The leftie league lover's lament
It wasn’t until Wednesday, as I studied the National Rugby League teams for the coming weekend, that it dawned on me.
This week I have the option of cheering for the News Corp Broncos or the Adani-supporting Cowboys.
They’re two clubs I’ve worked for and alongside for more than 20 years. They’re the two NRL clubs I would barrack for on any regular weekend. There are people I highly respect employed by both clubs.
Except this isn’t a regular weekend. It comes days after what felt to me like a watershed national election; a statement in our direction as Australian society.
And honestly, for the first time ever, I’m having real issues putting aside politics and focusing on the game.
As in – I genuinely don’t feel like I can conscionably support either of these clubs the same way I have previously.
Now if you’re a right-winger and you’ve bothered to click and read this far, you’ve probably already determined what thread of commentary you’ll leave at the end.
But let me say I’m not going to delve too far into the actual politics at play here.
What I instead intend to relate is a hollow feeling where real life blasts so brightly into your eyes that it makes you question something you’ve clutched close to your chest since childhood.
If you’re a conservative, you may have a negative leftie experience that undermined something that was intrinsically linked to your sense of self at some stage too.
It’s incredibly hard to separate sport and politics. In fact, I’m a big advocate for using sport to drive positive agendas, so it’d be hypocritical of me to suggest these clubs have erred.
They’re free to do what they want. And as with any freedom comes the acknowledgement there are repercussions.
In the past I’ve been able to reconcile the fact my hometown team is one of the Murdoch family playthings.
Indeed, I worked for News Corp myself for the best part of four years – coincidentally until the level of editorial interference from management convinced me to question everything about journalism.
The difference now is, without throwing the toys out of the cot purely because of the result, I just can’t identify with what the Broncos represent anymore.
I’ve had moments before where that loyalty has been tested. I didn’t agree when the Broncos first signed Gorden Tallis. I was shattered they let Alan Cann go. I’ve found it tough to support the side whenever it has had a large number of New South Wales players.
But those were lovers’ tiffs. This time feels different. Something has broken.
It’s like when you’ve quarrelled with a partner on something so serious that you’re not just standing your ground anymore – you’re starting to walk away.
Whose loss is that? Judging by the voter numbers in Broncos heartland which supported the coalition and more conservative parties, overwhelmingly it’s my loss.
But the way this last election was allowed to be fought – on both sides of increasingly biased media – I will be surprised if this is a phenomenon restricted to this present time or to me alone.
I can see more and more people feeling this way as media entities with sizeable stakes in rugby league pump out embarrassingly tarnished reports, devoid of objectivity.
Remember just a few years ago when we would cackle at foreign nations which ran one-sided news articles with the thinnest reflections of the truth, designed for simpletons?
I can’t see any way an intelligent person would feel respected by what News Corp has dished up the past few months, even if the reader was conservative-leaning.
I know I instantly feel I’m being taken for a ride when Fairfax or one of the left-leaning organisations provides no balance in their content.
Anyhow by association, given News Corp has an almost 70 per cent share in the club, it’s tough to brush the feeling Broncos fans personify mug punters, or at least ones that are happy to be perceived that way.
News Corp no longer directly controls the Cowboys, although the links between the club and the Murdoch-owned Townsville Bulletin remain tight.
I was up north on election weekend, as it so happened, and found pages of coverage on election eve dedicated to the Cowboys taking the “extraordinary step of formally pledging support for the immediate opening of the Galilee Basin”.
They managed to work a mention of a Johnathan Thurston statue into one of the first three lines. Yep, pull those heartstrings.
As Townsville Enterprise chairman Kevin Gill acknowledged: “The Cowboys are North Queensland’s strongest and most recognisable brand.”
And hitch a ride to that sterling brand they damn well did.
The phrase “this isn’t about politics, it’s about jobs” was used several times. Apparently, it was purely coincidental this landmark declaration was made hours before the region went to the polls, and that it was carried across all of News Corp’s syndicated papers in the area.
Singularly, it was the most repulsive rugby league-related story I’ve ever encountered. Zero class.
I’ll struggle for a while yet to reconcile any of this, if at all.
Perhaps it’s the same way some of the Broncos’ fans from the more extreme fringes of the right are going to struggle to reconcile cheering for an Islamic sensation who will likely carry their club into the future.
Although, as we’re being encouraged to think, sometimes you shouldn’t contemplate anything too deeply.