Rings, the Super Bowl, and the future of Australian sports

Australian Sport, NRL, Rugby League, NFL, AFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, Arizona Cardinals, Darren Lockyer, Andrew Johns, State of Origin, Brisbane Broncos, NBA, MLB, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird

I had to write about the Super Bowl. From an Australian perspective it never fails to amaze me. In fact all American sports have the same effect on me. It’s like looking into the future. The future of Australian sports that is.

All the money, the commercialisation, the notoriety, the media saturation, the over-valuation, the opinionated personalities. That is the future of Australian sports whether you like it or not. If you disagree, take a look at the AFL.

Growing TV contracts, over-celebritised players (especially if decide to throw away your career because of drugs), a growing insatiability among the fan base (do us a favor and take a breath Victoria), developmental leagues, a draft which is increasingly stealing pages in the paper from other sports regular seasons, and most explicitly similar, the increasingly popular holiday-esque nature of the AFL grand final. Like the Super Bowl, it transcends social norms and annually shifts itself into the national conscience, interesting even those who normally have no time for sports.

The AFL in 2009 is what the NFL was in 1989. Fresh from hashing out the wrinkles that surface in the early stages of professionalism, the AFL faces—as the NFL did during the 90s—an era of ideological struggle; as the league expands financially and begins to operate more like a business, the purists and the fans traditional conceptions and associated values towards the league and the ideal of sport will be challenged.

When the first multi-million dollar contract (per year) gets signed, how do blue collar fans deal with that? How does the famed tall poppy syndrome that all Australians harvest effect the growth of the game? I say it won’t, but it could cause MLB-esque confrontation between small market teams and their fans. These are two of many questions that will face AFL fans in the future.

My prediction is a lot of the small market teams will be forced to move. I could see Sydney and Queensland with two, three teams each in the future if Australian population growth doesn’t increase and stays concentrated within the nation’s metropolitan centers.

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Back to the Super Bowl.

As a neutral fan of pro-football, it was only natural to root for the Cardinals. Not because they were the underdogs and it would be a great rags to glory story, but for the sake of journalistic sanity in the following weeks.

Leading up to the game, the media centered around Pittsburgh’s history, their eternal right to their sixth championship, the mythological premise of Steelers football, and the Cardinals undeserving-lucky streak nature in which they made the big game. These stories never made sense to me.

Beginning with the premise of Steelers football. All week I read about the famed blue collar, hard nosed, hit ‘em in the mouth, culture that epitomises Steelers football.

They’ll pound the ball between the tackles because that’s STEELERS FOOTBALL!
They’ll play tough defense because that’s STELLERS FOOTBALL!
The team embodies the personality of the city of Pittsburgh!

They were the lines that continued to appear. I won’t argue that clubhouses and locker-rooms perpetuate certain cultures (see: neo-Bulldogs), but not 29 years apart. The previous lines emanate from the string of success the Steelers experienced in the 70s that culminated in their fourth Super Bowl win in 1980. Those teams DID embody the attitudes and values of the city, because they existed and lived in a pre-professional era and were a part of the community. They didn’t fly home to Atlanta, or Phoenix, or Florida in the offseason; they didn’t make millions; and they didn’t play in a nanny-league. Pro-teams today just don’t have that gritty amateur connection with the fan base.

Which is why it makes no sense to assume—in a league built on exploiting weaknesses and capitalizing on strengths—that a team in 2009 would win a game because of the tactics (running the ball with the beefy Franco Harris) that won games for teams almost thirty years ago, when they possess completely different offensive personnel.

Sure, they do play tough defense, but that has nothing to do with what happened in the 70s. It’s a product of a team that was head-coached by a defensive minded guy in Bill Cowher for 15 seasons; it’s the product of playing a Rex Ryan (defensive minded) lead Baltimore team twice a year; it’s a product of playing in the recently tough AFC; it’s a product of drafting well; it’s a product of having two great pass rushers, and a instinctive strong safety anchoring your defense; it’s a product of adopting true-tested model for success which states that focusing on building a smart, solid defense produces more wins than developing a high octane offense. It’s a product of everything BUT the persona of a team who happened to play for the same club nearly thirty years ago.

The point is, if you are a mainstream sports writer and you base your pre game analysis on strengths that exist in theory, it’s a stupid point to make—especially when the team in question, can’t punch it in from first and goal, passes from their one yard line, they give up 377 yards passing, they win the game on a fade route, and their first string back rushes for 53 yards on 19 carries.

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This is especially true if you cover State of Origin. League writers and TV personalities have been beating the “Queenslanders never give up!” drum for a long time now, and until now it was appropriate. There was a visible culture among the Maroons squads of the past 28 years that was built around the belief that, in an origin game, they always had a chance to win.

It was born from the leadership of Arthur Beetson, made famous by the heroics of Wally Lewis, and continued by the likes of Mal Maninga, Allan Langer, and more recently Darren Lockyer.
Those players—like the 70s Steelers—did embody their environment, mainly because they had an intimate connection with their local community; they had day jobs, they hung out at RSL’s, they had private lives. The game was precisely that to them, a game.

(Sure, Lockyer didn’t have a real day job, but he did spend the early stages of his career around that previous generation and, I believe, he was heavily influenced by them. He wouldn’t be the leader he is today without that experience. I’m convinced of this.)

So as the last of that generation – namely those who grew up watching pre-professional league, and then played in the first era of professionalism – retires from the game, and teams are flooded with “modern athletes”, that never-die culture is lost, as the gap between the community and the modern athlete widens.

Think about it: Is Israel Folau, or Greg Ingliss, really going to continue to push themselves, or play through injury, or engage in a fight, just to defend the pride of the Maroons? Of course not.

Why risk potentially millions in earnings over a title that is won and lost in three games, each year mind you. As professionalism embraces the Australian sporting landscape, players – and no one can blame them for this – begin to make business decisions (namely, decisions that benefit the selling of the commodity which is themselves), and not decisions based on emotion. As always the key rule in business success is to always differentiate business and emotion.

I see Origin evolving into more of an All-star game-esque event in the future. I could see it being cut back to one game to provide more rest time during the season and limit injuries. More focus will be placed on the naming of the annual roster; there will be a push to name the best players rather than the best teams.

When your living revolves around your ability to market yourself, collecting accolades, such as being named to an all-pro team, has a dramatic effect on your marketability. “Who cares if you have four fullbacks, my client has outplayed any center this season”, agents will argue. This is where Origin will cease to be a contest, and announce itself at the NRL’s annual marketing festival.

Remember, it’s all about the money.

(Note: I love origin the way it is. This is just what I think could happen as a result of the Professional revolution. Not what I want to happen.)

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My last piece of Super Bowl inspired pondering is to do with legacy. Why are championships weighted so lightly in rugby league when evaluating a player’s legacy?

In American sports (NFL, NBA, and to a lesser extent MLB), the number of “rings” a player earned is integral to the evaluation process of one’s career. Especially when evaluating the games greats.

Michael Jordan is not that much more talented than Kobe Bryant; Jordan never scored 81 points in a game, he never scored 61 in New York, he was an even worse teammate. But he will always be far greater than Kobe could ever hope to be because he has six championship rings, and Kobe only has three. And Kobe will never be as good as Larry Bird (also 3 rings), because Bird did it in a, supposedly, tougher and more talented era. So American sports figures are judged not only by the quantity of their rings, but by the quality, and in Australia, it doesn’t factor in.

Lockyer and Johns are the perfect example. Both have lead their club, state, and country; both have won test and origin series, single handily at times; both were named in the list of Australia’s 100 greatest players; both hold NRL points records; both have won multiple golden boot awards; both have a Clive Churchill medal; both have won multiple Daily M. medals; and both have been the face of the game.

The only difference between them is that Lockyer has won two more premierships (three if you count super league) than Johns has. Despite this Johns was named as a Team of the Century starter, while Lockyer didn’t even make the bench. To reiterate the original point, how does winning a title (the whole point of the contest) mean so little, and not weight more heavily in the Australian mind?

(Note: Despite everything I just wrote I completely and unequivocally believe that Johns is far superior to Lockyer, and I am Broncos fan for life. I have no idea why I think this. I just know that Johns was the best I will ever see. Go figure.)