Wily Fox's tactics would've left Moose flabbergasted
Roy Masters
June 24, 2011
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...abbergasted-20110623-1ghkb.html#ixzz1Q110atvv
The recent passing of renowned commentator Rex Mossop brings into focus the debate over scheduling of NRL matches, particularly the controversial timing of the match between St George Illawarra and Manly on Monday night. When Mossop ruled the Channel Seven airwaves in the late 1970s, there were only two games televised from the six available. As they do today, the networks chose the matches. Channel Seven had first pick - a Sunday afternoon match - leaving the second-best match exclusively for Saturdays, and televised by the ABC.
Quite often, Mondays and Tuesdays were spent in long negotiations with club sponsors to determine how highly they valued having their brands promoted on Sydney's TV sets on a Sunday afternoon. Advertisement: Story continues below If talks involving, say, Wests' naming rights sponsor Victa, or St George's Penfolds Wines, laboured late, it wasn't until Tuesday evening that a club knew on which day it would play. A Saturday game meant Thursday evening was the only other training session before the match.
Today, all eight matches are televised and shared between Channel Nine and Fox Sports. Nine has picks one, two and five, allocating them to the double-header on Friday night and its Sunday afternoon game. Fox Sports uses its third pick for the top-rating Monday night football.
Teams playing Monday night cannot back up on Friday night. This means Fox Sports' third pick can cut Nine out of a top Friday night match in the following round.
The furore over the match at WIN Stadium on Monday night should be viewed in this context. An NRL spokesman confirmed that if Nine had wanted to preserve this match for tonight, it would have needed to block Fox Sports out weeks ago with successive Friday night choices of the Dragons and Sea Eagles. As it transpired, the Dragons did play three successive Friday night matches from rounds 13 to 15. But last Monday night's match against the Eels prevented them playing tonight.
The NRL's Nathan McGuirk confirmed that the jockeying between the broadcasters for upcoming matches was as tactical as the battle on the field. ''Sometimes you need a forward pick to block a network taking a game you may later want,'' he said. ''Nine would have had to pick the round 15 Sea Eagles versus Eels for Friday night to guarantee Manly play the next Friday night. ''But in April, when the choice was made, the Dragons versus Manly match wasn't the game it is now.''
It assumed such importance in the mind of NSW coach Ricky Stuart, he used the press conference after his team's victory in State of Origin II to argue the Blues involved in the Origin decider should stand down. NRL chief executive David Gallop responded by suggesting Origin be played on Monday nights. Gallop insists this was mainly related to the issue of burnout, particularly with players having to back up for a Friday match only 48 hours after the Origin game.
If Origin were played on Monday nights, the representative players would have four days' rest instead of two. But don't existing NRL scheduling protocols say that clubs - as opposed to players - can't play on Friday if they have played on Monday?
Asked if his suggestion about Monday night Origin was designed to further pressure Fox Sports into giving more value in the next broadcasting contract, Gallop said: ''We are certainly interested in having Monday night football valued appropriately, particularly considering the ratings results this year. ''Gallop's sabre rattling is a reminder to the network that when it paid $42 million for the right to televise five games live a week, Monday night football wasn't the ratings winner it is now.
When clubs complained Monday night games were affecting their gates, Fox Sports gave the home club a paltry compensation of $10,000 a game. Foxtel has just given the AFL $130m :crazy: a year, and allows the AFL to control match scheduling. If the NRL controlled scheduling, there could be no Monday night games over the Origin period; the Warriors could play Friday nights after Origin and, to overcome teams such as Parramatta having a 17-day gap between games, clubs coming off the bye could play Thursday nights.
Former players were disappointed this week to learn Nine had chosen a round 22 match between Wests Tigers and the Dragons, pencilled in for the SCG on Sunday, August 7, as a Friday night match, disrupting their plans for a reunion lunch.
Still, six weeks' warning is better than it was in Rex's day.
