Television's big potatoes deal which locked us in with the Channel 9 network for seven years, came ten months later. The choice, really, was no choice. Channel Ten who had held the rights to cover the game ($42 million for three years) had fallen flat on their faces, reneging on the deal. In reality, Kerry Packer's Channel 9 was the only game in town. The newspapers guessed $70 million and they were close enough to the mark. There was a period of great controversy over Nine's truncated Sunday night replay, via which viwers received only 42 minutes out of 80, the match squeezed into a television "hour" between 6:30pm and 7:30pm. It was an issue that would never die - with Nine refusing to relent and critics never letting the matter drop.
Yes, we took something of a pasting over the deal, with the Broncos prominent in that, We were asked again and again why we had signed for such a long period - seven years. Well, the truth of it was that Nine and Packer in particular, wanted us to sign a ten year contract. Our preference was for three years.
With no other bidder we had no real bargaining power and finally we met at seven. (years) When we had signed the previous contract with Ten, all three commerical channels were in the market, putting us in the box seat. Now Ten were out of business, unable to pay us the agreed money and Seven were in liquidation. The climate was vastly different. That's what backdropped the arrangement we finally reached with Nine. It was one about which I had some personal reservations - the reduced Sunday night match coverage particularly. I never really liked that.
Nine produced figures which indicated the game was producing better ratings at 42 minutes than it had when they showed it full match. But I got the message pretty clearly from many many people: if they were going to watch a game of football, they preferred to watch the whole game.
The forces that were to toss us like a tiny boat in a stormy sea were now in place, unbeknownst to us. In bried, they could be identified this way:
- The success we had had. We were to be victims of our own achievements, when greedy eyes turned on to us in 1994.
- The bold decision to expand: to make rugby league, for the first time in its like, a truely national sport.
- The Channel 9 deal, locking us in uncomplainingly and with an Optus pay TV rider later added. This allowed us no room for flexibility when the News Ltd approach came to us through the front door in early 1995. As people with a traditional belief in honouring the agreement we made, we were pretty much in Kerry Packer's hands. Any decision to do with News Ltd/Super League virtually had to be his.
- The arrival of the Broncos into the competition in 1998, bringing new elements of unease, discontent, secret corporate ambitions and ultimately wicked treachery.
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