| Getting Left Behind In A Fast Changing Media Market |
 This week we saw and interesting court case in which Optus were ruled to not be breaking any laws by allowing its customers to record free to air television programs on a personal DVR and then stream that recording to their mobile devices and computers as early as 2 minutes after that television program started.
This become an issue for Telstra, as they see Optus allowing near live streaming content of programs Telstra has payed exclusive rights for, namely the NRL and AFL. Tesltra paid a lot of money for exclusive rights to stream live games online for both competitions and basically they felt as though Optus had found a loop hole to get around those very expensive rights deals.
Personally I don't think they will have any real impact on exclusive online rights for any sport. However for me, it opens up the debate on sports coverage online.
Right now Telstra has the exclusive online rights for the NRL. They also own 50% of Foxtel. It doesn't make sense for Telstra to under mine its Pay TV arm by allowing online coverage of the NRL to gather any momentum.
Why would Tesltra make it cheap enough and easy enough for NRL fans to watch games on their computers, and have their own service in direct competition with its Pay Television company?
So as long as Telstra has the exclusive rights to NRL coverage online, their policies will not only be restrictive, but so expensive to buy as a fan that you might as well....thats right....get Foxtel put on.
So what does "Exclusive" mean?
Once upon a time if you had "Exclusive" rights to a sporting event, it meant that your television station was the only place you could see the game. Things have changed though. We now live in a world where exclusive media content, as soon as it see's the light of day, it gets sent all over the world on so many formats and to so many different devices that it's really impossible to have an "Exclusive" of any sort right now.
Telstra want's to keep exclusivity over online NRL coverage, and that's fair enough. However, their interests in other areas means that the online coverage they provide is terrible. Really what Telstra pays for in regards to exclusive online rights is really just a safeguard for their Pay TV coverage of the game.
Look at it this way....
Why would I go out and get Foxtel so I can watch NRL coverage bundled with a hundred other channels filled with rubbish if I was able to watch NRL games online for cheaper than Foxtel costs because I'm not playing for all that extra rubbish I don't watch anyway?
I would happily pay $30 a month if it meant I could watch NRL games online and live. I'm sure many other people would as well. Telstra can't have that though. They need us all to head on over and become Foxtel subscribers.
The Pay Television industry has a major problem heading its way. In Australia, Pay TV has not had the penetration isn't Australian homes that it really needs. It has managed to do well so far anyway. However with the National Broadband Network coming into play, people will find they will be able to watch television shows in high definition from web sites from all over the world.
In many cases, you'll be able to watch your favorite television shows for free over your super fast high speed internet.
Free To Air TV is available to anyone with a television, but Pay TV need's hardware and a very big infrastructure to run it. The National Broadband Network cuts out the need for that hardware and infrastructure.
Now there needs to be no middle man (Pay TV) between you and your favorite shows. So why would you get Pay TV when you can just get hooked up to the NBN and watch what you want, when you want?
Pay TV will find itself stuck in a no mans land between Free To Air TV and the Internet. The only trump card that Pay TV in Australia will be able to sell you over both is that it can allow you to watch EVERY game of the NRL season if you sign up.
All of this is going to mean that Rugby League fans get severely short change with coverage of the game online unless there is a radical rethink of the way the NRL receives money for coverage of the game online.
Ideally what you would like to see is a completely open and unrestricted site, run by the NRL, which would allow you to subscribe to various packages and watch games online at a price that was reasonable.
Imagine being able to pay to watch an NRL game online and having the ability to pick and chose only the games you wanted to watch. You might pay to only watch games you team was involved in. You might chose to only watch Sunday night games.
You could pay on a month to month basis or pay for an entire years worth of live NRL coverage you could watch online.
Does the money from these subscriptions have to be the finite number in which success or failure is measured? I don't think so....
Why couldn't the NRL sell on advertising banners on this online television network. Surely the NRL could commission a study into the exposure existing club and competition sponsors gain from much more open online coverage. If you find that you are getting 10,000 subscribers to online NRL matches, who knows, you much find sponsors will start paying clubs and players more money for that extra exposure.
The NBA has an interesting outlook on this. Their philosophy is to get the game out there. Get as much exposure as possible. If you can get your games shown out in the big wide world as much as possible, sponsors will pay more money to be exposed to the large market you have drawn in.
The NBA has a deal with YouTube that allows anyone to upload NBA clips. Basically the NBA knows that every NBA clip on YouTube might not quite generate direct money into the NBA's pockets, but the flow on effect and exposure will mean they will down the track get more money from their sponsors.
I think this is the direction the NRL needs to start looking in because it is obvious after this court ruling that the old, out dates idea of exclusive coverage and shutting down an entire side of your potential market is about to become a thing of the past.
Through my web site I am constantly asked by people all over the world where they can watch NRL coverage online. Unfortunately, right now, your best source of NRL coverage online come from pirate streams.
This doesn't need to be the case.
I've no doubt that the NRL will look to sign an exclusive online rights deal with Telstra once again. I don't think the NRL see's the potential the internet can offer the game, and I also think that a non exclusive deal would see Foxtel try to drive down how much they pay for Pay TV rights anyway.
However, over the nest five years of the next television deal, the NRL needs to put in the time, money and effort to come out the other side ready to offer fans all over the world coverage via the internet that cuts out the middle man.
Restricting the exposure of the NRL is no longer good enough. The more people watching the game, the better.
Lets hope someone within the NRL see's the opportunities the new media market holds for the game. When your showing games online, your market isn't just Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne. Its the world.
League Freak
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| Why Being An NRL All Star Just Isn't Enough In The Grand Scheme Of A Career |
 In the history of top grade Rugby League in Australia, there are only 16 players since 1908 that have played 300 or more clubs games.
Think about that for a moment. For the thousands of players who have pulled on one of the famous Rugby League jerseys of either an NSWRL, ARL or NRL club, only 16 have had a career that has spanned longer than 300 games. It is a testament to the intensity of the competition and it is seen as a great honour to be one of the select few to surpass the universally recognized milestone.
So considering that even an above average NRL star is looking at 300 games ceiling on their career, is it any wonder why they would be less than enthusiastic to throw their bodies into a contest who meaning, while while intended, ultimately won't have any baring on their overall career?
The NRL All Star game on paper is a fantastic concept, but it is one that is fractured in the sense that it offers a very different outcome depending on which side you get selected for.
For an Indigenous NRL All Star player, the meaning of this game is very clear. The chance to celebrate the history and contribution that Aboriginal players have had on Rugby League is one that every selected player carries with great honour. In this sense, the All Star game is a fantastic concept and the NRL has led the way for all Australian sports in showcasing Aboriginal talent and using the game to push many great causes for Aboriginal people in Australia.
To balance this up, the NRL All Stars team boasts that it is a side selected by fans. A chance for players to feel a sense of recognition for their achievements in the game. However it is clear that an NRL All Stars player is playing for a lot less than an Indigenous All Stars player, and that is something I don't think the game can ignore any longer.
The NRL All Stars, at the end of the day, are on a hiding to nothing. When I watch the game as a fan, of course I want to see the Indigenous All Stars to get up! To win the game really means something to them, and when it comes down to it, the ideal victory would come from a spectacular late try to give the Indigenous All Star team a famous victory and for us to all be able to celebrate with them, every, single, year.
If you doubt this is the game then ask yourself how long this concept would last if the NRL All Stars team racked up a few big wins in back to back season. How many of those could the All Star Game concept actually survive? Three, maybe four lopsided games at most?
NRL All Star Players are rightfully proud when they get chosen by fans to represent their club and the game in general in the All Stars Game. However, as the pre season starts coming to a close and players start to focus on the club season ahead, the NRL All Star game goes from being an honour, to being something of a distraction. Well intended, but still a distraction.
At this point of a player pre season preparation, how many of them really want to take a good week and a half away from their NRL clubs and spend that time focusing energy on something that isn't the ultimate goal of winning an NRL title? How many want to put in all the time traveling, doing media and charity work, breaking their regular training routine and possibly risking injury for a game that, come September, few will put any real value into?
If you thought you maybe be able to only do something 300 times, and by October if everything goes well, you maybe have ticked 20-30 of those occasions off your total forever, wouldn't you be hesitant in when and where you applied yourself?
When it comes down to it, there is simply not enough incentive in the grand scheme of things for a player to really want to go out of their way to play for the NRL All Stars, and with every withdrawal of a selected player, the honour diminishes for appearance that puts you on a hiding to nothing anyway.
Some have suggested that you can get over this with offering more money to players that take part in the game, but this is a short sighted band aid fix that would not only cheapen the entire game and make it prohibitively expensive to hold. You also have to consider that, with the NRL salary cap about to rise considerably, one off appearance fee's are going to become less of an incentive anyway when compared to a players growing overall salary anyway.
I personally believe the way you save the All Star Game concept is to give the opponents of the Indigenous All Stars team something to play for. Their own cause. Their own reason to be proud.
I would have the Indigenous All Stars team playing against a Polynesian All Stars side.
Imagine having a chance to celebrate two groups of players who both contribute so much to the game. You'd be giving players of Polynesian decent a chance to play in a big time representative fixture while at the same time honouring them for the incredible and growing contribution they make to the game as a whole.
With recent work the NRL has been doing with Polynesian leadership camps, it would be a natural progression to see a Polynesian team coming together as a representative side anyway. Who knows, an All Star Team may become a stepping stone for a combined Polynesian Test side that would be able to take on the likes of Australia and New Zealand on a regular basis and provide a much needed point of difference in international Rugby League.
While in an ideal world the likes of Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands and so on would play as individual nations, the reality right now is that the interest from sponsors, clubs and television just isn't there for these teams to get the exposure to the top level that they truly do deserve.
As a combined side however, they become a top draw. Try arguing against a Polynesia test team playing against New Zealand if you can get 20,000 people into a stadium in Auckland to watch such a game.
The Polynesian community is crying out for representation. Having been at the 2008 Rugby League World Cup when Tonga played Samoa, it was incredible to see how two massive communities got so excited and come to a game, not so much to see who won, but just to have a chance to see themselves represented on a big stage like that. Maybe a Polynesian All Star side is therefore the way to go, with having the longer term goal to have the side playing test football until such time as the game can afford to give Pacific Islands nations the chance to stand on their own two feet and play the likes of Australia an New Zealand themselves.
What ever the case, the current All Star concept come off as a half finished product, with one side having everything to play for, while the other is asked to be happy just to be there.
In a brutal game like Rugby League, the truth is that an All Star jersey just isn't worth burning a 1 in 300 chance on.
League Freak
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| My Kingdom For 100 Vinyl Stickers |
 The Rugby Football League has signed a three year deal with trucking company Stobart. The deal involved Stobart putting large Rugby League themed stickers on 100 of their trucks and involves no money.
In exchange for this the Super League competition will carry the Stobart.
This is insane! Nothing against Stobart, they've done a great deal and made out like bandits. Lets put this in perspective though. The RFL gave Stobart free advertising on Sky Sports television. In return for that national exposure Stobart gave the RFL free advertising on the A57!
The game in England is terribly under funded, and is it any wonder why? How much is a vinyl sticker on a truck worth to Wakefield or London? How much will Hull FC get out of a truck that is traveling up to Newcastle with their logo on it?
If you ran a club and the RFL came back and said "We just sold the naming rights of the entire competition for no money....but look at these cool pictures on some trucks" you would be furious! Clubs have budgets they have to fill out and balance. The naming rights to the Super League competition is one of the few opportunities for the game to draw in some cold, hard cash, and the Rugby Football League blew it!
This deal comes a day after the shocking news that the Rugby Football League had bought Odsal Stadium. Some have suggested that the RFL did this to secure the future of the Bradford Bulls, who the RFL have said they will lease use of the ground to.
So, now that the RFL owns Odsal Stadium, how long do you think it is going to take for the Bradford Bulls to cry poor and claim they can't afford to pay the RFL anything to play there. What are the RFL going to do, kick out the one team willing to play at what is a dump of a ground?
Some people have said the RFL should redevelop the group. Really? You want the RFL to spend a few hundred million pounds it doesn't have on a stadium in Bradford?
It seems like every few weeks the Rugby Football League makes one shambolic decision after another that costs the game in one way or another. How long will these people be allowed to continue to run the game in Great Britain and be accountable to absolutely no one?
To give away free sponsorship and buy a relic of a football stadium is unbelievable. Hopefully someone in club land can call the RFL into account and send the current set of administrators off to ruin some other sport.
League Freak
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| How Much Can You Get Out Of Pre Season Results? |
You've waited through the long off season, and now, with the season just around the corner, your team is starting to play trial matches.
So how much can you get out of trial games? How much can you take from trail game results?
You can do all of the fitness work you like, but nothing beats the fitness you build up by playing games. What it comes down to it, this is what trail games are for. It allows teams to build up that bit of match fitness, and get their eye back on the ball so that when the season starts they hopefully hit the ground running.
Most coaches I would suggest don't worry too much about pure results in the pre season. They will look at a few different combinations, maybe see how certain players react to positional changes or how the team takes on a new style of play or new tactics, but most coaches just want to get a run into their squad and come away with no injuries.
If your team wins big, great, but that doesn't mean they will be great during the regular season. If your team loses, it is not the worst thing in the world.
I only ever get worried about pre season losses when they are big losses and there are a lot of them. Sometimes you see some teams that have a losing habit will lose most of their trail games. That sort of thing usually carries itself into the regular season.
This is all why we can't really have a pre season competition in Rugby League. Teams really do need this time to prepare for the regular season start. It is also why I don't like seeing NRL teams having to fly over to the UK to to play in the waste of time that is the World Club Challenge.
While everyone back home is is easing themselves into a new season, the NRL Champions are dealing with jet lag and conditions they will never have to face again for the rest of the year. It is a disruption no team would want.
Some clubs play other NRL teams. Some clubs play lower grade sides. The opposition a lot of the time really isn't important.
Clubs sometimes agree to extended squads or a much higher number of interchanges. Some teams agree to play the game in quarters. We have even seen some pre season games where an NRL side will play one team in the first half, and another team in the second half.
It is all just about getting a run into your legs.
So with the pre season about to kick off, keep an eye on results, but don't live and die by them. Ideally your team gets pushed a little and comes into round one injury free. Win, lose or draw, if your team his Round One of the NRL season in some type of decent form, you're club probably had a good pre season campaign.
League Freak
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| Slater Lover Helps League Freak Break The 50,000 Tweet Barrier |
The Glorious League Freak joined Twitter on the 16th of October in 2009. Today, League Freak broke the 50,000 tweet barrier.
In honour of this great occasion, The Glorious League Freak ran a competition to get a mention in the 50,000th tweet. That competition was won by Andrea who made this awesome fan sign! You should get on Twitter and follow her here: @SlaterLover
Twitter has been a hell of a lot of fun and really added a whole lot to the site. It is great to get instant feedback on what I write here.
The highlight for most people is when I either go off on a Twitter rant or just generally take the piss out of anything that is being shown on television. Embarrassing Bodies is not half as entertaining unless you're following me.
One thing that is very cool is to see the network of people that have all come together and followed each other after following me. Twitter is a bit like a cult, and I'm still buttering up you bastards until such time as you hand over all your money. That is when I'll tell you to drink the Kool-Aid.
Anyway, that is 50,000. Now get back to work!
League Freak
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| Matthew Johns Must Have Forgotten He's Only Matthew Johns |
 Paul Vautin had hosted The Footy Show every single year since 1994. He is the worst host in Australian television history, and that is what makes him so great!
In an industry of talentless try hards who have the personality of a wet cardboard box, Fatty is still a breath of fresh air.
There are people that love The Footy Show, and others hate The Footy Show. I've been critical of it in the past, but I rarely miss an episode. For me, it is great when they are talking Rugby League, and it starts to lose me when they are talking about other sports or doing some type of gimmicky bullshit.
This week it has come to light that Matthew Johns was offered a return to The Footy Show on a big salary. He was willing to come back on the condition that "his company" produced the show, he hosted the show, and Fatty Vautin was axed.
Wait.....who the fuck are you again?
Matthew Johns used to be part of The Footy Show. There was a feeling the network was grooming him to eventually take over as host. He even hosted the show when Vautin had a few episodes off with concussion over he fell over in a Sumo Suit (How can you not love that!).
Johns wasn't a good host. He was awkward and tried too hard. In fact, outside of his Reg Reagan character, Johns didn't really add anything to The Footy Show anyway.
Then, a few years ago news come out of an alleged group sex romp the Cronulla Sharks had while in New Zealand for a pre season trial game a few years earlier. John, who was married at the time of the alleged events, was really the only name to come out as being involved in the incident.
Channel Nine and Paul Vautin stood by him.
At the end of that year Johns left Channel 9 and formed a production company with John Singleton. They come up with a new style Footy Show for Channel 7, with an earlier time slot.
It was nothing short of a disaster. In fact, it is honestly one of the worst shows I have even see on Television. Channel 7 persisted with it, however after less than one year, Channel 7 was actually willing to pay Matthew Johns to stay off the air.
A year out of television all together, and now Johns for some reason thinks he has the right to call the shots to ANYONE? Why?
John Singleton took aim at Paul Vautin, calling him an average player, coach and television presenter. This is what John Singleton does though, he backs a loser and then slags off everyone else. Its why he bought into a Rugby League stadium in Gosford with no Rugby League team....and then took shots at the NRL for not "expanding" to Gosford. His opinion's are all about self interest, and therefore carry no currency.
Johns however should know better.
For a below average talent, Johns should have a good hard look at the likes of Ray Hadley and ask himself if he wants to end up being very good at his job, and universally disliked.
Hadley has called Rugby League games on the radio for decades. He is very good at what he does on the radio, but has failed numerous times at trying to crack it for a television career.
When a commentator retires, the connection they form over many years with listeners see's them leave the game with a tide of good will.
When Ray Hadley retires, do you think anyone will be saying the nice things about him that will will undoubtedly see when Ray Warren retires?
Paul Vautin has now been fronting one of the longest running shows in Australian television history for 18 years. That after having a fantastic career as a player and a ridiculously good career as a State Of Origin coach.
When he decides its time to move on, people are going are going to miss Paul Vautin.
With that in mind.....did anyone miss Matthew Johns this past year?
League Freak
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| Rugby League Champions League: What A Stupid Idea! |
 Imagine a Rugby League club competition that only has the elite clubs in the world participating in it. Imagine that the concentration of the best players in the world play in this competition and that the interest in it was so great that people watched it on both sides of the planet.
Its would be the best of the best facing off to find out who was the best Rugby League club in the world!!!
We have this competition already. Its called the National Rugby League.
I always have to have a good laugh when someone from England tosses up this stupid concept of an expanded World Club Challenge. Lets for a second over look the fact that you would have to completely scrap international Rugby League to play such a competition, something the Poms wouldn't have any problems with considering that for the last 40 years that is an area they have been dismal failures in.
I can not understand why anyone in England thinks their clubs would be part of ANY elite club competition. That ANY Super Leaque club has ANY sort of relevance in the Rugby League pecking order is just a fanciful idea that is pushed by the same idiots that will tell you Super League isn't all that far off of NRL standards.
The worst club in the NRL last season was the Gold Coast Titans. They were dreadful. Yet, if you put the Titans in Super League, they would easily have the best halves, wingers, fullback, forward pack, coaching staff, stadium, off field set up and corporate sponsorship base compared to anyone else competing in Super League.
It is not even close....
Keep in mind, England can't even rustle up enough decent players to put together a 17 man international line up. That tells you how bad their club sides are.
In 2011 the best player in Super League was Rangi Chase. In the NRL, Chase not even an established first grader!
Super League is a competition that Sam Tomkins tears up on a weekly basis. The same Sam Tomkins that is a dismal failure at international level any time he is playing anyone beyond the semi professional level!
Hell in 2011 in Super League, the Leeds Rhino's won the title with what was their worst side in a decade and with a coach that was so bad he almost sent his previous club into oblivion! I had Rhino's fans saying to me "We were terrible last year. Yeah we won the title but still, we were really bad".
If the best team in Super League isn't all that good by Super League standards, on what plane of reality are they needed in an elite club competition? What makes these sub standard shell's, these small organisations propped up by rich benefactors, think they have more of a right to be fighting for a world title then say the 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th best NRL club?
Its bad enough the NRL clubs take part in the farce that is the current World Club Challenge, which all NRL club treat as nothing more than a trial match, resting star players, sending over small squads and not even sending their entire coaching staffs. They do it for money, but now that is less of a lure in itself with a strong Australian Dollar and the fact that NRL clubs are about to be riding a billion dollar television deal.
Some English fans tend to forget that the last time we had an expanded World Club Challenge, the rules had to be changed part of the way through because English clubs were providing no competition what so ever. There was the prospect that an unbeaten Australian club was going to end up playing an English club in the final that had a losing record.
English supporters and the like can keep telling themselves their top clubs would compete in the NRL all day if they want to. No one cares what these people think. Nothing of any relevance in Rugby League has come out of Great Britain since the early 1970's. These are the same people that honestly believe they are above New Zealand on the pecking order because the Kiwi's don't like traveling to England....and can you blame them?
Down here in Australia, we are part of a wider Rugby League community that includes an overwhelming influence from New Zealand and a host of great players from the Pacific Islands. We watch all of these players compete in an incredible club competition week in week out. They get tested every single week.
So, when England comes out of the blue and proclaims its importance on the overall game, the Rugby League community in this part of the world laughs because it is genuinely funny.
England provides about half a dozen players to the elite club competition on this planet, an yet, they honestly believe they should get three of their clubs and a French side in a Champions League competition! Its insane!
England has not been relevant in Rugby League for decades, and they just don't seem to understand that fact. Their arrogant self importance is a comical levels.
So no. Take your stupid idea's back to England. I don't care where you were born, I don't care what you do for a living. I don't care what you think of Super League, I don't care what you think of the NRL.
You are just another fucking television person looking for content. You don't care about the game, you obviously don't know much about the game, so take your stupid idea, and go back to the soap dodgers where you found a comfortable place for yourself.
The National Rugby League is an elite 16 team competition comprised of the best clubs in the world. It is a competition that is played by the best Rugby League players in the world.
Champions League? You're looking at it pal....
League Freak
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| Attacking Rugby League, Despising Rugby League And Loving Rugby League |
There is something about Rugby League that really pisses some people off.
I can not think of another sport anywhere else in the world that is supposed to justify its existence, as well as its ability to survive long term, despite the fact the tough old bastard has been around since 1895.
It is not as though Rugby League is the type of sport that gets forced on people. In fact, in most cases, to play or watch a game of Rugby League, you have to go out of your way to do it.
Imagine being a Rugby League player in France for instance.
You have Soccer, which is easily the number one sport. If that's not your thing, it would be so much easier to play Rugby Union, and more lucrative. Yet, you get blokes that say "No, Rugby League looks like my game". They go out every weekend and they play the sport they love.
New Zealand are the Rugby League World Champions. Even there you still hear stories of youngsters being told by their schools Rugby Union team that if they don't stop playing Rugby League on the weekend, they can consider themselves out of the side. When this happens, the school usually has to go looking for an extra player, because when Rugby League is in your blood, it has you for life.
Why do we love this game? What is it about Rugby League that captures us and never lets us go?
For me, Rugby League is the smell of freshly cut grass. The feeling of running down a sideline while others try to cut you down. It's the moment of confrontation, bracing for impact and driving through a tackle. Sometimes you get dragged to the ground and you feel the full impact of the planet hitting you. Other times, you feel the defenders fall off you, that power turns into speed, and when you run it in for a try, you feel like a king.
Rugby League is a game for the athletes and the magicians. It is a game of power and speed. It is a game of grit and agility. Just to walk out on the field, just to play this sport, it says something about the person you are.
Not everyone is cut out for Rugby League, and I think sometimes as a sport, we forget that. Lets face it, the idea of running out onto a field and running with the ball while 13 other people try to tackle you, that doesn't appeal to everyone!
I like that a good Rugby League team needs a mix of elements. That the elements that bring success to a club are constantly changing as the game continues to evolve. I love that I can sit down on any given weekend to watch an NRL game, and even after all these years, I can see something that takes my breath away.
The physical demands of our sport tests a player to their limits. Rugby League breaks everyone, without fail. The greatest players in our sport have always been better for the adversity that the game throws at them. It is the test, and the special ones rise above the set backs to reach new levels of greatness.
My favorite player is Benji Marshall. A young bloke from New Zealand that had a thousand reasons to not make it. As a slightly built touch football player, Benji found himself playing in the toughest sporting competition in the world.
It took its toll.
Marshall endured a number of major injury set backs, and at one point, it looked like shoulder injuries would shorten his career.Yet, today, Benji Marshall is among that rare breed of players that play with magic out on the field. In this physical battle that breaks even the best athletes, Marshall has an ability to do things that he has no right to do.
In last years semi finals series, we all watched in horror as Darren Lockyer had his face smashed by a team mates stray knee. We watched the fight between Lockyers physical, primal reaction to having broken bones in his face, and the pride of a champion player who looked up field at his young side battling away and knew he couldn't leave the field.
When Lockyer waved the trainers away, it was a moment. They knew to just leave him.
As Lockyer started a slow jog back into the game, clinching his jaw shut in an effort to keep his shattered face braced, you knew you were watching something special.
Those raw moments are what get me. For such an unforgiving game, every so often you have players that just refuse to give in. Who refuse to be broken.
How can you not love a sport that give you all of that? How can you watch all the sport in the world, and then see what Rugby League brings to the table, and decide it's rubbish?
Rugby League isn't played all over the world, but very few sports are! Unless you are Soccer or Basketball, you are a mainstream sport that is only popular within a select few geographically confined areas of the world.
As a realist, I can tell you Rugby League is played throughout Australia, through a large portion of New Zealand and throughout England. It is played in parts of Wales, Ireland and France. It has outposts in Russia, Canada and a fairly healthy competition in the United States, where is has enough playing that the sport is actually split into two different competitions over there!
Rugby League is played in the Pacific Islands and it is the national sport of PNG. All of that and I haven't even touched on the countries where the game is played in small numbers by committed fans who love the game just as much as the rest of us do!
The thing is, Rugby League has never pretended to be a game the entire world plays. Sure we have the second oldest World Cup in all of sports, but you wouldn't hear Rugby League pumping out pompous suggesting like our World Cup is "The World In Union".
If all of Rugby League was encompassed by areas serviced by the National Rugby League, damn, it would still be a great sport!
Uneducated, ignorant hacks have been taking shots at Rugby League since 1895. After all, there is no way a sport formed in a hotel in Huddersfield is going to go anywhere. Yet, here we in 2012, and you get a sense that this is a sport that might be doing OK for itself
With a billion dollar television deal just around the corner, further expansion on the horizon, a World Cup next year and a sense that the game is finally standing on its own two feet and ready to push into new areas once again, Rugby League is doing alright.
So, when ever you read another attack piece on Rugby League, I want to you think one thing for the poor old writer that wrote that article.
"Its OK. You're going to be OK."
League Freak
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| Rugby Leagues Position In The Patchwork Quilt Of Sports Venues In Sydney |
Today it has been announced that the Sydney Cricket Ground will be upgraded with funding from the Australian Federal Government of $50 million, the NSW State Government tipping in $86 million and the SGC Trust itself spending $50 million as well.
This will see the venues capacity boosted from 45,758 to 48,000.
Wait, what? That works out to be just under $83,000 per additional seat! How blood ridiculous!
It makes me think about the scatter gun approach Rugby League has taken to upgrading its own facilities. So many millions of dollars have been wasted on so many different venues, none of which are still anywhere near up to the standards they should be at.
There is no long term strategy in regards to where the NRL wants to permanently base teams in Sydney. There is no long term plan for which venues will get funding to becomes the world class facilities that the game needs. The sad thing is, Rugby League has no one else to blame but itself for this situation.
Right now only the Sydney Roosters, Parramatta Eels and Penrith Panthers have permanent, long term home stadiums that they will not be moving from any time in the medium or even long term.
The West Tigers and St George/Illawarra Dragons have at least two "home" stadiums they use as well as moving bigger games to ANZ Stadium or the SFS.
The Canterbury Bulldogs currently play out of ANZ Stadium, but recently opened a tax payer funded training facility at the dilapidated Belmore Oval. A place the club has said they want to get back up to NRL standards again, courtesy of the tax payer, as if ANYONE wants to travel to Belmore to watch games!
You have the Manly Sea Eagles who want funding to upgrade their stadium, leaving aside it being impossible to get to and having no parking. They have talked about possibly moving the club if they don't get a stadium upgrade.
Then you have the poor old Cronulla Sharks who are so busy servicing debt that they don't know how long they will be around, let alone if they will be playing at Shark Park long term.
It is one great big giant mess and it doesn't have to be that way.
I would like to see the NRL sit down and formulate a long term strategy for where it wants every NRL club playing in Sydney, not just over the next few seasons, but 20 years from now.
They need to look at fully servicing the Campbelltown area with a full time team. They need to look at what venues they want to invest their product in, and in tern look at getting funding for those venues so that Rugby League fans can attend games at stadiums that are comfortable and give the best spectator experience.
The NRL should look to team up with the Football Federation of Australia (Soccer) and Australian Rugby Union and all three sports sit down and talk about strategic plans for facilities from the biggest stadiums, down to local playing fields.
All three sports have the same requirements in that they require a rectangular field. The goal posts and field markings change, but that is it. Across all three sports, spectators and players require the exact same things.
Being able to lobby the government for funding as a group, and with a long term strategy, would benefit all three sports. They are all trying to target the same areas anyway, but without a coordinated approach. That makes it very difficult to get anything done.
I would like to see Sydney end up with a rectangular stadium with a capacity of between 35-40,000 based near the geographical center of the Sydney population.
To me, Parramatta Stadium ticks a lot of boxes and gives you a great base to build upon. With the right amount of commitment from three sports, a number of full time tenants and the right amount of funding, you could turn Parramatta Stadium into a smaller version of Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
Imagine a 35,000 seat version of Suncorp Stadium based at Parramatta. It would become the home of the Parramatta Eels and Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL as well as being home to a western Sydney A League team, meaning it would be used 12 months of the year.
This venue would be the perfect size to host Rugby League Internationals as well as bigger games involving western Sydney teams such as the West Tigers and Penrith Panthers. It could host smaller scale Soccer and Rugby Union internationals as well.
I can't see a down side to this type of commitment from the game of Rugby League, Soccer, Rugby Union, or the tax payer, who would be asked to fund all of this.
The alternative is to look at building a brand new stadium that would need a bigger commitment from all three sports and that would probably require the game to completely abandon a few venues around Sydney.
That would see a stadium built at say Homebush Bay with the Canterbury Bulldogs and South Sydney Rabbitohs committing to the venue. A promise that the Parramatta Eels would not require any stadium upgrades as they would play their biggest games at this new stadium, and a similar commitment from the St George/Illawarra Dragons and the West Tigers (Who would have to finally give up Leichhardt Oval and commit to Campbelltown and the new stadium).
This will all horrify the traditionalists, but I don't really care. Right now we are seeing so many millons of tax payers money being pissed away on venues that, even after having tens of millions of dollars spent on them, are still not up to any reasonable standard!
Plenty of people say to me "The reason Rugby League teams in Sydney don't get huge crowds is because they are not marketed well". That is a misconception.
These days all sporting venues are in competition with HD TV and a generally busier lifestyle. The competition Rugby League is up against is television coverage, your own lounge chair, beers from your own fridge and pizza!
To get people to go to the football, and come back time and time again, you have to provide a very good experience. It is not good enough any more to offer a grass hill at an out of the way suburban ground with no parking what so ever. You cant ask a supporter to invest money in a night out to watch your team play, and then offer them a facility that is poor.
When you look at stadiums in other cities and the experience they provide, Sydney is locked in a completely different era to those places. A stadium such as Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Skilled Park on the Gold Coast or AAMI Park in Melbourne, these are venues that are so good that fans attending games just want to come back and watch anything at the stadium, they don't care what sport it is!
There are Super League teams in England with stadiums better than those at Manly, Cronulla, Balmain, St George and Penrith. How ridiculous is that! In fact St Helens has just completed construction on a brand new venue, and while it only has a capacity of 18,000 it leaves anything in the above mentioned areas for dead.
If Rugby League in Sydney wants to provide a good enough experience to keep fans coming back, it will need to provide venues that are up to today's standards. For all the talk about how great traditional old venues are, the fact is that newer stadiums go beyond drawing in just the die hard fans, and because of that they draw in bigger attendance numbers.
Not too long ago Rugby League in Sydney used to have a match of round that it would hold at the SCG. They did this because it allowed people to go to a top class venue that had a big capacity. It allowed as many people to attend a big game and in the most comfortable environment possible.
This should be what is provided every single week to Sydney based NRL fans, and the simple fact is, it's not.
We need to get funding for NRL venues, but we need to concentrate that funding into only a select few venues that will host regular games over a long term basis. Not just throw money at old ruins so we can play the occasional game at grounds our parents used to go to in a very different area.
Time moves on...
If the SCG can spend $186 million to add a few extra seats, I don't think it is beyond reason to think that Rugby League, Soccer and Rugby Union could get together the money to have a rectangular football stadium in the geographical heart of Sydney that would become the home of a number of different clubs as well as hosting international.
Sound pie in the sky?
Well keep in mind that for the price of the $186 million upgrade the SCG will undergo for Cricket and AFL alone, you could have constructed Skilled Stadium on the Gold Coast and had a spare $26 million to spend. I'm sure that would be enough to buy a few extra seats as well...
League Freak
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| I Hope The Sydney Roosters Sign Sonny Bill Williams |
 So yet again Rugby League is talking about a "super secret meeting" that happened over a coffee in public.
The story is that Sonny Bill Williams met with the Sydney Roosters chairman Nick Politis and Channel Nine supremo David Gyngell at "secluded" Circular Quay to all but finalize a return to the NRL for the former Bulldog starting in 2013.
Williams manager Khoder Nasser has denied any deal had been done and suggested they all just met for a catch up. Yeah, that's a good one. Have you heard Sonny Bill Williams trying for form a sentence? What is he talking to two business men about, his new tattoo? He's a moron! Apart from being a football player hes an empty vessel!
Williams would be yet another former Bulldogs player the Roosters have signed in recent years. Every since the Bulldogs beat the Roosters in the 2004 Grand Final it has been as though the Roosters just decided to buy that Bulldogs side.
I don't understand why any player would want to play for the Roosters.
First of all, you are constantly playing in front of tiny crowds. The Roosters simply do not have a supporter base that warrants a team in the NRL. They are a side propped up by old rich men and are as far from a true Rugby League club as you will find.
The Roosters wine and dine their possible recruits and talk about becoming part of the family....but its all bullshit.
Take a look at the long list of players the Roosters have pushed out of the club time and time again. They have zero loyalty towards their own players.
Take a look at Braith Anasta, another former Bulldogs player.
Anasta has stuck by the club through thick and thin. Its safe to say that he probably wasted the best years of his career at a club that has struggled from one crisis to another. He has watched so much rubbish going on around him, he is one of the really good people within the game, and yet the Roosters are trying to push him out the door to sign Williams.
Why would you want to go to a club with no fans, that no one likes to get no assurances that they will not push you out the door before your contract is even up!
I hope that Sonny Bill Williams does sign with the Roosters. I can't think of anything better than watching him play in front of 4,000 people for a couple of games before he picks up another injury.
I want the Roosters to be associated with the traveling farce that is Sonny Bill Williams, a player who has looked to move on as soon as he has signed a contract with every single League or Union side he has joined.
I want to watch the Roosters highest paid player boxing pensioners and fall guys mid season. I want them to invest $800,000 of their salary cap in a stupid, unreliable kid who is injury prone. Please, do that!
It must be remembered that when Sonny Bill Williams left Rugby League, there were questions about whether his body was up to play in the forwards. I personally don't think it was, I always felt he should have stayed out in the centers.
In 2012, playing in the forwards in the NRL is a very different animal to what it was five years ago. Players are bigger, stronger, faster, and there is a hell of a lot more depth. To be a forward in the NRL these days, you have to be a certain type of animal. You have to have a certain type of build. Sure Sonny Bill Williams is athletic but if you put him next to some of the forward running around in the NRL, you can see, he just hasn't got that same solid, thick build.
If there is one thing we have seen from players that went to Rugby Union and then came back its that they are not even close to being as good as they once were. Williams has been playing union now for five years. To invest $800,000 a year into him over a five year contract is just insane.
Then again, after 6 months either Williams will be looking to shuffle on somewhere else, or the Roosters will be pushing him out the door anyway.
They deserve each other.
League Freak
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| So What The Hell Happened To LeagueFreak.com? |
I know its been difficult, but its all back up and running now.
No doubt the first question you have is "League Freak, what the hell happened to your web site over the last week or so?".
How about I tell you...
So on about the 23rd of December I has written the article below and went to upload it on my web site. I went to my bookmark....and nothing happened, the site didn't load.
It wasn't a big issue as far as I was concerned. Sometimes on the old server the site would be on the blink for a few hours. So I decided just to leave it for the night and that was that!
The next day, same thing, but once again, no real issue as far as I was concerned.
On Christmas night I decided to get on and post what was now going to be a bit of an out of date Christmas article, but the site was STILL down. So I went to RLFans and emailed their technical issues form, because I haven't actually had one-on-one contact with anyone involved with RLFans for years now. Its just how it worked out....my site worked....I had nothing to talk to them about.
I got this email in reply:
Sorry for the delay in responding.
When we recently moved and upgraded all of our servers, we took a decision to focus on club sites and that we could no longer host the LeagueFreak.com site as part of the RLFANS.COM network.
The server upon which LeagueFreak.com resided has now been decommissioned and we are looking to but this machine, with all of its data, from our hosts and should have the physical machine at some point next week.
Once we have it we will be happy to make a backup of your site available so that you can find a new host for it. We will pass on details as soon as we have the old machine.
No warning this was happening. No one contacted me, nothing. They just flicked the switch on my site and that was that.
Keep in mind, I had no back up of the web site of my own at all. The entire site was gone and in someone elses hands.
So I turned to Twitter for some help.
I needed web space to use, I needed someone that was familiar with the type of web site I have, and I needed help getting everything set up again.
In stepped Matt from ZeroTackle.com.au. He said he would help me with all of the above, and he even worked on my type of web site for a living.
It is thanks to Matt and ZeroTackle.com.au that my web site is up and running again.
So now its 2012 and you're gonna see a few changes around here.
I plan on adding a live chat to the site and allow Facebook and Twitter users to be able to long into this site with their respective accounts. The more interactivity I can get on here, the better!
I'm also looking at having a Podcast feed set up on here for the start of the Rugby League season. It should be good fun and the topics covered won't just include Rugby League.
When our robot overlords have won their great war, and the Earth is nothing by a post-apocalyptic wasteland.....there will be three things remaining.
Cockroaches, Todd Carneys liver and the Glorious Bastard that owns this web site!
So welcome to LeagueFreak.com version 4.0. Its the same as version 3.0 except if you hold it the wrong way you lose reception.
League Freak
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