As part of the reward is they spend big on hiring a global superstar to perform. They’re creative, brave and ambitious in their thought processes about whom to target.
Enter Snoop Dogg. Once the hand-wringing ended from columnists and commentators, the D.O.G.G. arrived and did the business.
At 1.30pm at the MCG on Saturday, every single person in attendance was in their seats waiting for him. Including all the corporates. The lot of them. And they loved it to a person. Like a true global superstar, he walked out as if he owned the joint. For the next 20 minutes he did.
Snoop Dogg performs at the AFL grand final.Credit: Eddie Jim
Even my 92-year-old mother-in-law phoned to tell me she thought Snoop was great. She won’t ring after Teddy Swims sings next weekend. Actually, she might just to find out who he is, which is a good artist with a few hits. She also won’t make it to full-time of the match. And most likely my 11-year-old son won’t either.
The NRL sees grand final day as another massive money-making opportunity, alongside Origin, and always has. As events, there’s not much difference. The game sold out to television interests and brought in a night grand final a quarter of a century ago and won’t budge. The mighty dollar rules.
The AFL never sold off the day grand final, only experimenting during COVID when everything was different.
The NRL won’t shell out the cash for an international superstar. It tried that, bringing rapper Macklemore out for the 2017 decider. It resulted in one of the best pre-game shows, but the performance was drowned out by many in the media, livid with the fact Macklemore sang a song called Same Love that advocated marriage equality.
To them, that meant the NRL had gone ‘woke’. Cue the outrage.
Brilliantly, Australians weren’t remotely interested in the outrage the NRL feared and, six weeks after Macklemore sang at the grand final, 61.6 per cent of us said yes to same-sex marriage in the referendum. Even Bob Katter was on board. May a thousand blossoms bloom.
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The NRL has always been timid about such criticism and so, ever since, the ambition to put on a big show to celebrate the season on the big night has lost out to the loudest voices. The loudest voices in the game belong to the fans. At least they should.
Well done to the AFL for having the admirable combination of the proud tradition of a day grand final and a vision to make it everything it can, and should, be.
It’s now over to Channel Nine, the owner of this masthead. It should listen to the fans and tell the NRL to play the game during the day from next year. In return, it should then demand NRL HQ hire someone massive for the pre-game entertainment who’s befitting the size of the occasion.
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