Congratulations to Phil “Zzz” Rothfield for penning an early contender for most pointless article of the year, in the ever-dreary Daily Telegraph. In this earth-shaking missive, Zzz scoops the world by pointing out that the three NRL teams in Sydney’s west have, so far this season, not been very good.
Of course, Zzz being Zzz it’s not enough simply to point out the bleeding obvious. Instead our fearless correspondent attempts to crowbar in some implications about the state of the game or the supposed battle between the NRL and AFL in western Sydney. Here’s the (abridged) dramatic intro: “It was supposed to be the most competitive battleground in Australian sport…Instead, it’s become nothing but a battle of the also-rans with crowds falling and merchandise down by 50 per cent.”
Let’s look at Zzz’s shocking evidence. First up: “crowds falling”. Scanning the article for crowd figures I am shocked to discover that Zzz actually doesn’t mention this assertion again; perhaps the truth is so self-evident he doesn’t feel the need to back up the claim? Surely more plausible than the idea that he just shoved it in there without bothering to check?
Well, it’s obviously too early in the season to make a fair comparison of average crowds year-on-year. But I’ve taken the time to make one quick – and, I think, especially relevant comparison. Last season, Parramatta played the Wests Tigers at home in July in front of a sold-out crowd of 19,654. In 2012, the two underperforming sides met in late April… in front of a sold-out crowd of 19,654.
Incidentally, the Parramatta home game against Penrith did drop 2,000 in crowd between 2011 and 2012. Though I suspect the fact that it was arsing down with rain on the night of the 2012 game might have been a factor – what do you reckon, Zzz?
Anyway, let’s be fair and call “crowds falling” an unproven claim (actually that’s bloody fair considering no evidence is offered). Also, frankly, even if crowds were falling what would be the big deal? Teams playing poorly don’t pull as many fans shocker? Is Zzz somehow surprised to discover that in sport occasionally there are teams that don’t win very often?
Next up: “merchandise down by 50 per cent”. That doesn’t sound good, does it? But let’s look at Zzz’s evidence which, in its entirety, consists of the observations of “former legend Peter Wynn” who runs a sports shop in Parramatta which is “normally thriving at this time of year”.
According to Zzz, Wynn says: “It’s [Ed: no explanation of what ‘it’ is here – presumably underperforming western Sydney teams but the previous paragraph in the Telegraph article is actually about competition with the AFL so who knows, really] had a huge impact on retail sales….The Eels and Wests Tigers are our most popular clubs but their jersey sales are down by 50 per cent. They played last Sunday and it should have been our busiest day but it was nothing like it.”
So the 50 per cent decline in merchandise sales is in fact the (claimed) experience of a single shopkeeper. Zzz, please allow me to throw some other thoughts into the mix here. Firstly, were you aware that Australia is in the middle of a retail recession, with particularly hard-hit areas including Sydney’s western suburbs?
Secondly, did you know that the Tigers are now into their second season of wearing a particularly nasty jersey, while the Eels are in year two of a moderately average one? Could it be that many people bought the team jerseys when they were new in 2011 and are not buying the same one again in 2012? Could it be that you are a spectacularly lazy journalist who can’t be bothered to string together a vaguely coherent, structured or backed-up argument?
But wait! Here’s Zzz getting one over on me with some really good quoted material to back up his case: “A punter on Twitter @jamiec06 summed it up well by tweeting: ‘People of Sydney’s west spoilt for choice this year – eels [sic], panthers [sic], GWS. No wonder A-League fast tracking [sic] a team.’”
I stand corrected! Man do I feel a fool for spending all this time asking what the hell Zzz is on about when he’s got the globally-renowned anthropological insights of @jamiec06 on his side! And what wisdom is this contemporary prophet bestowing on us? Here it is, parsed for clarity: in 2012, there are a number of professional sports teams in the greater western Sydney area.
(By the way, Zzz old boy, you might want to pick your tweets more carefully next time: the phrase “spoiled for choice” suggests that having all these teams is somehow a positive thing, whereas I’m fairly sure your article has a largely negative flavour).
Next up, Zzz tries – half-heartedly, quite frankly – to stir up an NRL v AFL angle to his non-story. All he can really muster is “the NRL hoped to combat the AFL invasion by winning footy games,” but quite frankly it’s limper than Zzz’s own winkie after a heavy evening in the Cronulla Sharks’ hospitality box (post Gallen exit). He’s forced to acknowledge that the new GWS AFL team’s less-than-impressive zero-and-five record is unlikely to be grabbing the attention of the punters.
Which leaves me wondering what the point of all this is. Does Zzz think it’s newsworthy to point out that the Panthers, Eels and Tigers haven’t been very good this season? The Tigers’ poor performance is surprising to most, but the other two outfits were right up there in the wooden spoon odds before the season started.
Writing rubbish like “Penrith hired Phil Gould and Ivan Cleary to restore pride but they’ve gone backwards” is spectacularly disingenuous. The Gould/Cleary project may or may not work but all concerned acknowledged before the start of the season that a rebuilding period would have to take place before the Panthers became challengers again (and the team has been injury decimated). I don’t believe for one second that Zzz isn’t aware that rebuilding a mediocre playing list takes time so I can only conclude that once again he’s shit-stirring for the lack of anything actually insightful to say.
Right down the bottom of the article (well, just ahead of a spectacularly generic and entirely pointless quote from Mark Bosnich about how a new A-league team will do better if it wins games) comes a comment from “NRL marketing boss”, Paul Kind, who points out to Zzz the stunning revelation that good teams tend to be more popular. “While all our clubs work hard to build membership and their supporter base regardless of results, it helps to win. There’s no question that success on the field brings fans to our games. Like their passionate fans, we'd like to see them winning more often.”
I can’t help but feel Zzz might have been better off making that call first then deciding there fundamentally is no story here.
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