OK bear with me I'm a slow typer and lover.The following from today's Fin Review by John Stensholt:-
NRL NAVIGATES TRICKY FINANCIAL WATERS BETWEEN THE CLUBS AND IRTS DIGITAL FUTURE.
" NRL CEO Todd Greenberg offers a wry grin and chuckle when the AFR asks if his sport is in disarray, or running out of money.
No.Greenberg insists that is not quite the case.Nor is he feuding with his Chairman John Grant-as has been widely reported in the media.
Yes the sport will have short term funding issues at the end of the year but the problems will only be temporary and are not insurmountable,Greenberg says.
And yes, there is a stows with the clubs over the funding model that will distribute money to the 16 NRL teams, when the new nearly $1.9bn broadcast deal with 9 ,Fox sports and Telstra started next year.
But Greenberg says the parameters of the deal ,the machinations of which almost cost Grant his job only a few months ago-when the clubs mounted a challenge against him to back away at the last minute-are do9ne and will be signed within months.
So why does it always seem that league is a sport at war with itself?
Rugby league is a tough sport and what happens off the field probably reflects that Greenberg confesses.And because of that there tends to be a lot of publicity around what is happening.
But Greenberg still has some issues to get through this year.
After a ludicrous decision to agree to providing clubs 130% of the salary cap for whatever pay deal it agreed to with the players in the next collective bargaining agreement, that deal has been wound back amid some acrimony.
The NRL instead has committed to providing each club with $13m funding annually from next year onwards, which should provide-it is hoped- a margin above whatever salary cap deal-say about $10m-is agreed to with the players late this year.
We've still got the CBA to do and we are committed to making it as fair as possible to the players, while making sure we have enough to spend on other ventures and also the grassroots, where we have to arrest a decline in participation numbers.Greenberg says.
But the parameters of the deal with the clubs is basically done, and now is about working through some of the details of the deal.I'm confident we'll have that done reasonably soon.
But in order to fund that deal and finance other investments-including its new digital business-the nRL will wear some short term financial pain in the last few months of this year.
The margin for error is slim, given the governing body will probably will record another loss this year after losing $2.6m in 23016.It has liquidated its future fund to help with funding issues.
The NRL financial year ends in October,and the new TV funding doesn't kick in til January,so the league may even need to take out a loan to help.
Yes we will have cash flow issues but that is easily explained by the gap...between November 2017 and January 2018 says Greenberg.
The CBA will be a tough negotiation -the players want a fixed % of revenue-but the NRL is also trying to sell 2 clubs it has on its books-Knights and Titans.
We are hoping the Knights deal gets done soon, and the Gold Coat in the second half of the year says Greenberg.We are not natural owners of clubs but we also recognise that the clubs have to have closer links to the community in order to be successful so we've been working harder to do that.
it is unlikely though they the league will reap tens of millions of dollars it had once hoped for to offload the clubs.
Then there is the digital business it is launching at the cost of $30m pa ,which will see the league take control of all its online inventory from Telstra(which will still have streaming rights).
There have been rumblings among the clubs that it is too much money and effort, even if the nRL is setting itself up for the day it could stream matches directly to customers if TV broadcasting rights dry up."
Greenberg admits the NRL has not done a great job yet communicating what we want to do with the digital business."
OK for me apart from the expected spin ,at least some clarity on other factors.IOW I'm not just reading or relying on all the gripes of Gould,Slothfield and all the journos out to sell broad sheets,who consider the admin as Freddie Scissorhjand.
The NRL needs to spell out the full intentions of the Digital System,spell out all the revenue from all sources and spell out their full expenditure.If they did this the public would at least be in a better position to understand the reason for doing this or that, and the players would be better informed as to what is available.