NRL 2020
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NRL on brink of collapse as Warriors vote to return home: Report
League scrambling to fight the 'inevitable'
I wonder why the whole league has to collapse if the Warriors leave? Surely (and only if it's feasible) the other teams can continue on and just have bye weeks for Warriors games? Maybe the competition contract doesn't allow for any of the teams to be missing?
That would be idiotic. What if they had a Busby Babes scenario?
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@antipodean said in NRL 2020:
NRL on brink of collapse as Warriors vote to return home: Report
League scrambling to fight the 'inevitable'
I wonder why the whole league has to collapse if the Warriors leave? Surely (and only if it's feasible) the other teams can continue on and just have bye weeks for Warriors games? Maybe the competition contract doesn't allow for any of the teams to be missing?
That would be idiotic. What if they had a Busby Babes scenario?
FYI: I don't know what a Busby Babes scenario is.
Also, did you miss the but where I said only if it's feasible? E.g. If it's feasible for the NRL to be run in Oz then I don't see why they can't run it just without the Warriors.
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@antipodean said in NRL 2020:
NRL on brink of collapse as Warriors vote to return home: Report
League scrambling to fight the 'inevitable'
I wonder why the whole league has to collapse if the Warriors leave? Surely (and only if it's feasible) the other teams can continue on and just have bye weeks for Warriors games? Maybe the competition contract doesn't allow for any of the teams to be missing?
That would be idiotic. What if they had a Busby Babes scenario?
FYI: I don't know what a Busby Babes scenario is.
Also, did you miss the but where I said only if it's feasible? E.g. If it's feasible for the NRL to be run in Oz then I don't see why they can't run it just without the Warriors.
Busby's babes mostly died in the Munich air crash. Did ManU sit out the season after that?
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@antipodean said in NRL 2020:
NRL on brink of collapse as Warriors vote to return home: Report
League scrambling to fight the 'inevitable'
I wonder why the whole league has to collapse if the Warriors leave? Surely (and only if it's feasible) the other teams can continue on and just have bye weeks for Warriors games? Maybe the competition contract doesn't allow for any of the teams to be missing?
That would be idiotic. What if they had a Busby Babes scenario?
FYI: I don't know what a Busby Babes scenario is.
Also, did you miss the but where I said only if it's feasible? E.g. If it's feasible for the NRL to be run in Oz then I don't see why they can't run it just without the Warriors.
Busby's babes mostly died in the Munich air crash. Did ManU sit out the season after that?
Oh, I'll look that up.
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Conspiracy theory, but isn't this a good opportunity to run the Warriors out of the competition by making it harder for them to participate? If you wanted that result, continuing the competition and requiring them to stay in Aus makes sense, as if they say no, then the NRL and clubs can respond with 'OK, too bad, you forfeit, and then at the end of the year when nobody misses you, oh sorry, no more space for you as we plan for future possible pandemics or other major problems'.
I only say this because the first reaction of one of my colleagues was to say 'This is a great opportunity to use Covid as an excuse for getting rid of _____ and changing ___ to ____'.
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I second the vote to get rid of the warriors...
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I kind of Iike how the NRL CE said players' salaries could be slashed based on a clause in each contact around lost revenue. This is the flip side of their greedy demands for more money, profit share etc. I don't want to see anyone on the breadline of course, but boohoo if your $750k pa gets slashed to $350k for a season.
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@shark Christ mate, that's bitter. You don't like league players huh?
In general, no. They're a bunch of boofheads who'd otherwise largely be in low earning jobs, but by virtue of being able to understand how to play the world's simplest contact sport and build some muscle, they earn ridiculous money and as a collective piss and moan about wanting a greater share of the profits when the game is going well. The flipside to that is that when the game isn't profitable, they face a pay cut. Possibly a dramatic one. Proverbially, if you live by the sword you gotta be prepared to die by the sword.
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@shark they’d probably be tradies and still be making 6 figures.
If you want to come on here and spout off about them all being “boofheads” it’s probably best not to come on this thread at all. There are more players that stay out of the head lines than those that make them. There are amazing athletes in rugby league and to devalue that ability and their right to negotiate better contracts just because you don’t like the sport is kind of grumpy, shouts at people on his lawn old man-ish.
And I’m sorry mate but if you want to apply that Way of thinking to this sport then you kind of have to apply that to all professional sports.
I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be some sort of negotiation to keep the sport alive. Maybe lower contracts are what are needed, for a while. But doesn’t mean those players didn’t earn $750k pay cheque’s.
Just my take on it.
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Every sport has its share of Muppets. No different to the rest of society. But the proportion of idiots in the NRL is simply disproportionate. No other sport has the same amount of scandals related to sex, lewdity, violence and general dumb ass misbehaviour. So yeah it grates me that so many of these idiots earns vastly more than the average Joe, and they always want more. So am i sad for those guys that they may for a moment have to act like they're in the real world? Fuck no.
I don't hate the sport. I watch it on occasion, and I really enjoy some of the Aussie TV shows that surround it. But there's nothing wrong with calling out players if I don't like what they're doing.
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@shark well said..The NRL as an organisation is just proving what a law into themselves they really are ,when every other major sports comp is looking at the bigger picture ..they have put their own survival as a sport before possible catastrophe especially if a case comes out this move not to suspend this years comp..
The NRL have had 66 scandals since 2015, the fact they have integrity unit to oversee their own sport is an indictment on the NRL as an organisation..if they had a strong constitutional ethic that outlines behaviour on and off the field ..that could could mean a contract gets torn up ,or is a sackable offence , like any company ethic , it means you send a clear message to the players ..if you screw up , guess what , go and find a real job..
I can’t say I am the biggest league watcher, that’s not a criticism, it’s just not the game that rocks my world..
Put it this way, It does not live rent free in my head in the same way some league heads get precious about Union..
I do however get pissed off with much of our media who hold the NRL up as the greatest thing since slice bread, but refrain from sticking to the NRL but quick to tear strips out of the NZRFU.. -
@Steven-Harris that's media for you.
Sensationalism and inciting public outrage sells subscriptions. So therefore NZ media attacking an Australian sporting body doesn't have the same effect as attacking the governing body of our national sport...
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I see the government politely declined the opportunity to hand the NRL $200 million and gatherings of more than 100 are now out. So they'll be on reduced wages in empty stadiums or stood down for a while.
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Yeah that was pretty galling to read. $200m; what a joke, NRL.
They're not covering themselves in glory at the moment as an organisation and seem to have a highly inflated sense of their value to the public based on that shameless cash-grab, and then the NRL guy interviewed on the radio who can't even pronounce the word 'rugby' with a 'g' in it, and seems to think an Australia without "rubby loigue" isn't really Australia. Hey, Rocket Scientist, news flash: the NRL isn't your nations' entire national identity, and I'd reckon there'd be a few in WA, SA and Victoria who'd not really agree with that assertion.
All that aside I look forward to the return of the sport and the next feel-good story on a formerly shamed player who's turned his life around. And then sticks his dick in a schoolgirl / puppy / his own mouth.
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I read this piece from today's Australian to which one cannot link without a subscription. It offers a view that is worth reading, and which may astonish the easily astonished and angry young fellows who cannot abide dissent:
*"Many people are aware the National Rugby League’s “Simply the Best” promotional video this year was a revamp of a 30-year-old campaign featuring Tina Turner, but did you know there was a revamp of the revamp last Sunday? This time it was Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys taking the stage with the microphone. In case you missed it:
[then follows alternative lyrics to Simply the Best, omitted for space reasons]
That is a version which aptly sums up the NRL’s attitude. A little hyperbole admittedly, but V’landys and NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg deserve it. Their extraordinary press conference was not an impassioned plea for financial assistance, but a boorish and petulant demand. “An Australia without rugby league is not Australia,” declared V’landys. “The government has to assist us in this crisis because it is not of our own doing.”
Apparently the NRL is unique in that respect. “The last resort for us is to go to the players and ask them for a pay cut because, like the rest of us, they’ve got mortgages and made commitments on the money they believe they’re going to get,” he said. How is this different from any every other Australian, many of whom face the prospect of financial ruin?
If that is indicative of the administration’s mettle, it may be time for the government and the Returned Services League to reconsider their approval for the code to play under the annual “Anzac Test” banner. The only precedent approaching this degree of pitifulness was in 2001 when the game’s administrators, to the dismay of supporters, initially cancelled the Kangaroo Tour to Britain, citing fears about terrorism in the wake of 9/11. It was rapidly rescinded when someone pointed out the attacks had stopped the brave men of league from travelling overseas, but not The Wiggles.
If rugby league’s governing body does fold, it will be terrible for those whose livelihood depends on the game. For many Australians, it would be a cultural void. No more televised Friday night games. No more spending September on the couch watching elimination matches. Above all, no longer will we enjoy the benefit of what the NRL has become famous for in recent years, and that is giving moral guidance to us plebs about the great issues of our time.
There is also the role NRL plays in education. Take for example its promotional video of this year. I found it most informative, for I learned that indigenous people play league. I never noticed this in all my years of watching the sport, even when seeing the greats like Larry Corowa, Steve Ella and Arthur Beetson, just to name a few.
We also know now that Souths player Latrell Mitchell shares this heritage, and that he has a habit of standing on the shore in the early hours with the Aboriginal flag draped around his shoulders. I get the producers were aiming for the mystical look, but Mitchell’s expression as he looks out to sea is more a forlorn one, almost as if he were contemplating the game’s future. Rather apt you could say.
The lesbians in this promo, I am pleased to say, looked a lot happier. Thanks to the NRL we also discovered this demographic are in the habit of kissing, which none of us non-woke folk knew before. But league’s administering body seized on what was a spontaneous act of affection to let us know that some of the officials’ friends are minorities. That not-so-subtle usurpation was reminiscent of that episode in the cartoon series The Simpsons where the family are on a Hollywood tour and Marge points out the residence of Ellen DeGeneres and her then partner Anne Heche, both of whom are holding hands on the front porch.
“We’re lesbians!”, shout the couple excitedly as they wave.
The NRL’s video was “a box-ticking exercise, ” wrote Paul Kent of the Daily Telegraph earlier this month. “Bland, politically correct gestures from an NRL losing touch with the great majority of the game’s fans as it continues its blind path towards irrelevance,” he said. “It is a dangerous path they follow, ignoring the great majority of its fans.”
Kent is correct. During the same-sex marriage postal plebiscite, the 2017 grand final featured American artist Macklemore and his song “Same Love”. This concluded with him declaring “equality for all” whilst rainbow fireworks exploded in the background. It politicised the game and to many it was a case of league officials condescending to a captive audience.
Given the NRL’s obsession with gratuitous moral instruction, you wonder what pre-grand final “entertainment” would be if not for coronavirus’s reality punch. Perhaps this would take the form of former Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs, Gosford activist priest Father Rod Bower, and human rights barrister Julian Burnside lecturing the crowd on the evils of the government’s asylum-seeker policies. Or maybe professor Tim Flannery doing an interpretive dance on the importance of addressing climate change.
It is not just the game’s administrators who have become arrogant. In the 2019 State of Origin series many players, both indigenous and non-indigenous, boycotted the national anthem. While not taking part, Maroons captain Daly Cherry-Evans and NSW coach Brad Fittler both said they respected the boycott. In the lead-up to this year’s indigenous All Stars game, V’landys announced the anthem would not be played, citing players’ concerns about it supposedly not representing them. Presumably on principle none of these players will accept money from the taxpayers who sing with pride this same anthem.
If the NRL is to receive any public moneys – and that is a big if – then its officials, beginning with V’landys, need a lesson in humility. Whether it is deserving of support is highly contentious, particularly given club officials have for years warned the body that it needed to put aside $100m in emergency funds, something it failed to do. Commentator, former coach, club secretary and player Phil Gould castigated the organisation this week, tweeting that its “Overpopulated Head Office has squandered 100’s of millions of dollars.”
NRL in a very difficult position, so last thing we need is people adding to their problems. We all need to stick. However, this situation highlights just how wasteful & poorly run NRL has been. Overpopulated Head Office has squandered 100’s of millions of dollars.
Time for change
— Phil Gould (@PhilGould15) March 15, 2020V’landys’ outspokenness and brashness may return to bite him on the proverbial. “The people who don’t like me … are the hangers-on and the parasites, and I don’t have any time for them either,” the then chief executive of Racing Australia told Sydney Morning Herald in 2014. “You help the good people”. He better hope for the organisation’s sake the government does not heed this philosophy.
Still on humility, all the big sporting codes must recognise the severity of the coronavirus’s economic impact means the death of corporate virtue signalling. It is a self-indulgence none can no longer afford. Just last year Australian Football League chief executive Gillon McLachlan postulated that “people look to the AFL, as their governing body, broadly for their position on social issues” such as same-sex marriage. Only this week an exhausted McLachlan, commenting on coronavirus, said he was trying to ensure “we have an industry at the end of this”. Nothing like an existential crisis to remind you of your core business.
The survival of rugby league is assured. The game requires only two fullbacks, four wingers, four centres, two five-eighths, two halfbacks, two locks, four second-rowers, four props, two hookers, a referee, a ball, and a half-decent football field. It is a public institution. Highly paid administrators and players are not.
As for whether the NRL survives, it could well be a case of prime minister Scott Morrison singing tough love. To quote another Turner classic which also featured in the ARL’s promotion long ago, “What you get is what you see”.
THE MOCKER
Australian March 19, 2020*
