WHEN the late Kevin Humphreys negotiated rugby league's first television deal back in 1973, he was flat out getting $1000-a-game.
Almost 40 years later the code has grown to such lofty heights it now commands more than $1000-a minute.
"I went to the three commercial stations but no one wanted a bar of us," Humphreys told me a couple of years before he passed away.
"We were up shit creek," he said. "In desperation I went cap in hand to the ABC, almost grovelling.
"I can't remember the exact figure, but we virtually gave it away.
"It would have been no more than $1000 a game."
And that was at a time when immortals like Bob Fulton, Graeme Langland and Arthur Beetson were working their magic.
Such has the game changed since Humphreys sat chain-smoking behind his desk on the first floor of the NSW Leagues Club in Phillip St, watching commercial TV executives one by one walking out with no interest whatsoever in paying for his product.
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It's a far cry from having heavyweights Lachlan Murdoch, Kim Williams, Kerry Stokes and David Gyngell banging your door down and waving chequebooks to get a slice of the action.
Or the frantic 3am calls over the weekend as News Limited and Channel 9 bosses finalised their joint deal.
A breakdown of yesterday's $1.025 billion deal reveals once and for all that rugby league is officially the nation's No 1 sporting code.
TV ratings had already indicated as much in recent years and yesterday the dollars backed it up.
The NRL now gets $1275 a minute from TV compared to AFL at about $1170 a minute.
And how did we work that out?
An analysis of the two codes and their TV deals shows that while each NRL game gets $15,000 less per game than AFL, rugby league over 80 minutes is more valuable to broadcasters than Aussie Rules at 100 minutes.
It's why Nine boss David Gyngell was so enthusiastic to point out yesterday how well the NRL has done out of the new agreement.
The AFL had more game time for more programming, breaks every quarter for commercials and a 30-second period after every goal.
Yet the NRL is still poised to match their overall money, once New Zealand TV and internet rights are sorted.
Throughout the negotiations it's been a case of give and take from both sides of the negotiating table.
Incredibly Nine gave up their right to decide the weekly playing schedule just a few weeks in advance.
It allowed the broadcaster to cherry-pick the big rating matches with the in-form teams. Now, the first 20 weeks will be done in advance.
In return they got a return to the night-time grand final plus the Anzac Day game, one of the highest rating matches of the season.
When Ten and Seven both emerged as a serious threat, News Ltd agreed to drop it's remaining 15-year agreement for first and last rights on the media deal.
While the scheduling was a victory for fans, player concerns about burnout were ignored by keeping State of Origin on Wednesday nights.
Still, there were a billion reasons why no-one was complaining.
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