- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
We all know who really runs the NRL. Like any big business, the boss is never at the coal face, so it can’t be David Gallop, whose performance under extreme pressure this week has been admirable.
As is the case for most professional sports around the world, television runs the show, in this case Channel Nine and, to a lesser extent, Fox Sports.
Just last week we saw the farcical situation where Nine’s controlling demands resulted in two representative matches being played on the same night. As it turned out, the game that appeared to have been relegated to second best status for eternity ended up being the one fans were talking about.
Shows what the executives at Nine know.
But that was last week. The same week they got Matty Johns to apologise to all and sundry except the one person that really mattered on air.
Last week wasn’t a good week for the league department at Nine.
This week they got it right, though. The Nine supremos summonsed Johns back from his hideaway in Western Australia and gave him the axe. No mean feat considering Nine have been a very public face for the misogynist culture in some sectors of the game for so long.
When Gallop took a hard line in response to the Four Corners program, it wasn’t immediately clear if Nine would toe the line and follow suit. Fortunately they did.
The mouth has finally caught up with the brain.
It still remains to be seen just how much Nine have caught up, though. If they’re serious about bringing about a cultural change in rugby league, then the dated content and hosts of the Footy Show need to go as well.
Fatty’s reaction to Johns’ on air apology was deplorable, to say the least. It’s little wonder Sterlo called it quits a few seasons back.
They don’t even talk about footy these days. As it stands, the Footy Show is nothing more than a trumped up version of Hey Hey It’s Saturday.
Nine should be investing their time and money into a real show about league, with informed analysis and opinion. They’ve been doing it for a while on Fox Sports and it’s actually quite entertaining.
Nine need to keep their eyes. and ours, on the ball, and not on the man.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.