboys legend Johnathan Thurston. No sign of Gary Ablett Jr there…
These titles are serving up what their readers want: pages and pages of rugby league. They have no choice but to continue to do so, and they know it.
The same goes for Fox Sports and Foxtel. Like all the major sporting codes, the NRL has all the power in this equation. "At the end of the day, in my opinion," said league caller and Sydney talkback host Ray Hadley, "Fox needs the NRL much more than the NRL needs Fox." Ultimately, either Fox Sports will pay Smith's asking price, or he'll sell them to another broadcaster. And if an ESPN or Google ends up with the rights, News will be in no position to refuse to carry its signal on the Foxtel platform. Without rugby league, Foxtel's business is buggered, and its half-owner, Telstra, won't let that happen.
And a week ago, Lurch claimed that "the Australian Rugby League Commission, the code's governing body, has been left in limbo after News Corp decided to put talks on ice." That would've been news to Smith, and outgoing News chief Julian Clarke, who have continued to engage about the rights package directly.
The latest "left in limbo" story is no more or less misleading than anything else News has parroted since their August gazumping. So will Smith's chairman John Grant see it for the naked misdirection that it is, or will he lose his nerve and let the Murdochs save some face with a sacrificial offering?
