Rupert Murdoch was in a meeting with senior News Corp executives and editors on level five of the company’s Australian headquarters in Holt Street, Surry Hills, when the Melbourne Storm were mentioned.

Amid discussions about circulation, the cost of newsprint, advertising revenues and percentages, how Vladimir Putin nicked American billionaire Robert Kraft’s Super Bowl ring and whether The Godfather trilogy were good movies or not, one executive said something about the Storm, which was still owned by News.

Rupert Murdoch wanted the Melbourne Storm off News Corp’s books after the club cheated the salary cap, embarrassing the giant media company.Credit: AP

“The Melbourne Storm?” Rupert said. “I thought I told you to sell them.”

At the time, News was dealing with a complex web of rugby league ownership.

It owned and ran the NRL in partnership with the NSWRL, owned the Storm and was the majority shareholder of the Brisbane Broncos (and still are). Several years earlier, the company had sold out of the North Queensland Cowboys.

It was 2011 and, for several reasons, News wanted out of rugby league, with the exception of the Broncos shareholding.

The main two reasons were that the costly Super League war of the 1990s was well in the rearview mirror and the Storm had severely embarrassed the company by cheating the salary cap, having been busted in 2010.

Rupert continued: “Do we still own them?”

© WA Today