It was just a News Limited beatup. Watch The Back Page on foxsportsnews or read the sports opinions in any of their papers, the bias against Rugby League is taken to absurd levels. When I first heard people complaining about this bias I thought they were just paranoid, but watch and read, it's hard not to notice.
Watching The Back Page last night they spent 15 minutes gushing over AFL, some player I'd not heard of retiring being the last remaining from the '96 premiers like that's important, then they took a minute to have a dig at a woman who commentated on a couple of televised AFL games, then went on and on about the crowds that weekend. Apparently it was almost the best attended round ever, but for a game in Canberra. When Billy Birmingham commented on the smallness of that crowd the victorian panelist went at him for a full minute like he had just called his mother a whore. Then on to league, QRL says it's unsubstantiated, the other panelist goes on and on about how that just proves it then, says it's true it's true, but covers his **** from legal recourse by going on about how it's true that people do this and is then vague enough that he can't get called on for making **** up.
It's News Limited, see how little regard they have for actual journalism with the toxic detritus they spout on Fox News and think about whether they'd stoop to agendas in sports journalism. It's order from on high, any editorial has to jive with their plans. Right now they want to drive down the price of the upcoming NRL TV deal, since they control cable sports the other media won't/can't bid higher. Or maybe Rupert's just still pissed he didn't manage to kill/control the game back in the 90's.
When that guy from Carlton said his team paid off a bunch of alleged sexual assault victims, what happened. News Limited at least went after him as though he were wrong for bringing it up or had been just making it up and calling him a crazy old liar anyway. Imagine a former ceo/president of an NRL club said the same thing, and tell me the media would have reacted the same way.
This QRL mess is designed to split league fans anyway, it's a way of having a dig at the game and getting half it's base to agree with you because "those maroons are all deviants and druggos, eh". And then magically Western Sydney will love AFL more than life itself. I never said it was a good plan.
In all seriousness, it doesn't bother me that much because it really isn't that good a plan, and none too subtle lately. It's darkly amusing to watch at least.