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Joined June 2011
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As a general sports fan, I’m really disappointed by this type of splintering of rights. I’ve been a Foxtel subscriber for a while, primarily for the sports package however the both I and the rest of my family do take advantage of a fair bit of the other content. In addition, the fact it comes as a part of the package for one family member’s work salary helps with justifying the cost.
Up until now, this subscription would be all we needed in terms of sports, covering all of the NRL, cricket and football that we watch, as well as some MLB & NBA. I think people like myself are the biggest losers out of splintering like this, as if other sports follow suit, it will take multiple subscriptions just to maintain basic viewing of sports that I follow. In particular with football, following an A League club, the Socceroos & an EPL club would be unjustifiable at the expected cost. It is even harder to take for me as a Leicester City fan, having struggled for a long time without any ability to watch my team legally and been very excited when they returned to the EPL as I could watch every single game live.
If Optus were to on-sell a few games a week on to FTA or another broadcaster, it would inevitably just be the big 4/6 clubs that get any coverage, further frustrating fans of the other 14-16 clubs.
I’m also very disappointed for Fox Sports, as I’ve long believed that their EPL coverage, and general football coverage (some A League coverage aside) is amongst the best sports coverage in the country. The likes of Adam Peacock, Mark Bosnich & Simon Hill have long had the ability to mix light-hearted panel chat with hard analysis, and the loss of this is significant. I’ve always said they’d do such a better job on a World Cup if given the opportunity to co-broadcast with SBS.
While I understand that for fans with specific likes this splintering is beneficial in an economic sense, as they can pick & choose content, I don’t think it will be a good thing for the large majority of Australian sports fans.
Can Australia sustain a fragmented media rights market?
Very interesting read, good to see the Foxes gain some fans after some lean times not so long ago.
I’m a Leicester fan living in Sydney, have been since the day I was born. My Dad had grown up a Leicester fan in Sydney following in the days of Gordon Banks & Peter Shilton, and coincidentally my Mum’s family is from a small town outside Leicester (Corby) and had also been Leicester fans. It was a hard slog for a long time there, with only very minimal coverage of the Championship & League One, but it does make you appreciate the great coverage we have of the EPL in Australia.
My best friend was also a Man Utd supporter, and the 5-3 victory last season was possibly the most glorious sporting victory I’ve seen in some time.
The plight of a lonely Foxes fan
Graham I think you are missing the point. Wests Tigers (whether that be the NRL or Toyota Cup – or even the proposed NSW Cup team) are the representative team for the Macarthur region! The reason that Wests Magpies find themselves in this situation, and why your reply is going to be that Wests Tigers don’t represent the Macarthur, is that Wests Magpies have never embraced the joint venture. In 1999 they had the opportunity to embrace a new club that held the traditions of the Magpies into the future, and simply chose to whinge about everything not being equal enough for them. In 2005, they had the same opportunity, and again, wanted something to whinge about. The opportunities for the kids who are 19 or 20 are there if they are good enough. Wests Tigers have been, and will continue to, pump money into junior development in the Macarthur region, which is clearly money better spent than on a very costly NSW Cup team who don’t produce enough players for that kind of cost.
If Wests Magpies want to put a NSW Cup team in to represent the Macarthur region, there is nothing stopping them doing so, but they shouldn’t expect Wests Tigers to lose money so that they can support a pipe dream.
Beginning of the end for the Wests Magpies
Ok, firstly I think it’s important to realise that you have your facts wrong. Wests Tigers decided that they only want one State Cup feeder team, and their preference is for it to be a Wests Tigers team. The reason it is Balmain Ryde Eastwood this year, and in previous years, if because of the incompetence of the Wests Magpies football department and board, as referenced by Roy Masters in his article in the SMH this morning.
Just because Wests Magpies don’t have a NSW Cup team, doesn’t mean the club will be dead – and as a Balmain fan, I think people are forgetting that this proposal will also mean the end of Balmain at a senior level as well, a club with just as much history and tradition as Wests. The club will still survive at the junior level, a level which in my opinion, allows it to have significant success due to their talented junior base – once which seemed to rarely turn into success at the senior level. Balmain will still be alive at that level as well, and as a former Balmain fan, and now Wests Tigers fan, I have accepted that this is simply the result of rugby league in 2012.
There is also an inaccuracy in the inference that this is somehow the dealings of Balmain. This whole issue is an internal one within the Wests Group, made up of the Wests leagues clubs at Ashfield and Campbelltown, and the Wests Magpies rugby league club. So any Wests Magpies fans unhappy at this should direct their anger towards their own club administration rather than simply at Wests Tigers, who are keeping their great club (at least half) alive at the top level of rugby league. Without Wests Tigers, Wests would no longer be alive, plain and simple. The same goes for Balmain, and they have accepted and embraced the merger, Wests have not, and as this shows, it is to their own detriment.
Beginning of the end for the Wests Magpies
While Warne gets all the plaudits, and more than deservedly so, I always used to love watching Stuart MacGill bowl. For some reason, I always thought he was a great chance to pick up a wicket, and I don’t think I ever saw him bowling negatively just to tie up and end (that was a hallmark of the cricket in the Taylor/Waugh era).
Nathan Blacklock was another who was entertaining every time he entered the field, as was Wendell Sailor. I also think on the football field, I was always a fan of Stan Lazaridis. He always showed the confidence to take a player on and use his pace, which as a young winger I found very entertaining.
Ten Aussie athletes I miss watching
I do actually rate Hughes. As I said in the ratings, his second innings in the first test was highly underrated, because he worked very hard and kept Australia in front when Ponting and Watson get themselves out carelessly on a ridiculous pitch to bat on. He played a couple of erratic shots in the other innings, but his 100 should be more than enough to keep him in the side, it put Australia in the power position and he showed the intent that other batman lacked on the tour.
Australia's tour of Sri Lanka: Test series review
To be honest, I don’t know how you can score Hayne ahead of Uate. Hayne may have communicated well with Minichiello, but he rarely got to the ball on the full, and in these games he needs to get himself involved in the game, something which he definitely did not do in this game. He has the ability to win NSW the game, and the series, but not if he doesn’t get his hands on the ball.
Uate on the other hand was in the game at all points. He came in and took pressure off the forwards, taking hit-ups and bending the line back every time.
State of Origin 2011 game 2: NSW player ratings
One of the pre-requisites for a true suburban ground in rugby league is a hill. Brookvale has it, Kogarah has it, Belmore has it, Leichhardt has it in spades. Parra Stadium does not.
That’s not to say Parra Stadium isn’t a fantastic venue. I’m a Tigers fan, but also a Wanderers member and that ground has been spectacular in atmosphere terms for the Wanderers.
But it’s not Leichhardt. Nobody should bemoan fans wanting the perfect grandstand seat, high quality corporate facilities and the latest in toilet technology, but it’s a sad day in rugby league when you can’t appreciate the quality of standing on the hill at Leichhardt with a pie in one hand, a beer in the other and the black and gold (and white) of the Tigers running around below you.
Leichhardt is old but it's better than Disneyland