The National Rugby League is "offloading thousands of free tickets" to its non-Sydney grand final "in a bid to fill the 83,000-capacity ANZ Stadium for Sunday's season-ending showdown," according to James Buckley of THE AGE. With "out-of-towners" Melbourne and North Queensland playing in the final, ticket sales have been "much softer than usual," with the league turning to Sydney juniors "as the answer to fleshing out the grand final crowd." An NRL spokesperson "strongly denied" that up to 20,000 tickets were being handed out, claiming that the figure "was only a few thousand." The match is "not expected to sell out." The league is using its PlayNRL Rewards system to "facilitate the junior ticket handout." The NRL also distributed parcels of grand final tickets "to select junior rugby league clubs across Sydney." The same was done for last weekend's preliminary final between the Sydney Roosters and North Queensland, which attracted 28,108 fans to Allianz Stadium (THE AGE, 9/27).
MIC CHECK: The AAP reported recording artist Macklemore has done what other NRL teams could not in the last three weeks -- "upset North Queensland in Sydney." The Cowboys were "reportedly furious" about being denied access to ANZ Stadium ahead of Sunday’s NRL grand final against the Melbourne Storm "due to a clash with the American rapper’s sound check." Melbourne will "get to train at the grand final venue on Saturday" after booking a 10:30am session. However, the Cowboys will not "get a chance to hold their captain's run" at ANZ Stadium because Macklemore "will have his rehearsal straight after the Storm on match eve" (AAP, 9/27). NEWS.COM.AU reported Macklemore has also been accused of "politicising" the game by performing one of his biggest hits. He plans to perform his "chart topping" song, "Same Love," as part of his set. The song is "unashamedly about marriage equality and its performance comes in the midst of Australia’s heated debate on the same issue." A Change.org petition was started by former NRL player Tony Wall demanding the "LGBTIQ anthem" not be played and that "LGBTIQ politics is taken out of the NRL" (NEWS.COM.AU, 9/27).
