An independent commission is not the answer for rugby league
ROY MASTERS
December 4, 2009
The NSWRL and QRL could fall further down the pecking order under the new NRL model.
Once more I am being told to go sit in the rocking chair by the window, sip a cup of warm milk, nibble an Arrowroot biscuit and keep my nose out of the game I love.
Well, I am staring out the window, trying to read the future and I don't like the shape of the independent commission being thrust upon rugby league.
''The AFL and NFL are two competitions that are built on a similar model and look how successful those organisations are,'' declared Sydney Roosters chairman Nick Politis in the Herald this week.
The NFL doesn't have representative football, apart from a meaningless all-stars game played a week after the annual Super Bowl. The Super Bowl winners call themselves ''world champions'' even though the competition is played only by 32 teams from US cities.
NFL Europe, a competition involving clubs such as the Barcelona Dragons and the London Monarchs, was abandoned in 2007 because it was costing the billionaire owners of the NFL's franchises too much money. Nor does the NFL pay for development. The US college system prepares players for the professional league.
The AFL's representative program is restricted to an annual game with Ireland, played with a round ball and a net. Its State of Origin series was abandoned more than a decade ago when AFL coaches convinced their players to stand down for fear they would be injured and miss club matches. The AFL Commission meekly surrendered to pressure from the clubs and killed off Origin football.
Rugby league's most valued property is its annual three-game NSW-Queensland series. International rugby league has also finally become competitive and TV networks are willing to pay for it.
Overseas TV earnings are potentially the fastest growing source of money for the code, especially with all three free-to-air networks in Australia channelling every dollar of profit into redeeming debt.
Yet rugby league appears willing to allow NRL clubs to vote on the commissioners and therefore determine the future of Origin and international football, justifying it by citing the success of two codes that don't have representative programs.
Under the independent commission model being promoted, the NSWRL and QRL would become second-tier feeder leagues dependent on the central body for funding. Similarly, all revenue coming into Australia from Test matches would pour into the commission pot, leaving the Kangaroos to rely on hand-outs.
So, when I stare into the future, past all the fellow fossils of my era, such as dinosaur bones and evidence of global cooling, I see Russell Crowe's jet taxiing down the runway of Sydney's second airport, loaded with the owners of the NRL's privately owned clubs. They are off to Rusty's ranch in Coffs Harbour to discuss their candidates for the Independent Commission.
Representatives of the Delmege and Penn families sit at opposite ends of the plane but they agree on one thing: the private owners must support a commissioner who will increase the NRL's annual distribution to the 16 clubs.
Because NRL broadcasting income is fixed, sponsorships locked in and the gate takings of finals series unlikely to rise, any increase to the clubs must come from cuts in the grants to the QRL, NSWRL, junior development and the international program.
The NRL clubs are struggling to make ends meet. Rusty fell out with Peter Holmes a Court, his co-owner of Souths, when asked to tip in $5 million to cover the Rabbitohs' debts way back in 2007. Ditto the acrimony of the Delmeges and Penns when they argued over how much each was contributing to cover the Sea Eagles' losses.
The AFL's Gold Coast team is biting into revenues of the privately owned Titans club. The private owners are sufficiently numerous to lobby a few commissioners to do their bidding.
Like the Sea Eagles, the Rabbitohs and the Titans, the Warriors are also privately owned and the Storm will be purchased by a consortium of Melbourne businessmen when News Ltd relinquishes control. News Ltd also owns 67 per cent of the Broncos, the NRL's only publicly listed club. With six of the 16 clubs privately owned, their owners have collective clout.
Crowe has already lamented the absence of an NRL owners' collective and has criticised the central administration's revenue-raising activities, including sale of TV rights.
The inaugural independent commission will fund state leagues and development because the ARL will nominate four representatives, along with News Ltd's four. It will make a mockery of the word ''independent'' but will at least ensure ''the people'' - as a News Ltd paper piously said last week - ''get their game back'', albeit temporarily. As commissioners retire, or find their workloads onerous, the private owners will exercise more control.
Roosters director Mark Bouris has been tipped as a future commissioner, yet he bailed out of the Crawford committee when his commitments became too great.
The four Crawford people left included three with close AFL ties and their recommendation on the future of the $130 million Active After Schools and Community program is a replica of the AFL's submission.
The AFL, which has no privately owned clubs, does invest heavily in junior development.
Time will tell if rugby league junior development and representative football is ignored, as time followed the first gentle suggestion I should retire to a rocking chair.
Nearly 20 years ago, when the game was rushing to full-time training and players were abandoning their jobs and tertiary studies, I warned they would have too much time on their hands.
Now former St George captain Mark Coyne has surveyed the behavioural problems in the NRL and concluded most ''atrocities'' are associated with players who have no part-time work or tertiary studies.
I loathe writing, ''I told you so pieces'' and using the personal pronoun but someone needs to warn the code of an independent commission based on models that have no representative football, or on an American system that has no responsibility for junior development.
I support the idea of an independent commission but not in this proposed form. You can be in favour of a republic, an emissions trading scheme, yet disapprove of the model.
