Divided rugby league fell 25 years ago – but united has it conquered? by Steve Mascord.

[Rod Coil]

Many countries? The organisation has offices in two. the UK and Australia. and I doubt its more reputable than AGB Nielson who have done tv ratings in multiple countries for decades. Im saying its the standard for measuring tv ratings worldwide.



And surveys can be manipulated by the questions asked.



No I didnt.



I literally quoted what you wrote and responded to it. One person other than you called me out - and he was wrong.



Also because you post outright bullshit.



Im well aware what it means, and when you actually catch me out, Ill admit it quite happily.



No I didnt.




Sure. And part of that is the funding agreement. Thus duty. As it will be in the next agreement.



In 1997 Club contracts were renewed annually. They no longer are. And if they do jump it will be the NRls fault for f**king up their licenses.



Dont care.



no



Thats the way it is when you expand from the NSWRL.



Because a split in professional league is something everyone wants again right.



Wasnt really the context of my response to you.



Im sure it will be. It just doesnt have to be.



No youve got the logic wrong.

Sydney is the largest rugby league market there is. Melbourne is an NRL market, but it is overwhelmingly an AFL market.




Variable funding is club equalisation funding - its literally propping up clubs to put them on the same level as the big ones - and in GWS, Brisbane and Gold Coast, keeps the afloat, along with some academy funding. The AFL generally funds most development seperately, funnelled through the state bodies.



Sure.



Welcome to Geography?



How many community clubs in NSW and QLD have their own pokies? Im betting quite a few.



Good for you.

Mate, don’t waste your time with the potato. You’ll get sucked into his mindless vortex of self importance.

 

[The_Wookie]

Mate, don’t waste your time with the potato. You’ll get sucked into his mindless vortex of self importance.

meh medication im currently taking keeps me awake all night, time is not something im short of. But im done repeating myself over and over.

 

[Phil McGrawhan]

There's a good reason I do not value "revenue" generated from non-football operations such as gaming machines when measuring the viability of a sports franchise.

A well run club doesn't need to draw money from sugar daddies, real estate, gaming machines and betting companies if it has a large fanbase willing to spend money on club merchandise, memberships, tickets, sponsorship and corporate hospitality. The Sydney clubs fail miserably on most of these metrics because their fanbases are small. They rely on gaming machine revenue to plug the shortfall caused by having small fanbases.

We don't have teams in Adelaide and Perth because the NRL chose small and unviable Sydney clubs with no room to grow over markets that have the potential to create new fans and participants for the game.


What seems to fly over your stubborn head is most of the world's sporting clubs don't have access to gaming machine revenue, yet many of them are significantly richer than any NRL club from Sydney. The reason they're richer is because they have larger fanbases due to not being in over saturated markets. Serbia has 16 soccer clubs in a country that's slightly bigger than Sydney and pull about 5k people to their games. Sydney's clubs will always be small until a few drop back to the NSW Cup.

Why are clubs all around the world able to get by without gaming machine revenue but Sydney's NRL clubs cannot?

It's an honest question that you cannot answer. I've just given you the answer BTW.

The only Sydney club that's done away with pokies is the Rabbitohs, but they're in the fortunate position of having sugar daddies bail them out when they were on death's door.

Roosters were turned around by Politis, but still rely heavily on gaming machine revenue to plug the gaps.

Perth's sporting teams do not have access to gaming machine revenue, yet the West Coast Eagles are the largest and richest sporting club in the country and the Perth Wildcats are the largest and richest club in the NBL, generating attendances that rival Sydney NRL clubs.



So a club is viable if it is able to generate half of its "revenue" from people who have a gambling addiction?

Fleecing money from people with an addiction is disgusting and should be illegal. I question the integrity of anyone who tries to justify this practice.

The irony is most of the people playing the pokies probably don't give a f**k about the football club. They frequent the Leagues Club because it's the closest licenced venue to their house. If the Leagues Clubs got rid of the pokies then the gamblers wouldn't go near them or the football club. Look at what happened to Balmain when they shut their Leagues Club. That's the fate of all Sydney clubs -- bar the Rabbitohs -- when The Greens get their way and have pokies turfed out. It's only a matter of time because younger people vote for The Greens and older people do not. Wait until the older voters are gone and the Greta Thunberg generation are the majority. Labor policy is influenced by The Greens. Inner Brisbane elected three candidates from The Greens at the last election.



See my responses above.



They had no choice but to sell their stake in the retail project because they were in debt to the tune of about $9m. Their survival was on the line. The original plan was to run a retail precinct similar to the shopping centre that generates money for the Redcliffe Dolphins.



It's against the court of public opinion, which matters deeply in an industry where brand recognition is vital. Good luck convincing casual fans from the upper class segments of society to get on board with a club from a sport that relies on money from drunks, gamblers and betting companies.



See my post above.



NSWRL were against Origin. If they had their way it wouldn't exist and the game would be much smaller. Tests are rarely played because the clubs are against it. We had a final played in front of 12k people at Shark Park because V'landys caved in to the knuckle-draggers. More money could have been generated from playing the game at the SFS.



Cool. So replacing Cronulla, Manly and Canterbury with Adelaide, Perth and Wellington won't impact the value of the broadcast rights.


And they do a shit job because they ignore half the country. If you're not from Queensland, NSW or NZ then the odds of making it to the NRL are slim.



It's more accurate to say all Sydney clubs -- bar the Rabbitohs -- are propped up by drunks and gamblers.


Revenue from gaming machines isn't sustainable and is reliant on the laws and social trends remaining in place.



I made my point. Ironically, Sydney clubs are trying to wean themselves off pokies because they see the writing on the wall, even if you cannot.



So you're saying the Broncos are successful because the Brisbane RL market hasn't been over saturated for 30 years. Congratulations. Maybe you'll eventually put two and two together to see why I am an advocate for rationalising Sydney.



The people who laugh at my posts think the next team should be from PNG and based in Cairns, despite PNG have a GDP per capita of less than $3,000US and just 15% of its population connected to electricity. They also think the Bears should play a few games in Perth but still be a North Sydney team playing out of a dilapidated cricket ground. They also think the All Blacks will die if we put a second team in New Zealand. Don't take my word for it. Go to the Expansion forum and see the shit they say. They hate me and @Perth Red because we use facts to refute their pro-NSWRL 1980s nostalgia driven fantasies.

Yes Maude

 

[Pneuma]

Yes Maude View attachment 69528

The resident potato doesn’t value pokies? Well that’s it for counting that as revenue. The potato has spoken!

 

[Reflector]

Any moment now Storm80 should turn up...

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

hmm which Sydney clubs exactly are doing this.

For an obnoxious Know-it-all you are quite ignorant of current affairs. Read and weep.

This NRL club is turning property developer to wean off pokies
Edmund Tadros
Media and Marketing Reporter

Dec 16, 2022 – 2.56pm

The once-struggling Parramatta Eels club will diversify its income stream away from poker machines by leasing commercial and retail space in a new $65 million rugby league facility.

The move is being made before potential gambling reforms by the NSW government that could drastically cut the income of the Parramatta Leagues Club, which owns the football club.

The Eels’ centre of excellence is being built in the Sydney suburb of Kellyville and will be the largest dedicated rugby league facility in the country, with five playing fields. It is due to be completed in 2024.
“We’ve gone from a significant loss-making enterprise back five or six years ago to a club that has generated profits in excess of $1 million in each of the past three years,” Eels chief executive Jim Sarantinos said.

“This is quite a strong result given the history of the club and given the landscape of rugby league.”

All three levels of government have chipped in to build the new sports centre: $33 million from the NSW government; $15 million from the Commonwealth; more than $10 million from Hills Shire Council; and about $4.5 million from the Eels NRL club.

The club’s new-found success has been on and off the field. The Eels have featured in five of the past six NRL finals series, and made it to this year’s grand final before they were beaten by the Penrith Panthers.

Away from the field, the club’s commercial income is now about $20 million a year, an increase of about 51 per cent from 2019.

Commercial, broadcast income

The club’s commercial income comes mainly from sponsorship, memberships, game-day revenue, merchandise and hospitality.

The Eels NRL club also receives funding via the NRL’s broadcast agreement with Foxtel and Nine, which publishes The Australian Financial Review.

“Thankfully over the past three years, we’ve been able to get ourselves to a position where the football club is profitable in its own right,” Mr Sarantinos said. “So, we’re not dependent on funding from the leagues club for our sustainability.”

The property income from the Kellyville facility will add a third major source of revenue.

The Eels, like many other clubs, had traditionally relied on poker machine income for funding.

But in NSW, Premier Dominic Perrottet is pushing to turn poker machines cashless after the NSW Crime Commission warned they were being used to launder millions of dollars in illegal cash.

The move has generated opposition from clubs and hotels, which rely on poker machine income, and comes less than four months out from the state election.
NSW government data shows that clubs in greater western Sydney house more poker machines and generate more revenue per premise than in other parts of the state.

Parramatta Leagues Club is a major pokie venue, housing about 440 of the approximate 1200 machines in the local government area.

The Eels’ turnaround has been remarkable. In 2016, the Parramatta board was sacked and replaced with an administrator after officials were accused of using inflated invoices to secretly pay players.

By that stage, the Eels already had been fined by the NRL for cheating the salary cap, had competition points deducted and certain officials at the club were deregistered.

The administrators put in place a new structure that allowed the directors of the football club to operate without interference.

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo, who is negotiating a salary cap with clubs about how much they can spend on players next year, wants each club in the competition to have its own community-based sports centre.

“I think that the Eels leadership, the board, their chairman [Sean McElduff] and CEO [Mr Sarantinos], have done a terrific job. As an NRL club, they have performed well on the field ... and also off the field,” Mr Abdo said.

“Parramatta is in the heartland of Sydney, and all our clubs are community-based clubs and the Eels have done a terrific job of connecting with their community.
“[The Eels’] strategy and mission of diversifying their revenue should be commended.

“Our mission is that every one of our 17 clubs has a fortress, a home stadium, and a centre of excellence for male and female players, boys and girls.

“The Eels centre is an example of a community asset, with community access to green areas and space to play touch, tag and tackle grassroot competitions.”
Clubs that already have centres of excellence include the North Queensland Cowboys, Brisbane Broncos, Wests Tigers, the Panthers and the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles.

The St George Illawarra Dragons, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, South Sydney Rabbitohs and Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are among the NRL teams at various stages of planning to build their own centres.

Boardroom chicanery

The view that NRL teams should be doing more to diversify away from pokies income is shared by Christopher Brown, chairman and founder of the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, a regional not-for-profit think tank.

“They’ve shaken up the governance of the club because of the past chicanery in the boardroom,” Mr Brown, a self-confessed Eels tragic, said.

“There’s been a constant reform agenda under the new management and now it’s about their social licence.

“Western Sydney has been the base of rugby league, but for too long it’s been under the shadow of pokies. Other clubs and the league should also be moving towards a better, more sustainable economic future.”

Non-pokie income

Parramatta Leagues Club is also looking to diversify its revenue away from pokies. The club also has its own construction pipeline, including a $5 million project to create a new dining area. The long-term goal is for the leagues club to be seen more as a premium hospitality venue than a pokies den.

The club has also absorbed smaller clubs that might struggle under any potential reforms to poker machine laws. Nembers of Parramatta Leagues Club will soon vote on a proposal to amalgamate with Dural Country Club.

This NRL club is turning property developer to wean off pokies

The once-struggling Parramatta Eels NRL club will diversify its income stream away from poker machines by leasing space in its new rugby league facility.

www.afr.com

Parramatta are getting a rather favourable deal from the NSW state government. The Eels only had to pay $4.5M to fund their Centre of Excellence because the NSW Government gave them $33M towards the project. The Cowboys only got $5M from the Queensland Government and had to take out a $20M loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. More favouritism for Sydney clubs.

With the backing of a robust cost plan, the club secured $5 million in funding from the Queensland Government, $15 million from the federal government, and a $20 million loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE - RLB | Europe

www.rlb.com

 

[Pneuma]

This NRL club is turning property developer to wean off pokies
Edmund Tadros
Media and Marketing Reporter

The once-struggling Parramatta Eels club will diversify its income stream away from poker machines by leasing commercial and retail space in a new $65 million rugby league facility.

The move is being made before potential gambling reforms by the NSW government that could drastically cut the income of the Parramatta Leagues Club, which owns the football club.

The Eels’ centre of excellence is being built in the Sydney suburb of Kellyville and will be the largest dedicated rugby league facility in the country, with five playing fields. It is due to be completed in 2024.
“We’ve gone from a significant loss-making enterprise back five or six years ago to a club that has generated profits in excess of $1 million in each of the past three years,” Eels chief executive Jim Sarantinos said.

“This is quite a strong result given the history of the club and given the landscape of rugby league.”

All three levels of government have chipped in to build the new sports centre: $33 million from the NSW government; $15 million from the Commonwealth; more than $10 million from Hills Shire Council; and about $4.5 million from the Eels NRL club.

The club’s new-found success has been on and off the field. The Eels have featured in five of the past six NRL finals series, and made it to this year’s grand final before they were beaten by the Penrith Panthers.

Away from the field, the club’s commercial income is now about $20 million a year, an increase of about 51 per cent from 2019.

Commercial, broadcast income

The club’s commercial income comes mainly from sponsorship, memberships, game-day revenue, merchandise and hospitality.

The Eels NRL club also receives funding via the NRL’s broadcast agreement with Foxtel and Nine, which publishes The Australian Financial Review.

“Thankfully over the past three years, we’ve been able to get ourselves to a position where the football club is profitable in its own right,” Mr Sarantinos said. “So, we’re not dependent on funding from the leagues club for our sustainability.”

The property income from the Kellyville facility will add a third major source of revenue.

The Eels, like many other clubs, had traditionally relied on poker machine income for funding.

But in NSW, Premier Dominic Perrottet is pushing to turn poker machines cashless after the NSW Crime Commission warned they were being used to launder millions of dollars in illegal cash.

The move has generated opposition from clubs and hotels, which rely on poker machine income, and comes less than four months out from the state election.
NSW government data shows that clubs in greater western Sydney house more poker machines and generate more revenue per premise than in other parts of the state.

Parramatta Leagues Club is a major pokie venue, housing about 440 of the approximate 1200 machines in the local government area.

The Eels’ turnaround has been remarkable. In 2016, the Parramatta board was sacked and replaced with an administrator after officials were accused of using inflated invoices to secretly pay players.

By that stage, the Eels already had been fined by the NRL for cheating the salary cap, had competition points deducted and certain officials at the club were deregistered.

The administrators put in place a new structure that allowed the directors of the football club to operate without interference.

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo, who is negotiating a salary cap with clubs about how much they can spend on players next year, wants each club in the competition to have its own community-based sports centre.

“I think that the Eels leadership, the board, their chairman [Sean McElduff] and CEO [Mr Sarantinos], have done a terrific job. As an NRL club, they have performed well on the field ... and also off the field,” Mr Abdo said.

“Parramatta is in the heartland of Sydney, and all our clubs are community-based clubs and the Eels have done a terrific job of connecting with their community.
“[The Eels’] strategy and mission of diversifying their revenue should be commended.

“Our mission is that every one of our 17 clubs has a fortress, a home stadium, and a centre of excellence for male and female players, boys and girls.

“The Eels centre is an example of a community asset, with community access to green areas and space to play touch, tag and tackle grassroot competitions.”
Clubs that already have centres of excellence include the North Queensland Cowboys, Brisbane Broncos, Wests Tigers, the Panthers and the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles.

The St George Illawarra Dragons, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, South Sydney Rabbitohs and Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are among the NRL teams at various stages of planning to build their own centres.

Boardroom chicanery

The view that NRL teams should be doing more to diversify away from pokies income is shared by Christopher Brown, chairman and founder of the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, a regional not-for-profit think tank.

“They’ve shaken up the governance of the club because of the past chicanery in the boardroom,” Mr Brown, a self-confessed Eels tragic, said.

“There’s been a constant reform agenda under the new management and now it’s about their social licence.

“Western Sydney has been the base of rugby league, but for too long it’s been under the shadow of pokies. Other clubs and the league should also be moving towards a better, more sustainable economic future.”

Non-pokie income

Parramatta Leagues Club is also looking to diversify its revenue away from pokies. The club also has its own construction pipeline, including a $5 million project to create a new dining area. The long-term goal is for the leagues club to be seen more as a premium hospitality venue than a pokies den.

The club has also absorbed smaller clubs that might struggle under any potential reforms to poker machine laws. Nembers of Parramatta Leagues Club will soon vote on a proposal to amalgamate with Dural Country Club.

This NRL club is turning property developer to wean off pokies

The once-struggling Parramatta Eels NRL club will diversify its income stream away from poker machines by leasing space in its new rugby league facility.

www.afr.com

[/i]

You only just discovered this? It’s been known for ten years that pokies are a dying industry. The next generation is engaging in a much broader range of gambling varieties. Just changing modes of engagement but maintaining the habit. Don’t worry Mr Potato. You have decades of rage left.

 

[Get Rid of The Donkeys]

This was a condition the Broncos imposed on the NSWRL & later the NRL

The reason why the Giants were based at Tweed Heads and not the Gold Coast in 88

Its why the Crushers & Chargers were the first two ARL teams culled

The NSWRL agreed to the stipulation and they were running the NSWRL, so all accountability falls back on Arthurson and Quayle.

The only reason the old dickheads went with the Broncos instead of Ron McAuliffe's bid is because they were afraid he would create a juggernaut that would dominate the Sydney clubs. He was responsible for Queensland dominating Origin in the 80s.

WHEN four Brisbane businessmen expressed their intention to bid for a licence to enter the New South Wales Rugby League in 1988, legendary Brisbane Rugby League figure Bob Bax ran a book, quoting them as 100-1 outsiders.

Senator Ron McAuliffe, the father of State of Origin and the most influential figure in Queensland Rugby League at the time, was the frontrunner to win the licence but unbeknown to his rivals was not only off-side with those south of the border but also many within Queensland.

NSWRL bosses Ken Arthurson and John Quayle didn’t particularly want to give the licence to four men who would forever revolutionise sport in Australia but they certainly didn’t want the man who had stripped away NSW’s interstate supremacy to get his hands on it either.

Better the devil you don’t know, if you will.

“Bobby Bax ran a book on us and had us 100-1 outsiders,” founding Broncos director Barry Maranta tells foxsports.com.au.

Behind-the-scenes of the Brisbane Broncos’ entry into the NSWRL 30 years ago

Building the Broncos: Threats, fights and wooing Wayne

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[Pneuma]

The NSWRL agreed to the stipulation and they were running the NSWRL, so all accountability falls back on Arthurson and Quayle.

The only reason the old dickheads went with the Broncos instead of Ron McAuliffe's bid is because they were afraid he would create a juggernaut that would dominate the Sydney clubs. He was responsible for Queensland dominating Origin in the 80s.

WHEN four Brisbane businessmen expressed their intention to bid for a licence to enter the New South Wales Rugby League in 1988, legendary Brisbane Rugby League figure Bob Bax ran a book, quoting them as 100-1 outsiders.​

​

Senator Ron McAuliffe, the father of State of Origin and the most influential figure in Queensland Rugby League at the time, was the frontrunner to win the licence but unbeknown to his rivals was not only off-side with those south of the border but also many within Queensland.​

​

NSWRL bosses Ken Arthurson and John Quayle didn’t particularly want to give the licence to four men who would forever revolutionise sport in Australia but they certainly didn’t want the man who had stripped away NSW’s interstate supremacy to get his hands on it either.​

​

Better the devil you don’t know, if you will.​

​

“Bobby Bax ran a book on us and had us 100-1 outsiders,” founding Broncos director Barry Maranta tells foxsports.com.au.​

​

Behind-the-scenes of the Brisbane Broncos’ entry into the NSWRL 30 years ago

Building the Broncos: Threats, fights and wooing Wayne

www.foxsports.com.au

Potato potata

 

[Pneuma]

Looks like it’s meth o’clock in Logan

 

[Perth Red]

I think we can surmise it by saying that RL in nsw, qlnd and act is largely built on pokies and without them many nrl clubs would not be viable because their markets are too thin or overcrowded.

if mugs ever wake up to psssing their mOney away then a big chunk nrl is in strife. Fortunately a number of clubs are relaising this and diversifying their asset portfolios, or working harder to build better fan and corporate support.

 

[Perth Red]

A few years ago the eels were reliant on $5mill plus ayear from the pokies just to stay viable. Be interesting to see what financial impact the stadium has had for them and if this reliance has been reduced?

 

[Pneuma]

I think we can surmise it by saying that RL in nsw, qlnd and act is largely built on pokies and without them many nrl clubs would not be viable because their markets are too thin or overcrowded.

if mugs ever wake up to psssing their mOney away then a big chunk nrl is in strife. Fortunately a number of clubs are relaising this and diversifying their asset portfolios, or working harder to build better fan and corporate support.

Did you just think that up or have you posted something similar before? Like you know 50000 times?

 

[Iamback]

You only just discovered this? It’s been known for ten years that pokies are a dying industry. The next generation is engaging in a much broader range of gambling varieties. Just changing modes of engagement but maintaining the habit. Don’t worry Mr Potato. You have decades of rage left.

yep to Quote Panthers CEO 'Young people aren't playing pokies'

All clubs are moving to outside revenue, Pokies will exist though. Plenty for Mr and Mrs Potato to whinge about for years yet

 

[Iamback]

I think we can surmise it by saying that RL in nsw, qlnd and act is largely built on pokies and without them many nrl clubs would not be viable because their markets are too thin or overcrowded.

if mugs ever wake up to psssing their mOney away then a big chunk nrl is in strife. Fortunately a number of clubs are relaising this and diversifying their asset portfolios, or working harder to build better fan and corporate support.

As we on here have been telling you for years

 

[Pneuma]

yep to Quote Panthers CEO 'Young people aren't playing pokies'

All clubs are moving to outside revenue, Pokies will exist though. Plenty for Mr and Mrs Potato to whinge about for years yet

And me tonight with the missus. Off for a few beers a poke and a roast at the local casino. Pray for me!

 

[Pneuma]

As we on here have been telling you for years

You have to forgive him. He’s a miserable old pommy turd living in Perth who doesn’t have a local nrl team to follow. I just found this out today. I was shocked AND chagrined!

 

[Phil McGrawhan]

And me tonight with the missus. Off for a few beers a poke and a roast at the local casino. Pray for me!

Do they hand out nappies in Tassie or is that just a Syd Leagues club thing?

 

[The_Wookie]

For an obnoxious Know-it-all you are quite ignorant of current affairs. Read and weep.

i literally asked for you to tell me. Idiot.

 

[Iamback]

And me tonight with the missus. Off for a few beers a poke and a roast at the local casino. Pray for me!

It is a good night for it, enjoy it