A fight we can win with the right weapons (60 minutes)

[griff]

I don't know how you think that the amount paid for broadcast rights are none of the league's business. That is far and away their most valuable asset and the largest source of revenue.

The amount of revenue that the NRL should be seeing should be the revenue gained by the broadcaster/pay tv operator as a result of that asset, minus a reasonable margin for the broadcaster/pay tv operator. At the moment the margin they are getting is far in excess of what is reasonable. Therefore Fox Sports, Foxtel and News Ltd are getting money that should rightfully be used to foster rugby league football. Yes clubs should be increasing their crowds, and membership, and finding additional revenue sources. But this one is the elephant in the room.

Misty Bee makes a great point. RL is a TV game, and we don't need to be playing in big stadiums. We need to be playing in front of crowds that make great television. Big stadiums with few people in them make extremely poor television.

The AFL model of one or two stadiums doesn't work for RL. In fact it doesn't work for any other sport on the planet, and is completely unique to Melbourne. It is due to having 9 inner city teams, but with geographically indistinct supporter bases. NRL has 9 teams spread fairly evenly through the city and suburbs, with geographically discrete supporter bases.

Arsenal and Chelsea and Tottenham and Crystal Palace don't all play at Wembley, and Celtic and Rangers don't both play at Hampden Park. There is no reason why NRL clubs should all share the same stadium either.

As I've said before, if we were starting from a blank slate you would have a max of 4 clubs in Sydney, but in real life reducing the number of Sydney clubs would be a disaster for the game.

 

[LeagueXIII]

What is also interesting from the past week regarding all the BS about rationalisation that has been overlooked is that in 2 or 3 years we will be renegotiating our next TV deal, but did any of the News Ltd lackies in the media come out and so that ALL Sydney clubs can survive ANd we can expand with 2 new clubs IF THE GAME GOT WHAT IT WAS WORTH at the negotiating table. No this little fact was conveniently overlooked in order to get an emotive reaction from the games supporters.

 

[Th1rteen]

As a whole Rugby League is actually growing. It's growing at an alarming rate up here, in the Celtic nations and in France. There are new national teams and new domestic competitions springing up everywhere. Judgeing by what I hear from Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia, it's growing there too. So don't say to yourself "RL is diminishing" because it simply isn't. I know things are bad in Sydney at the moment, but Sydney is an isolated case. It would be ironic if the rest of the RL world were to help out Sydney when for many years, it has been Sydney helping out the rest of Rugby League. This is certainly the case in Britain and France where the game is full of Sydney coaches and players, from grassroots to Super League. I do believe that the game can overcome these problems, we have faced bigger problems than this in our history and yet the game is still large.