Stokes-owned WA media gives State of Origin sex ad snub
The mood around rugby league in Perth has since changed as Stokes come to terms with the threat rugby league poses to the AFL - the sporting product his media company invests so heavily in.
Of the 60,000 fans expected at Optus Stadium, 54,000 of them are locals with just 6000 fans travelling interstate for the game. This columnist has been in Perth since Monday and the support from the locals towards the Bears and rugby league has been an eye-opener.
Australian Queensland cricket legend Mitchell Johnson, who now lives in Perth, spoke strongly about the interest in rugby league from the locals when chatting off-air before he appeared on Freddie and the Eighth on Tuesday.
You wouldn't know it judging by the local newspaper or Channel Seven, who recently ordered Perth Bears CEO Anthony De Ceglie to be cut out of shots at the announcement of Mal Meninga as the inaugural coach.
The Seven West Media snub comes after the 'Bad news Bears' headline they whacked on the front page of the newspaper on the morning of the team's official announcement last month.
The bad blood between the AFL-aligned Seven West Media and the NRL has been exacerbated by Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V'landys' decision to poach the company's national news director De Ceglie as the Bears CEO.
De Ceglie has declined to get into a slanging match with his previous bosses at Seven West Media, where he worked for both Channel Seven and The West Australian newspaper.
'The Perth Bears are looking forward to earning the respect of WA sports lovers and earning our right to be in the sports pages of The West Australian alongside the AFL teams,' he said on Wednesday.
'If we're winning on the park and off the park, if fans are turning up to our games and we've created a club that stands for strong values then the newspaper hopefully has to cover us. If we're doing these things and they're still not covering us then the only people missing out will be the readers.
'It's not that Perth is an AFL state. Perth is a sports state. West Australians love sport. They love Aussie Rules, tennis, basketball and NRL. They show up to all sports and are passionate about all sports. There's no rule that says you can't barrack for an AFL team and an NRL team.'
The West Australian newspaper editor Chris Dore did not respond to this masthead's attempts to contact him.
In a recent statement sent to the ABC's Media Watch program, Dore rubbished suggestions that his publication was acting in the best interest of the AFL.
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'The idea that somehow our coverage at The West Australian is dictated, or even remotely influenced, by some fanciful proposition that a rugby league team in Perth would diminish the AFL and therefore somehow have a financial impact on the broadcaster is laughable,' Dore wrote.
'It also misses the point that the NRL are desperate for Seven to be a bidder for the free-to-air rights when they next come up – before the Bears play their first game.'
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