Failure to show Rugby League World Cup on terrestrial TV is tragic for the sport: Jon Trickett
In the areas I am most familiar with, rugby league – and sport in general – can be the most important agency for social cohesion. Sport can provide something that brings everybody together, whatever their different points of view or life experiences.
The BBC used to cover rugby league more or less weekly on Grandstand. So familiar was rugby league in those times, because of the BBC coverage, that many of commentator Eddie Waring’s favourite expressions were well known across the whole country. Mike Yarwood, who was a great mimic at that time, used to talk with Eddie’s accent. He used to talk about “up and under”, which was one of the ways a ball could be kicked. More importantly, when somebody was sent off, his favourite expression was, “Well, he’s been sent for an early bath”.
Rugby league ought to be a nationally recognised sport. Anyone who wants to watch rugby league on TV now has to go to two separate pay-per-view channels. It costs £61 a month, which is 5 per cent of the total income of a person living on the minimum wage.
People are being priced out of the spectacle, which is a great shame, because it is leading to the atrophy of the sport across the communities where it ought to be played. It is also stopping us from spreading rugby league further.
Rugby league was a product of the class system that operated in sport in those days. The so-called gentlemen, who did not need to be paid, would play rugby union. Those who were too poor could not afford to play rugby union, so rugby league was set up so that players could be paid. That was the start of rugby league as a code, but the truth is that the divisions that existed then continue today.
When we look at the national squads for rugby union, two-thirds or more went to public school. I cannot find a single player for the national rugby league side who went to public school.
It is disappointing that fewer than 40 universities have a rugby league side, whereas every single university that I can find has a rugby union side. Again, that shows that something is not quite working between the two codes.
When it came to Covid, as we know, sports were remunerated, but here is an astonishing fact: rugby union received about £130 million, whereas rugby league got £10 million or £11 million. I do wonder whether those in the Civil Service making these decisions are often people who went to universities and schools that had rugby union but have little comprehension of the importance of rugby league in areas such as mine.
The problem for rugby league is that the feedstock has been cut off – that is, the ordinary kids who watch sport on TV and who live in poorer families. A lot of rugby league clubs are in deprived communities, such as Featherstone, where people are not able to pay for pay-per-view TV, so they do not see their heroes, and they do not see the sport, its code or how it is played. That leaves us with a problem.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has the power to list sporting events. It is disappointing and tragic that the Rugby League World Cup, which is happening right now, is not on terrestrial television. The BBC says that it has a deal to broadcast the event on the radio, but listening to it on the radio is not the same as watching our heroes on the pitch.
Jon Trickett is the Labour MP for Normanton and Hemsworth. This is an edited version of a recent Westminster Hall speech.