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Have you always had that special sized hole in your heart that family, friends and religion just couldn’t fill? Got a few million spare? Then brother, do I have a Christmas gift for you!
With the merits of private sporting ownership in Australia currently under the spotlight, a lot of people have been throwing their hands up in the air and demanding from the shock jocks, “Why the hell would anyone want to own a footy team?”
Which I suppose under the particular circumstances is fair enough…
But deep down, you would wouldn’t you?
Despite all the flashing warning signs, bottomless money holes and unworkable business models, if most fans woke up rich tomorrow they’d be marching into their club’s HQ, throwing a dirty big cheque over the counter and declaring, “I’m in charge now boys!” to a visibly shaken CEO.
Think of all the amazing things you could do for your club. You could make tickets affordable for the masses, get rid of that stupid avant-garde jersey design and buy up all the playing and coaching big guns.
Sort of like Nathan Tinkler did. Or tried to.
There is no doubting that private ownership in Australian sport has mostly been a rogue’s gallery of cartoon level villains to date. Palmer, Muller, Skase… geez, Palmer even has a dinosaur for crying out loud!
I’m not quite convinced Nathan Tinkler deserves to be mentioned with the above company though. Not yet.
While the employment of the Knights entire 1997 grand final team in the club’s offices is a decision as dumb as the Greg Smith debacle, for a team to post crowd numbers like it did with the football team performing like it did in 2012, was impressive.
On top of this, to date Tinkler has passed the ultimate rugby league test, ‘WDWT?’ (What Does Wayne Think?), with the monosyllabic mentor giving the big man a big tick.
No, Tinkler strikes me instead as a man who just got greedy (insert fat joke here).
Why have a racehorse when you can have a whole stable? Why have a car when you can own a V8 Racing team?
And why help your local club out with some cash when you can have the whole damn buffet bar to yourself?
The move of rich folk from playing white knight at footy clubs to appointing themselves grand overlords of all they see appears to be a by-product of the adolescent-like angst the game currently finds itself in.
For while rugby league has been professional since the Georges Hotel, if you take April 1st, 1995 as the day things got real, rugby league is smack bang in its awkward teenage years.
It’s a game caught between two worlds. Torn between full time superstar athletes playing at world class venues for shiny new franchises and appearing in Who Weekly, and blokes who just want to have a beer at the leagues club after a Sunday match at their local ground and talk crap with the journo from the paper.
Problem is that blokes with the big bikkies fly in, think they’re going to turn North Queensland into the Dallas Cowboys in a couple of years and crack the sads when all they’ve done is sign cheques.
Don’t get me wrong, for a long time now every footy club has needed a millionaire. Even in the late 80s, the cellar dwelling Illawarra Steelers were politely asking the Cleary bros to fly their helicopter over the soggy showground surface to make it playable.
The difference being that back then the money men knew that the ‘business’ they were giving to could at best be optimistically described as a community asset, and would probably be as interested in running the show as they would be running out in the front row.
One day all NRL clubs will be privately owned by super rich behemoths, and one day they’ll figure out how they can consistently turn over a profit.
Personally I don’t think that day is today, but if Tinkler and co. think they can make it happen now without crushing a whole bunch of us fans hopes at the same time, then good luck to them.
As for me, I’d be putting my money somewhere a bit more orthodox.
Like say, a new Stegosaurus perhaps?
Follow Chris on Twitter @Vic_Arious
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