NRL HAS GREAT EXPECTATIONS FOR ITS GRASSROOTS SCENE

By Roy Masters
March 6 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald

The National Rugby League's advertising campaign for the coming season is the equivalent of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations filmed as a spaghetti western.

It is high in hope and low on budget, as last night's launch demonstrated.

Whereas last year's 2002 gala season opener was a sit-down affair with partners at the Museum of Contemporary Art, last night's was stand-up without partners at Fox Studios.

Still, a mood of cheerful optimism pervaded the air.

Australian music greats the Hoodoo Gurus re-formed to rework an old song into a new league anthem with familiar background scenes - Newcastle players running up sandhills, others lifting weights, Parramatta doing sit-ups, Manly jogging along a beach, Canberra fans in tribal gear, cheerleaders in bikini tops and the standard big hits, clever passes and post-try celebrations.

As 21st-century sport struggles with a shrinking sponsorship dollar and fears of declining TV-rights fees, the NRL has cut its advertising cloth to fit its back-to-grassroots campaign.

The NRL's That's My Team theme is a reworked version of the Hoodoo Gurus' What's My Scene, with the words supplied by Parramatta assistant coach Alan Wilson, a friend of lead singer Dave Faulkner.

It's a safety-first campaign and was launched by Australian captain Andrew Johns.

NRL chief executive David Gallop told last night's audience of 400 the "cautious optimism" of last year had been replaced by "genuine confidence". Gallop said that league, buoyed by 50,000 people at the World Sevens, capacity crowds from Cairns to Invercargill in New Zealand and three big gates on the Gold Coast, was "well and truly back in fashion".

"Women and children are back interested in it. In the 1980s, with Tina Turner, the game was seen to be trendy. We'll get back there with the Hoodoo Gurus," he said.

Perhaps. The jingle will persist, even if the hackneyed images in the ad fade. Still, the NRL is expected to do its talking on the field. Gallop proudly flashed last year's indices of success on the big screen, a questionable exercise in a code whose past statistics can be described only as either disappointing or doctored.

All the arrows were pointing up, although some creative computing was required.

Four of the five top-rating TV programs in NSW and Queensland last year were league matches.

Ditto for nine of the top 10 programs in regional NSW and seven of the top eight in regional Queensland.

Last year's grand final was watched by 4.5million people in Australia and New Zealand, beating the Australian football grand-final audience. (Gallop conceded the Kiwi contingent, who don't watch Australian football, got the NRL over the line).

The grand final was watched by 400,000 people in Melbourne. (Played on a Sunday night, it was live to Melbourne for the first time since 1999 when the Storm won the premiership.)

There are 195,000 players in Australia. (Rugby union has 147,000 across Australia but a NRL official admitted: "We're counting ours by rugby union rules. They count everyone who straps on a boot. If you count only registered players, their figure is 50,000 and ours is 130,000".)

Three million people attend rugby league games every year. (If you attend two games each weekend over the 26-week season, you are 52 people).

Last night's ad featured a Wee Waa jumper, minus the head of the player wearing it.

While it's almost certain the player is Parramatta's Jamie Lyon, it is a risky business filming players in the north-west NSW cotton town.

When the promotional company's cameras arranged for local lad Lyon to be filmed in a cotton field beside a family of boys in different-coloured NRL jumpers, local identity Frank Fish protested: "They're a rugby union family."

This may explain the following story Gallop told last night's audience: "Our place in the community was brought home to me at Wee Waa during my visit to classrooms full of children wearing rugby league jerseys.

"I was reminded we still have some work to do when a classroom of eight-year-olds were asked who the Australian captain was before Andrew Johns.

"A shy boy at the back of the room shot his hand straight up and answered: 'Captain Cook'.

Click here for the NRL commercial in Windows Media Player format. Or here for it in RealPlayer format.