Paul Kent - Players Can't Have It Both Ways

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Kempsey Dog

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https://outline.com/www.dailytelegr...r/news-story/9d44c10b6e5ae8a20179ad6579b75d1d

NOBODY knows how much Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, accompanied by several nude dancing Bulldogs, and their little bulldogs, has cost the game.

Australian Rugby League Commissioner Peter Beattie was in Perth on Tuesday to meet Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan and three other ministers.

Beattie was asking for money, promising to bring rugby league to Perth if they delivered the cash.

“It’s embarrassing,” Beattie said. “You just look like bit of a goose.”

The Bulldogs went page one with their mad Monday antics at the Harbour View Hotel, one of Sydney’s great pubs.

It followed the typical course.

Outrage at the players and in defence of the players followed in equal parts.

It showed once again how the narrative gets hijacked, taken away from all common sense.

So before we go further let’s take the outrage all the way down.

Too often the conversation gets reduced to a debate about the players’ right to celebrate their season (in this case, a solid 12th placing), and the media’s right to report it, as if they are the only two sides.

Both are highly emotional but irrelevant arguments. There are bigger considerations.

This time last year the NRL, in the wake of a $2.1 billion broadcast deal, was negotiating a Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Rugby League Players Association.

The players drove hard for a share in the game’s revenue.

James Maloney, a RLPA board member, set the tone early.

“We want to all be incentivised to grow the game,” said Jimmy the Gent.

“If we’re genuine partners in the game and we’re getting a percentage of the revenue then it’s in our best interests to grow the game and make it better. It’s not about trying to get anything ridiculous and reasonable. It’s just about getting value, I suppose, for what we contribute to the game.”

The players got their revenue share, a massive 29.5 per cent of forecast revenue. They also split four ways, with equal amounts to them, the NRL, the clubs and grassroots, all non-forecast revenue.

The players asked to be treated as businessmen during the negotiation and they were treated, and now paid, that way.

A basic fundamental of business, though, is people don’t pay you more and expect the same.

So when the NRL agrees to pay the players more, for a game driven by public reputation, its expectation was the players would work with them to promote the game in a positive light.

That cannot be avoided.

The players are in an industry that has public profile.

Two days ago Brisbane captain Darius Boyd complained the game was no longer fun because of the “negative” media, which prompts the question, what is negative?

A story about bad refereeing? A team’s poor season? An insolent player refusing to get off the bus until he got paid?

Negative does not mean unfair.

Getting naked in a pub while a teammates grabs a player another teammate on the little bulldog is self-inflicted.

But unable to defend that behaviour, the argument shifts to the media’s right to report it and this contrived desire to be negative.

This game draws more than half its annual funding from the media and benefits by media coverage promoting it.

When players sign a contract to play in the NRL they are accepting a life where more than their performance on the field is fodder.

Like Hollywood, Canberra politics or life in the NFL, everything is copy. Like it or not it is part of the deal. The game, after all, has to find Jimmy Maloney’s money from somewhere.

The RLPA is apparently no help.

The RLPA issued an embarrassing statement that quickly descended into gibberish.

“We share the disappointment of other stakeholders regarding the impact that these incidents can have on the perception of the game and players …” began RLPA chief executive Ian Prendergast.

It said everything it would be expected to say without ever addressing the issue.

If the RLPA does not understand the professional standards required for a game that depends on its public image — “they are entitled to let their hair down at the end of a tough year” — what hope is there?

The Bulldogs had a tough year? Talk to their supporters.

Over the next five years NRL players will pocket $782.8 million.

That is before a dollar is invested in grassroots. Their funding comes from a percentage of the money left over.

Beattie has spent the past two days in Perth trying to grow that NRL funding pool.

Then he walked into this.

“It reduces the amount of money that comes to the game, that comes from sponsors, from Government allocation,” he said.

“That means less money for clubs, less money for players.

“It hurts everybody.”

The NRL has never done a costing for how much player related incidents have cost the game over the years. Players believe one sponsor leaves and another enters and life carries on evenly.

There is no realisation the game could have both, which means they could spend both. The money would runs into tens of millions.

The NRL is about to launch its women’s competition this weekend. The NRL Women’s Premiership was fast-tracked after sponsor Harvey Norman threatened to withdraw all its NRL funding if it did not make the game more female friendly.

That means the money in the men’s pocket.

“We have to attract women to support this game and we know women hate this behaviour,” Beattie said.

“That’s not being sexist. It kills us as a game.”

Paul Kent for pretty much this whole season along with his fox sports colleagues have openly slammed Peter Beattie and how he is way to out of his depth as ARL commission chair... yet when trying to make an argument about Bulldogs mad monday he pretty much directly uses him as his first point of reference :D...

No Paul I think people like you bagging Peter, along with all of news limited portraying him in a negative light (wether right or wrong) would have a far more negative impact. Why would state officials want to invest with someone who has been portrayed as such a idiotic fool ? Please tell us Paul...

I personally think this is more harmful than a few players having a good time in what was suppose to be a private setting.

The amount of times this bloke contradicts himself in this article is amazing...
 

Mr. Ditkovich

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Dear Kent,

I’m gonna dig a hole into your bathroom, take a picture of you on the toilet, with all the shit you write coming out of your ass, and then post it on social media.

And you can’t blame negative media, because it’s self inflicted. After all, negative doesn’t mean unfair, does it?
 

Moedogg

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Lol buzz Rothfield got hammered on Twitter today by rugby league fans.
 

Bad Billy

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Tell me how, what the players did, affects the game, when nobody saw it and no complaints were made ?
What affects the game is the media splashing the goings on of a private party, all over the front and back pages of a newspaper.
 

Sleeky

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Wow. Thanks mate
 

GDR

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The media has lost the plot in Australia.. and Australia in general is a joke in the way things are portrayed and dramatised. nanny state is a massive understatement..
 

DoggiesBoy

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I’ve read a lot of comments on social media today and I reckon less than 5% were on the side of the telecrap, the tide against the media is turning. People are now seeing them for who they truly are.
Yep and even outside of sport they are, this same pathetic newspaper played a big role in the latest PM switcheroo, people see through all this bullshit.
 
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belmore_utd

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Yep and even outside of sport they are, this same pathetic newspaper played a big in the latest PM switcheroo, people see through all this bullshit.
the rabbit hole is alot deeper than most people [think] media manipulation has accounted for the extent of counter culture and beyond. Most people are too busy these days competing, perpetually outraged or just trying to survive to notice.

The corporations, authoritarians and big governance vs (the people vs the people) this is the narrative.
 

Mr Invisible

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The images I now have, I am now bleaching my eyes.
LOL I can imagine it's similar to the images that are burned intoo my retinas when @south of heaven told me to google "ugly midget porn", because the first images that come up were hilarious.

I still curse the day curiosity got the better of me on that one.
 

Wolfmother

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It's like they've never gotten naked at the rocks before lol
 

GrogDog

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I’ve read a lot of comments on social media today and I reckon less than 5% were on the side of the telecrap, the tide against the media is turning. People are now seeing them for who they truly are.
Me too and I reckon out of the ones I read it was like 1 in 20 and that one is an obvious hatred towards the Dogs. Fans from all teams are unleashing towards the media and admin. Most are saying that it's the media bringing the game into disrepute due to chasing negative nothing stories. It's a complete beat up and I am over the moon they are copping it from every angle. Way bigger issues with RL then some young blokes unwinding and getting on the piss. With corruption, cheating and the worst admin in RL history at the helm we have bigger concerns IMO.
 

speedy2460

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Peter Beattie says he feels like a goose. Guess what. You are a goose.
Just look at what you did to the Olympic Games you fool.
 
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