That doesn't tally with what the NRL's books say. Either the commission, CEO, CFO and auditors colluded to falsify the books or Vlandys is misreading or misleading. It clearly says in the books that it was a $100mill advancement on the 2018- tv deal and that it is being paid back by deferred payments. If you go back through the annual reports you can see a $50million advanced tv payment was made in 2016 and same again in 2017. This is reflected in notes about reduced payment of tv revenue in 18&19 reports. So it isnt a loan and didnt all have to be paid back this year. There is clearly a payback schedule of deferred payments over the life of the contract. ergo the $130million surplus cash on hand didnt need to be used to pay back a "loan" this year at all.
What the game actually had was $120mill cash (after it called in its debtors) and $49mill left in deferred payments from the $100mill advance according to reports. No reason those deferred payments werent paid off as per the agreed schedule over the rest of the contract meaning the NRL did in fact have $120mill cash in hand to see it through (plus $6mill in the clubs bail out fund)
The 250mill line of credit was just in case. Just in case the season didnt get back this year, just in case the tv negotiations ended up in court etc. I suspect most major sports have done the same, just in case. We wont know how much they have had to draw down on that till next annual report.
The question is if we had the money cash reserves stated, why the need for such a loan ?The life of the contract finishes in 2022,2 years hence ,not much time wise.
I never stated it had to be paid back this year, but I would suggest not later than the end of the current contracts.
I've been through the NRL reports year after year printing some out also, and TBF I'm sick of it.You can continue to throw up these figures, the facts are we had SFA assets ,only digital looked like growing into something worthwhile.
We were in trouble this year already ,with 8 weeks loss of revenue.Weekend games are supposedly worth $13m from broadcasters, and who knows what from Telstra and other NRL sponsors.Tv sponsors also won't pay for non appearance of their ads.It's a vicious circle.
V'Landys a chartered accountant outlined the position we were in, the ARLC would be aware of the fragility of the code.We couldn't get a loan from local banks, that also says something.
If we owned a $200m stadium or buildings ,different story.
Money that was supposed to go to players funds at H/O at times did not .Was that one of the reasons Todd got the heave ho?
Ch9 (publicly known as struggling)was prepared to pull the pin ,so they must have had legal advice they were on some sort of firm ground to do so, because of the change in broadcasting and loss of broadcasting.The question is the pandemic under insurance terms "an act of God",when either way it came from a Lab or from people eating wild critters.Man made.
You see we don't know the inner workings of what went on in negotiations.What we do know is the comp stopped and no money was forthcoming, never happened before.
I'm concerned with the now and the future, some of the issues that happened in past years leave me flabbergasted.
I also await the reports for 2020/1/2 and based on those results, I'll form my opinion of V'Landys/Abdo etc.
The thing is we got the game up and running, when the cynics from other codes said we were arrogant and it wouldn't happen, there was a rule change and one ref last night worked IMO extremely well.Wrestling was absent or punished ,the game flowed.It went to a stack of countries.So at least we're off to a great start.
ANZ Bank have stated in latter to customers ,they have no idea how long the economic effects of this pandemic are going to last, with tens of thousands of loan customers seeking deferrals, dividends on hold.
Australian newspaper: Brace for negative super returns.
News axing 100 regional newspapers.
Multiplex wields axe on jobs as project pipeline declines.
Optus expecting a bad hit in LH 2020. The list goes on.
Every day I get the paper ,not the Telegraph, there are bad news stories on the economy.The recession "we had to have" in the end 20th Century ,the 2008GFC are not within a bull's roar of this pandemic result.The huge debt we hav lumbered up by Govt, is going to take years to repay.
Businesses are going to be lean and mean or they too will go down the tube.