Tina Turner remembered for ‘unique’ part in Australian rugby league
- The late singer is credited with sending rugby league to unprecedented levels of popularity in Australia for her part in the sports ‘most iconic’ marketing campaign
- The idea of ‘a black American grandmother’ promoting the game of rugby league originally received a lot of opposition
“She played a unique role in probably the most iconic sports marketing campaign in our history,” said National Rugby League chief executive Andrew Abdo.
“It was inspirational and it got people thinking about rugby league differently,” Abdo said. “The thing that made that campaign so successful was Tina – what a wonderful person she was.”
Australian rugby league is now massively popular and a business behemoth, but it was a different story in the late 1980s, when it was derided by some as working-class and macho.
The sport’s top brass decided it needed a revamp to attract a new audience, particularly women and families, and that is where the American “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” came in.
Then-general manager John Quayle’s assistant happened to be friends with Roger Davies, an Australian rugby league fan living in America and Turner’s manager.
