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Players, clubs… podcasters. Rugby league is going through what I optimistically regard as ‘growing pains’ right now, and no one is being spared anguish.
The NRL is reportedly close to settling its differences with the game’s stars, whose threats started at a boycott of the Dally M Awards and were starting to nudge towards real industrial action. They are even making fun of the NRL’s attempts to help them by mandating fewer games.
Meanwhile, clubs are so desperate for a handout that Wayne Bennett warned in the Courier-Mail yesterday there might be no competition in 10 years. With no clubs, the league will have nothing to sell broadcasters.
And then there are the likes of you – the fans – who don’t like the rule changes, who think the game is too fast or too slow, who get angry with referees and match review committees, and with fellow supporters who don’t show up at games.
You would think that podcasters, by their nature, would be the most optimistic of rugby league aficionados. They don’t just donate their time – they spend money extolling the virtues of the great game to fellow enthusiasts.
But now we’ve even lost a podcast. The Full 80 was a knowledgeable and fun program, but last week they posted their last MP3.
“Besides family commitments and time restraints, the truth is it’s just not motivating anymore,” the show’s Thomas Parle told me in an email.
“When we first started we were fresh, podcasting was a new expanding medium and it was exciting to watch the listenership grow. Now, there’s three times as many podcasts available but still the same amount of listeners and it’s increasingly difficult to separate us from the pack.”
You’ve read here before about the established media’s problems getting access to players, so you can only imagine how hard it is for a podcaster. I’ll skip that bit of Thomas’ correspondence.
“Rugby league in this country is becoming less and less about fan interaction and more about corporate money which has really turned me off the game as a whole this season,” Thomas continued.
“David Smith has done a great job putting the game in a strong financial position but it’s come at a cost to the fans. Suburban grounds are on the way out, ticket prices are inflated and the match day experience is nothing compared to most other sports.
“Gambling is promoted as a sub-culture and the reactionary rule changes have seen the game get to a point where grown men are slapping each other, wrestling and niggling for an advantage which make it very boring to watch.
“For me personally, it’s become tough to sit through games this year as the things that I view as exciting are slowly being rubbed out to appeal to a broader audience. Channel Nine have been holding the NRL over a barrel for the last few seasons and it seems more and more like the NRL are happy to cave to their demands so long as the price tag is right.
“The NRL and the clubs would rather pretend that we don’t exist or refuse to acknowledge that podcasting is a strong enough medium to promote their brand if they were to embrace it.”
All this sounds familiar, right? You’ve heard it before – although Thomas is a rather eloquent chap.
To explain my perspective, I’d like to go back to the Tom Brock Lecture – an annual rugby league and academia-oriented speech held in Sydney, which was held on Wednesday night at a club on York Street.
This year’s lecture was by an historian and author from Victoria called Dr Ross McMullin, who had written a book about Ted Larkin – a secretary of the NSWRL from the early part of the last century.
Ted subsequently became a successful Labor politician and left it all to fight in the Great War, believing he had a responsibility as a prominent member of the community to set the right example. He was gunned down at Gallipoli.
Now, a side note to all this, which is also relevant to my main point – Larkin was obviously a beacon against the popular rugby union narrative that rugby league players would rather stay home and play football than fight, and that is the reason the code gained greater popularity in Sydney.
The rugby union competition was suspended during the war.
It’s a smear which – when I asked – McMullin directly denounced.
“Rugby league was already more popular before the war,” said the Victorian, who has no loyalty to either code.
Anyway, he also explained that in Melbourne during World War I, after a year or so of the VFL continuing, the clubs from the wealthier (some would say Anglican) suburbs stopped fielding teams, but those from the working class (perhaps Irish Catholic) suburbs continued.
As a result, in 1916 Fitzroy finished last and won the comp – because all four teams in the regular season were also involved in the finals.
And if you think carefully, you’ll realise there is rugby league’s place in Sydney in a nutshell. It is represented by the four clubs who kept playing in Melbourne – working class – while rugby union is represented by those who stopped – the anglo-saxon establishment.
I am not sure if anyone has called Fitzroy, Carlton, Richmond and Collingwood cowards as some have suggested the Sydney rugby league clubs were – or attempted to detract from the later achievements of those teams by bringing up the First World War.
That’s not my point, though.
My point is this. I am not happy being part of Sydney’s answer to a four-team VFL comp. It troubles me constantly. I want a full comp, I want rugby league to encompass all of society the way the modern AFL does.
My desire for this is so strong that I have previously been blinded by it. I have hitched myself, ideologically, to some very shaky ships – Super League (the 1997 one, not the one that was on TV early this morning) being chief among these.
I want more from rugby league than even what it was in the so called glory days, from 1988 to ’95 or the 1960s. I want much more.
The game is a prisoner of geography and history, and it needs someone with a few sticks of gelignite to stage a breakout.
So I am happy to get rid of punching and shoulder charging. I am willing to lose people like Thomas and even you along the way because I have faith in the sport’s intrinsic goodness.
I believe it can replace you.
And if David Smith fails, and we are left with the same old gambling and pre-mixed drinks sponsors, and the players do strike and the clubs do try to walk away, and everyone just scrambles for cash like they always have, over and over again since 1895… Then I guess I’ll just wait for the next would-be messiah to come along and then I’ll write this column again, about how optimistic I am that this time, it’s going to be different.