After 20 years, I was once more surrounded by fans shouting “Go Steelers!” on Sunday.
Unfortunately, those fans were wearing back and gold rather than scarlet and white. And I was in Jacksonville rather than Wollongong – beggars can’t be choosers.
Just hearing little kids use the word “Steelers” was heart-warming, since no little kids in Australia remember the mighty Illawarra Steelers.
I only found out that rugby league troubadour Andrew Charles, who was working with the Chile team at the Americas Rugby League World Cup qualifiers, had a spare ticket 20 minutes before kick-off.
Your correspondent waltzed in with 15 minutes to go – and saw everything anyone really needed to see. When I walked in, Jacksonville had a comfortable lead.
By full time, the Steelers had triumphed 20-16 with two touchdowns – the second when there were roughly 28 seconds on the clock.
A day later, Valentine Holmes was off to the NFL apparently. He has been granted a release “to try his luck”. Todd Greenberg predicted he’d be back, Paul Gallen complained he had deserted the Sharks and should be banned.
If he had gone to rugby union, would we be so sympathetic? And what, exactly, is the difference?
I’ve been to two NFL stadia this year – Mile High Stadium and TIAA Bank Field. They’re big joints. But they’re just stadiums.
Valentine Holmes is off to the states. (Photo by Tony Feder/Getty Images)
The bowels of Mile High, which we were escorted through after the New Zealand-England Test, are less salubrious than those of Suncorp Stadium, I can tell you. There’s nothing special about these structures.
The United States has 325 million people. That population is the reason NFL players earn so much money – the average salary is US$2.1 million. But they’re just football players, the stadia are just stadia and the fans are just fans.
It’s just a competition.
In Australia, the NFL is in the same marketplace competing for sports fans. It’s having a lot of luck, too: many of the NRL’s own players follow it in preference to their own sport if social media is to be believed.
It’s time rugby league in Australia showed some self-respect and stopped kow-towing to the NFL. If a bloke tries to buck his contract to go play there, there should be a price.
The English professional sports economy is based on transfer fees. If Australian rugby league players want to defect to other sports, they should be subject to a transfer fee or to their contracts being bought out.
You want to become an NFL millionaire? Sign one-year contracts in the NRL, trial every year, if you fail come back and sign another year contract and so on.
Jarryd Hayne actually made his NFL dream come true (Photo: AP)
With reward, should come risk. You want to earn more in the medium term, you got to earn less in the short term.
Have the courage of your convictions, of your ‘dream’.
Being a professional athlete is a serious job. Contractual obligations are not something to be ignored when a prettier sport comes along batting its eyelashes at you.
American football is just another sport, competing in the labour market for workers.
I don’t see why we should make it easier for them. Cronulla should not have granted Valentine Holmes a release.
NotToday
Roar Rookie
You might want to read what he said, because it seems you're being pedantic to the point where you're not even making sense. And do you know they banned League in the UAE in 2015? So the witch hunt hasn't stopped. Their national Union (UAE Rugby Federation) claimed to control "all forms of rugby" in the country....how do you do control League when you're not even sanctioned by League? They used that rubbish excuse and had the head of the UAE Rugby League arrested. They would have sentenced him too, but then the League guys from Europe had to fly over to explain to those Emirati morons that League and Union are two different forms of sport. They managed to kill of RL in another country.
NotToday
Roar Rookie
Having terms of release is just fair and ethical. If someone doesn't want to play, no point having him captive. He's not going to perform well anyways. What benefit does it do anyone just to have him starve, let him find a job elsewhere and move on.
NotToday
Roar Rookie
The difference between leaving for Rugby Union or the NFL is that the NFL actually gives the NRL and the sport of Rugby League some publicity. Union doesn’t give them that because Union and its fans already know about League’s existence, and in places where they don’t it’s because Union actively suppresses the sport and on occasion even bans it. Secondly, NRL players who switch to NFL tend to switch back pretty soon. But League players who switch to Union often do well enough that they don’t come back for a long time. So in summation: With NFL there’s a trade-off (talent in exchange for exposure). With Union, there’s just loss of talent.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
In the NFL is the standard contracts have no security and thats why the NFL careers are so short. Because the players in the draft get a four year contract, but its a one way contract. They draft in heaps of players from Colleges because they know they can drop them like flies.
swamprat
Roar Pro
That figure seems low. Perhaps it was only professional players counted. It’s always difficult to compare when statisticians get Involved.
Westernred
Guest
I was surprised to find that only 100000 people play NFL. A smaller pool than rugby league in Australia or RU in NZ.
swamprat
Roar Pro
If you can loose the Idea that NFL players have the gift of the Greek Gods then you might understand why a quality NRL player could succeed in that environment. Any athlete understands that.
Emcie
Roar Guru
So you think it's perfectly legitimate to want an employee to pay back half a years salary (which they've already earnt) to compensate a company for a year in which they wont be playing the employee anyway (and this is only if its just a year early, I'd hate to see what you'd want if there were multiple years left). What costs are being compensated for? Holmes is apparently the highest paid Sharks player ever so there's very good odds that anyone they bring in will be cheaper anyway (and the NRL covers the cost of the salary cap anyway) and clubs have full time recruitment managers anyway so at worst it'll make someone a bit more busy then they already were. So what you're suggesting is that clubs can demand hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for (i'm guessing) emotional trauma everytime a player want's to legally negotiate a release? If the NRL couldn't get a draft to get though the courts i really can't see how this would ever be acceptable.
Morshead
Roar Rookie
..'is a lazy example and...'
Morshead
Roar Rookie
Agreeing to terms to break a legally binding CONTRACT. Slavery is a lazy and inaccurate on so many levels. do better.
Emcie
Roar Guru
Forcing employees to pay the company if they want to leave? Slavery was abolished a long time ago
Morshead
Roar Rookie
Agree. And yes, Holmes has done nothing wrong - he asked to leave and he was allowed to leave. But if Cronulla said...'sure Val, but you're on $750,000 (?), pay us $350,000 (?) for our costs / inconvenience and we will agree to release you from your legal contract. If not, you need to stay here. Pretty sure that would make him, or others at least think twice. And... the club doesn't feel so hard done by as they have compensation. But as you say, it is their own fault.
Morshead
Roar Rookie
No, it isn't.
piru
Roar Rookie
Rugby banned both professional and amateur players for life? What other kind of player is there?
Rellum
Roar Guru
And I would suggest State of Origin is about the standard that the NFL is at.
Birdy
Roar Rookie
I wish the roar had a like button
William Dalton Davis
Roar Rookie
Bit different. Carney was sacked, Barba was given a tap on the shoulder to free up cap space, Lewis was sacked politely, and Moylan was straight swapped for Maloney.
Emcie
Roar Guru
And if he did that he would absolutely have to pay out his contract just like SBW did
Wal
Roar Guru
Jeez that's a touchy response to me simply pointing that all players have many different reasons to switching codes than simply money. Absolutely Lomu was a league fan/product no shame in that, ironically he chose union when he could have earnt far more playing league. Thorn in his biography makes no bones about wanting to play for the AB's. Why so defensive when for the first 100 years the traffic was completely the other way and because one sport was amateur money was a great motivating factor.
Ruckin' Oaf
Guest
So you'd insist that a contract for personal service be honoured and if it wasn't the solution would be restraint of trade. The Courts would have a field day.