Just a nice feel good story for an Nrlaholic like myself.
Stephen Loosley: NRL’s evolution from Sydney suburban game to global powerhouse
A single executive’s decision to guarantee Melbourne’s rugby league gate takings transformed the sport from a Sydney-centric competition into today’s international phenomenon.
At times it is possible to witness a tectonic shift in sport, as it actually happens. It may arise from a relatively minor decision, but its consequences will be profound and recognising this at the time is invaluable.
My mind goes back to a meeting of the National Rugby League Partnership Committee about two decades ago. (Full disclosure: I served on the Partnership Board of the National Rugby League as a nominee of News Ltd for well over a decade in the wake of the Super League war.)
The discussion to which I am referring is about playing a major rugby league game in Melbourne, which some then regarded as “hostile territory”. The conservative old guard of the game was generally opposed to anything happening outside Sydney. This applied equally to Brisbane as it did Melbourne.
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Stephen Loosley: NRL’s evolution from Sydney suburban game to global powerhouse
A single executive’s decision to guarantee Melbourne’s rugby league gate takings transformed the sport from a Sydney-centric competition into today’s international phenomenon.
Stephen Loosley
Stephen Loosley
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October 3, 2025 - 12:00AM
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At times it is possible to witness a tectonic shift in sport, as it actually happens. It may arise from a relatively minor decision, but its consequences will be profound and recognising this at the time is invaluable.
My mind goes back to a meeting of the National Rugby League Partnership Committee about two decades ago. (Full disclosure: I served on the Partnership Board of the National Rugby League as a nominee of News Ltd for well over a decade in the wake of the Super League war.)
The discussion to which I am referring is about playing a major rugby league game in Melbourne, which some then regarded as “hostile territory”. The conservative old guard of the game was generally opposed to anything happening outside Sydney. This applied equally to Brisbane as it did Melbourne.
The discussion came to a climax when one of the opponents of Melbourne said to the News Ltd directors: “Well, you will have to guarantee the gate.”
Peter Macourt, then deputy chief executive of News and the person responsible for News Ltd’s finances, looked up and said without blinking: “We will do that.”
This was clearly a crossing of the Rubicon. If the game succeeded and the crowds welcomed rugby league in Melbourne, then the game was bound to go national.
If it failed, then essentially, rugby league was likely to remain a suburban game dominated by thinking like this which follows.
A major rugby league game was to be played the following weekend in Sydney, and the question was asked of the club that was hosting: “Have we promoted the game?”
The sincere reply came as follows: “Well, we put out a flyer.” The official who uttered those words didn’t even realise the impact of what he was saying. That kind of limited perspective had dominated rugby league for too long. How is it possible to imagine rugby league without Caxton St, Brisbane?
It is worth noting that this weekend’s semi-final, a game of extraordinary quality played between the Melbourne Storm and Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, was a sellout.
The National Rugby League had the sense to shift to a Friday night to avoid a clash with the AFL, and the punters turned out in droves.
So let’s look at the scorecard as we move to the rugby league grand final.
Rugby league was once the game of choice in the north of England and in NSW and Queensland. Gloating rugby union officials took much pleasure in pointing this out.
How times have changed.
Rugby union still remains a great international sport, but its efforts at club competitions have hit the sporting Nullarbor.
AFL is an extraordinarily successful game, which was genuinely national in character, only challenged by cricket for its reach. But rugby league has come to offer much more than a straightforward winter competition.
For a start, the entry of the Pacific Island nations has added an additional dimension to rugby league in terms of its sweep and interest. Along with the rebirth of the “Kangaroo Tour” in Europe (currently Britain but in the years ahead, France) means that rugby league has an international contest which is both unique and distinctive. Think of the challenge by Tonga of recent years or the 30-0 hiding of the 2023 Pacific Cup final with New Zealand defeating Australia.
This is just for starters, and speaking of starters, the rugby league games for both the NRL and the Super League in Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas has given the game as good a launch pad for the season that follows as can be found anywhere in the world.
Who would have thought when Super League emerged that we would have been playing the game in the shadow of Caesars Palace? But this is reflective of a capacity to take risks and be innovative which emerged from Super League and has now carried on by Peter V’landys and colleagues, who have risen to the challenge.
All of this means that it is safe to conclude not only that rugby league has travelled a long way in both time and distance from the George Hotel in Huddersfield the 1890s. It is instructive to remember that the game emerged in the north of England because of the vice-like grip that the English rugby clubs had on the code.
Rugby insisted that the game of 15 be played on a Saturday. In the north of England, this meant that working men (who were rostered on for shifts on a six-day, 48-hour working week in the mines and mills) had to forgo their wages in order to play. Rugby league recognised this, and the 13-man-a-side game adapted to the needs of its working-class supporters.
This also happened in France, where the Vichy regime, aligned if not allied with Adolf Hitler, destroyed the code in Christmas 1941, bestowing league’s considerable property portfolio on its rival, rugby.
Ostensibly the reason was quite simple: amateurism must triumph over professionalism, said the Vichy apologists. It was the lack of amateurism that had caused the Third French Republic to collapse to the Nazi onslaught. This was bunk.
The real reason was that French rugby league of the day was considerably more popular than rugby, especially with the working class, the trade unions and the supporters of the Socialist and Communist Parties.
French rugby league survived and will continue to grow. The presence of the Catalans Dragons in the British Super League is absolute proof of that.
So rugby league was born in adversity. We have witnessed a changing of the guard in broad prosperity.
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