Not satisfied with Smith - they want Grant too. Methinks they protesteth too much.
Would love to hear what Doc Brown makes of all this.
Frankly if News Corp were able to they'd be writing articles encouraging Smith and others to commit seppuku.
Long before the new commission came on the scene News were run by f**ktards and staffed by hacks writing PR for their corporate agenda and nothing has changed. You all know that. Now I can't prove that everybody who reads that shit and buys it are gullible morons diluting the gene pool but you know it's true.
As for instability in the NRL HQ - don't forget how many PMs we've had in the past 5 years. I think the NRL CEO has better job security ;-)
Roy Masters pretty much nailed it. We'll never really know exactly why Smith resigned. The 3 to 5 year thing rings true and whilst 3 years is short, for all the Smith whingers, name a better NRL CEO. Gallop? Moffet? :lol: Smith was better by a country mile. He's left things in transition but really so do all CEOs.
Did he leave because of the pressure from News Corp? I put it to you this way. CEOs only manage to become CEOs because they can handle pressure.
Look at Sepp Blatter. People & the papers had a whinge about Smith because he couldn't give a footballers name. Wow that's scandalous stuff :lol:
Blatter is pretty much one of the most corrupt, heinous sports administrators in the world. He is evil incarnate. News Corp in Australia is a couple of papers. Blatter has been copping a flogging from the WORLD press for years. I'm pretty sure I heard him described as soccer's satan once. Yet that guy hung in like an Alabama tick for 17 years! These guys know how to cop a hiding.
So Smith - who in total antithesis is like the Ward Beaver of sport - sees a couple of articles from a bunch of leptons saying "We're upset you big meanie! We hate you so much!" and decides to pack his bags and run?
Bullshit! :lol:
Smith probably had his exit strategy already loosely planned for just after negotiations. If News were going to stall a year and you already wanted to leave would you wait for those merkins? Of course not.
So how does this affect negotiations? I'd say very little. Every day companies do business with each other even if they whinge about their partners like News.
News has a couple of options.
a) Stall. But that invites the unknown. Other subscription/streaming competitors. A new NRL CEO. A new 9 CEO who might not onsell. 10 might lose interest. Too many variables. Too much risk.
b) Wait for a new CEO. But lets say it's a rugby league outsider. The NRL get a pro sports administrator from the US or Europe who potentially has already got business connections. What are they going to say to the new CEO during their first meeting? "Your last CEO was mean to us so we don't want to pay you as much." A professional wouldn't laugh at that but they'd be thinking it. Then afterwards they'd go look at other options to get a fair market value. So either News pays a fair market value or they pay nothing and get nothing.
c) Make a deal with Grant and Samuels. Lets not joke around, these guys are pros too that's how they made their money. What are News going to do? Tell them to quit? That's a great way to resolve things. Play hardball? Looks at Grant and Samuels position. They rejected Fox Sports shitty first offer. If they were to accept an offer of equal or lesser value it makes their own position untenable. They're unlikely to sign their own death warrants. If the Fox offer is low they'd probably try to find a similar alternative elsewhere.
Don't forget though 9 & Telstra have a stake in this too. They want NRL on Fox Sports and for the matter to be resolved soon. 9's deal has a better look when the overall sport is seen as a premium product getting top market value. Stockholders don't want to see that 9's doing 80% of the heavy lifting. And Telstra need NRL as part of their new bundle - they don't want the NRL boosting a streaming competitor like Optus. Plus they have a stake in Foxtel so effectively they get hit twice if Fox Sports fail to come to an agreement with the NRL.
If News want to claim a scalp then so be it. But really the game is the same.
Don't be surprised though if after negotiations are completed that we see a repeat of the Williams scenario. When the attack's on the NRL they don't want to look like they stuffed up by axing their own but when the dust settles you just watch the heads quietly roll at Fox Sports.
News Corp have set a precedent by signing the AFL to the parent company. After this round of f**king stupid anti-NRL propaganda I wouldn't be surprised if the NRL push for some positive content/promotion guarantees in the News Corp press (like the AFL got) as part of the negotiations.
The other thing too is the News Corp hacks have employed some historical revision and dropped the $1.7 billion number and are now promoting the line that anything less than $2 billion is a failure. I've already said why that direct AFL comparison is stupid (different games, lengths, number of matches etc). But you'd have to think they're covering their arses because in case the final figure is above $1.7 billion and be hoping it's just below $2 billion so they can call it a failure later on.
