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When it comes to grand final day entertainment, both the NRL and the AFL either get it very wrong or very right. Sadly, the NRL more often than not opts for the former.
While last year’s meeting of the minds between ‘our’ Jessica Mauboy and the Nine Network’s Ricky Martin was suitably bright and bubbly, there was something a little off about a soccer World Cup anthem being re-appropriated for Australian rugby league’s day of days.
Or should that be night of nights? Twilight of twilights? The timeslot changes so often it’s hard to keep up.
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Regardless, belting out a chorus of Olés at a rugby league game not involving the Spanish national team is about as appropriate as Tony Abbott deploying C’mon Aussie C’mon as the backing track for his next speech urging us all to suit up for #TeamAustralia, or anyone chanting the “Aussie-Aussie-Aussie”, “Oi-oi-oi” call and response at an event that isn’t the Sydney 2000 Olympics. It’s just not right.
NRL HQ obviously thought it was time to get all meat-and-potatoes about the game-day experience again, which is why in 2014 we’re presented with guitar hero Slash – who’ll no doubt unleash some of the greatest riffs written before half of the main event’s combatants were born – and Train, whose booking agent has somehow convinced everyone involved that Australians want to hear what else the band have come up with in the 13 years since Drops Of Jupiter came out.
This change of tack is further proof that when it comes to deciding what its demographic is, or which sub-sector of it they’d get the most mileage out of catering for, the NRL has an identity crisis.
Are they trying to hold on to the rusted-on working class fans of Gen X and beyond? In this instance, kind of. The Gen Ys and Millennials are no doubt as bemused as this jaded Gen Xer, though in fairness they were catered for when Justice Crew performed Que Sera before Origin 2 this year.
I later heard an NRL radio panel, incredulous, asking each other who the hell they were, oblivious to the fact that the group were on track for racking up what is now the longest-running homegrown No.1 single of all time.
But unless NRL heavyweights can convince Metallica or Katy Perry to headline the pre-game, or perhaps the Hilltop Hoods or Gotye on a local level, they’re never going to please the majority.
Which is why they should leave concert promoting to the professionals and focus on giving rugby league fans want they’ve been relishing for years – the long-awaited battle for NRL sprinting supremacy over 100 metres on grand final day.
If lining up eight blokes to run as fast as they can is good enough to be the pinnacle of the biggest sporting event on the planet, it’s good enough to get the juices flowing before an obscure premiership decider at the arse-end of the world.
Fans would love it. Bookmakers, now one of the game’s most important stakeholders, would definitely love it. Even the guys from Train would probably love it.
And if one of the stars of The Voice Kids can shoot the starter’s pistol, the host broadcasters would no doubt love it as well.
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