It’s little more than saying who’s got the bigger dick. I wouldn’t read much more into it than that.
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Rugby league survived for decades before Foxtel purchased the rights. If Foxtel goes bust rugby league will still go on. He is a total boof head.
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True. But he knows where his bread is buttered. For now.
Next step will be to develop a post-Fox strategy where you go direct to fans at the first instance.
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Stan looms likely. Some games behind a paywall for Nine, 3 a week + SOO
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Indeed, didn’t rugby league in Australia actually enjoy some of its most prosperous years before Pay TV and the Super League War?
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Odd how they dropped the Saturday game - obviously it frees up their schedule for union but shows how little FTA care about Saturdays now.
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The issue for a lot of sports is that they’ve become reliant on the money that Fox has delivered and it’s not something that FTA alone are able to match - doesn’t help we’ve had multiple rounds of rights where the value has increased significantly Deal on deal
At some point, if it already hasn’t, the money tree will start to stop bearing fruit like it used to (regardless of whether it’s Fox or another subscription service) and these sports will find themselves in a situation where they struggle to fill the funding gap
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Let’s be honest though - before NRL came on the scene the players weren’t getting paid as much, and the organisation would have been on a much more informal and smaller scale rather than the corporate behemoth it is today. A 1990 salary cap of $1.5 million versus $9 million today…with inflation factored in, that should be $3 million.
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Back then, and certainly in the 1980s, a lot of players had paid jobs as well and only the top tier were paid enough to be full time footballers.
There was a lot less scrutiny back then too, fewer camera angles, no computer analysis, no internet and only 2-3 games a week were televised.
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Sadly, the days of having the one broadcaster for the “big sports” are long gone. Fox (or some streaming site) will be there for the NRL and AFL. Everyone has the right i guess to watch every game live - whether it is on FTA or on Fox. For NRL, Nine will have one Friday and one Sunday game + Finals, and the odd Saturday game at the end of the season. Should have been for the whole season, but it does need room for the likes of Union and, well, thats about it! lol. Pre-2020, Gem had the Intrust Competitions too (“Reserve Grade”) into Qld and NSW. Not sure whats happening this year.
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Nine now has Thursday Night Games.
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Wouldn’t be a bad idea for footballers to have paid jobs now as well, so they don’t have the time to be people-bashing, dog-bothering, pee-drinking idiots. 
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Oh yes, i forgot about Thursday Night games. Thanks
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Don’t forget, not so long before the Super League war, it was called the “Winfield cup”. Winfield use to put money into the game. That won’t be an option anymore if Foxtel disappears.
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We could be looking at the Facebook Cup or the Stan Cup!
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That hasn’t been an option for ages - cigarette sponsorship is illegal. And it was well before Foxtel came onto the scene. I’m sure someone will sponsor the NRL.
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Of course you would. Don’t know about anyone else though.
Yeah Jims sounds good 
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And it was well before Foxtel came onto the scene.
The last Winfield cup was in 95? Then the next year was when the pay TV (Optus came in first ) “pay TV” money that came in (to replace some of the cigarette money) ; most games were broadcast on TV then for the first time. Then the super league war in 97, foxtel had TV rights then (for super league games only); Optus did the ARL comp. Then in 98 both Optus and Foxtel had the games. So the pay TV money wasn’t that long after the cigarette money stopped. To some extent it was (or seems to be) the primary source of income post cigarette sponsorship.
Who remembers the saturday night game being on Fox 8?
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I do. It was in the early years of the NRL when two games were played simultaneously at 7.30pm, so game 1 was shown live on Fox 8 and game 2 shown live on Fox Sports. Game 1 was then immediately replayed on Fox Sports after game 2 finished.
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