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Round 1 of the NRL regular season is just over two weeks away, and rugby league debate is currently dominated by the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Yet sadly, the narrative is not about the Bunnies defending their 2014 premiership, nor their tournament victory in the Auckland Nines.
Instead, all talk is about an incident that occurred late last year while the club was in Arizona for an altitude training camp.
As I’m sure everyone is aware by now, John Sutton and Luke Burgess were arrested after an altercation at a bar, however the news only came to light last week, suggesting a cover-up had taken place.
The fact that Shane Richardson was chief executive of Souths at the time of the incident, and has since been given a high-profile job at the NRL, made the story juicer and whispers of a cover-up louder.
Yet my potentially unpopular opinion on the story is that I don’t care. I honestly don’t.
I’m not completely aware of where my apathy towards this particular story originates from, but I have very little interest in whatever Sutton and Burgess did or didn’t do, and whether or not there was a cover-up.
It has been suggested to me by some people that because I am paid to write about rugby league, that I should be interested in the story; that I even have an obligation to be interested in it.
I respectfully disagree.
I am a sportswriter, not a sports journalist. There is a clear distinction between the two, the most notable being the fact that journalists deserve the respect and kudos that go hand-in-hand with attending university to learn that craft, rather than being a two-bit hack like me who can occasionally string the odd sentence together.
I am a fan first and foremost. I don’t have any obligation other than enjoying the game.
As such, I haven’t felt the need to write about what happened in Arizona, nor the subsequent fall-out. Yet even if I did feel the need, those types of off-field stories are in much better hands when journalists cover them, as opposed to fans.
In any case, that opinion is just a smokescreen for my real motivation for ignoring the story. The actual reason I haven’t written about the incident and the alleged cover-up is because I’m Harvey Norman.
As in, ‘no interest’.
Perhaps it’s fatigue from the number of similar incidents every NRL season. Perhaps, due to the Cricket World Cup and NBA, I’m not fully immersed in rugby league for 2015 just yet. Perhaps I just wish to concentrate on the actual footy on the park, not the ‘scandals’ off of it.
Whatever the reason, I simply can’t bring myself to care about this story.
If it’s a choice between reading about the Souths incident, Kyle Korver’s historic shooting season, Shane Watson’s footwork, or the impact of Brett Morris’ arrival at the Bulldogs, I choose to ignore the first option seven days a week, and twice on Sunday.
Don’t mistake this for some type of ‘holier than thou’ attitude when it comes to off-field stories though, for I wrote a piece a few weeks ago lamenting the fact Twitter wasn’t around for some of the biggest scandals in sports history. So I clearly enjoy off-field drama, occasionally.
If off-field incidents really interest you, that’s your prerogative. I certainly don’t begrudge your choice, nor judge you. To each their own. Ditto for those journalists who cover them. It is, after all, a fairly significant part of your job, so no complaints from me.
In fact, it is strange to hear people complain about these types of stories, while simultaneously seeing them in the ‘most read’ section. Clearly there is an appetite for such sports news.
It’s the same reason that for all the flak that reality TV, McDonalds, the Liberal Party, sensationalist newspapers, The Big Bang Theory and Pitbull receive: they all clearly have a ‘market’ – and fairly large ones at that.
They exist and thrive for a reason: a lot of people enjoy them. And for the most part, the public gets what the public wants, right?
When it comes to off-field NRL incidents, even though I have little interest in them at present, it appears I may be in the minority – which is certainly uncommon ground for a straight, white, middle-class male.
However, it’s a happy minority. One blissfully looking forward to Round 1 in a couple of weeks’ time.