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State of Origin is a cultural phenomenon. It’s a television leviathan. It’s the NRL’s cash cow. It’s also an unedifying, crass sellout by the sport of rugby league.
And no, I’m not talking about the attendance figures.
Your correspondent has always understood this on a basic level. About a decade ago, I criticised the NRL from ambush marketing at Origin games.
They’d charge hundreds of dollars for tickets, and then flog a Hollywood blockbuster on the big screen and have Toyotas doing laps of the stadium while the PA blared “Oh what a feeling”.
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A senior NRL executive, who no longer works there, was mortally offended. “You can’t over commercialise Origin,” he said the next time he saw me.
“That’s what it is. It’s a commercial entity. That’s what it’s about.”
Last night, I was reminded of the point by watching the Fox Sports panel show, NRL 360. It was put to the Origin coaches that the 22-minute half-time breaks – you read that right, 22 minutes – which allow Nine to insert many adverts, had the potential to change the course of matches.
Laurie Daley and Kevin Walters cheerily agreed! “Alf fell asleep, it was that long,” Kevvie chortled. “I ran out things to say!” Loz chimed in.
Did you hear that? Rugby league has so little regard for the very structures that surround the playing of matches, let alone its history and traditions, that we find commercial imperatives that impact on the actual game a simple fact of life.
There seems to be nothing really sacred, everything’s for sale.
Likewise, Canterbury’s complaints that they had their own player taken off them hours before Sunday’s match in Canberra has been pretty much forgotten already.
Now let’s not forget that a club coach, Wayne Bennett, was able to say a player could not take part in a Test match last month and he didn’t even have to give a fair reason.
And don’t even talk about City-Country, where the same thing happened maybe a dozen times.
But when a State team wants a player, the State team gets the player immediately regardless of whether he is just about to put his boots on to turn out for his club.
The difference? Money.
That’s why I say Origin is a sellout. Origin pays our bills and that is enough to justify almost any imaginable inconsistency, compromise or inconvenience to the rest of the sport.
If you were offended by Sam Thaiday turning a Maroon victory a little blue, avert your eyes now because… Origin is rugby league dropping the soap in the prison shower and taking its time to pick it up.
The clubs complain but they are complicit. Everyone is still living hand to mouth, even though food became plentiful years ago. Our neighbourhood had been gentrified but we still think like street thugs.
You got $1.5 billion last time, enough to pay all the players’ wages? Let’s shoot for $2 billion next time. Bugger international football. Bugger the club competition for six weeks every year.
We’ll keep playing Origin on Wednesday night (where it was originally stationed to avoid interfering with club football) because they’ll give us heaps of cash to keep it there.
Des Hasler got it right on Sunday. Rugby league in Australia running two competitions at the same time, using some of the same players, is about as barmy as you can get. Three sheets to the wind
The only sheet that matters to rugby league, though, is the balance sheet.
“The three teams who have lost the most players all lost this weekend,” Bulldogs CEO Raelene Castle said on Sunday night.
“The Broncos, the Cowboys and the Bulldogs – five, five and three (players), four for us on the morning, have all lost.
“Origin’s amazing. Commercially it’s really beneficial. We all know that. But when you look at the actually integrity and credibility of the NRL competition over 26 weeks, you have to question whether this is the right outcome.”
You don’t have to question it because it’s not. Maybe after the Super League War, it was the right outcome.
But not anymore. Anything other than the NRL pausing while Origin is played is undiluted greed.
Just like delayed Sunday telecasts, they won’t get away with it forever. Common sense and justice will find a way – one weekend game in the new TV deal is evidence of that.
But when Todd Greenberg talks about nothing being more important than the integrity of the club competition, he need only look at far less salacious issues than match fixing to find his words ring very hollow indeed.