https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/nr...otage-afl-broadcast-deal-20200603-p54z6i.html
NRL turns up code war heat with attempt to sabotage AFL broadcast deal
Michael Chammas
June 4, 2020 — 12.01am
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Not satisfied with just beating the AFL to the punch in resuming its season, ARL Commission chairman Peter V'landys attempted to ram home the NRL's dominance by sabotaging the rival code's broadcast rights deal.
The Herald can reveal the NRL, led by V'landys and interim chief executive Andrew Abdo, requested a "most-favoured clause" in its five-year extension with Foxtel that would have prohibited the pay television provider from striking a better deal with the AFL.
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Cornes slams AFL figures who mocked V'landys
Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes has taken aim at members of the AFL fraternity that mocked ARL Commission chairman Peter V'landys' aggressive NRL start date.
While Foxtel knocked back the clause request, which would have guaranteed the NRL received more per game than the AFL, it highlighted V'landys' appetite to take the fight to the code that long regarded as the benchmark of Australian sport.
The NRL under the V'landys regime has drawn the ire of the AFL, which was left behind as the 13-man code returned to competition with record television ratings last week.
It validated the warning that GWS chairman Tony Shepherd, who is a board member of the V'landys-run Racing NSW, offered AFL boss Gillon McLachlan when he declared rugby league would become a serious competitor when V'landys was announced as chairman late last year.
The NRL has also taken a vow of silence in regards to the details of its extension with Foxtel to assist the pay television network's negotiations with the AFL. A lot has changed in the five years since News Corp supremo Rupert Murdoch responded to a secret broadcast deal between Nine and the NRL by stating that his organisation always believed the AFL was the premium code in Australia.
ARLC chairman Peter V'landys and AFL boss Gillon McLachlan.Credit
igital image
While the NRL would like to trumpet its new Foxtel deal amid criticism they caved and provided broadcasters with too much of a discount, the sport's hierarchy have chosen to bite their tongues to avoid giving the AFL a free-kick as it moves to strike its own revised broadcast deal.
Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, now the president of Hawthorn, last week told
The Australian that rugby league was a "boring, boring game" and claimed he would "rather do some underwater knitting" than watch the NRL when it returned on May 28.
Not everyone shared that view as almost 4.5 million people tuned in to watch the NRL's return – the only major football code being played in the country. It was the fifth-largest TV audience for a regular-season weekend in the game's history.
"I do like annoying the Victorians; they are so easy to get," V'landys recently told the
Herald after mocking the AFL for being weeks behind the NRL. "At times I've looked at them and had a giggle."
AFL boss Gillon McLachlan is in the midst of broadcast negotiations ahead of the code's June 11 return.Credit:Getty Images
No doubt V'landys, dubbed "push-ahead Pete" by sections of the Victorian sports media, is giggling again. In Melbourne over the weekend, the city recorded its second highest TV audience for a Storm game when Craig Bellamy's men squared off against Canberra on Saturday night.
Former premiership-winning AFL player turned media personality Kane Cornes broke ranks with his AFL colleagues and heaped praise on V'landys for his achievements against the odds.
"Unbelievable job the NRL have done," Cornes said on Nine's
Footy Show on Sunday. "I just think it has been outstanding and a lesson to the AFL. For the first time I think in Australian sport the AFL are somewhat behind the times, they’ve been beaten to the punch by Peter V’landys. He’s an absolute genius. Anyone who has been critical, put your hand up. It’s front page and back page, they’re dominating the headlines.
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"I’m not having a crack at the AFL, I’m having a crack at the people who were critical, and there were plenty of them. I’m having a crack at those people who now look silly about those comments they made a month ago."
