https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/th...didn-t-want-to-read-them-20200330-p54fdr.html
NRL clubs who chose to study headquarters’ finances in a desperate search for funds after the coronavirus pandemic would have a) found no hidden funds, and b) could have examined the books earlier, given they demanded access to NRL financial records some time ago.
Clubs and the Rugby League Players Association protest about a lack of transparency, yet a simple addition of Rugby League Central’s expenses, as detailed on page 125 of the annual report, dated October 31, 2019, would have shown a total expenditure of $182m.
NRL chief financial officer Tony Crawford says, “on a surplus view, the NRL outperformed the plan [for 2019] by $6m”.Credit
eter Braig
Admittedly, this is an excessive amount, particularly considering the belt-tightening that now envelopes the entire code.
But, as the NRL’s chief financial officer Tony Crawford points out, annual expenses (excluding broadcast contra) were $498m against a plan of $476m, which is a $22m increase. This compares to actual revenue (excluding contra) of $529m, against a plan of $501m, an increase of $28m. So, as Crawford says, “On a surplus view, the NRL outperformed the plan by $6m”.
There is always devil in the detail, which can be interpreted to suit agendas. For example, the numbers in the statutory accounts in the NRL annual report are higher because they include broadcast contra, but this was not included in the plan numbers.
However, given the turnover of CEOs at NRL clubs, with only half of them in the same job from five years ago, it’s not surprising few have bothered to interpret how much RL Central spends, even apart from considerations about raising their own club revenue. (NRL clubs contribute 29 per cent to the total game revenue pie; AFL clubs 50 per cent).
The National Rugby League has agreed on a recovery plan with Clubs relating to the impact of Covid-19 on the 2020 Telstra Premiership competition.
Another way of looking at the $182m of total NRL expenses in last year’s profit and loss account, or “$500,000 a day” as the
Herald has reported it, is to separate operating expenses from costs associated with raising revenue.
As Crawford points out, total NRL operating expenses were $79m and revenue servicing costs, or "cost of goods sold", as accountants term it, was $103m.
Add the two figures – the operating costs of football, referees, welfare, community, integrity, insurance, interest, depreciation etc of $79m, with costs directly correlated to raising revenue of $103m, and it equals $182m.
If you are a club official interested only in how much NRL CEO Todd Greenberg spends on hire cars, or the cost of the diamond ring to Barb Smith, the wife of 400-plus-game player Cameron Smith, you must drill down into the administration expenses.
Call them head office corporate costs, or overheads, if you like, but the annual report shows the total to be $20.342m. This includes the expenses of running the ARL Commission, executive, media, finance, IT, HR, facilities, buildings, government and legal.
The report doesn’t itemise whether Greenberg caught a taxi or called a hire car, or whether Barb’s ring cost $5000 or $15,000 but, Crawford says, administration expenses represent "only 4 per cent of revenue".
So, according to that logic, 96 per cent of expenditure was on everything else. The annual report details this as monies distributed to clubs ($228m), states and affiliates ($48m), development ($40m), running the football department ($25m) and community and player welfare ($17m).
There is another big cost - “event game sponsorship” ($103m), which, as indicated above, is the cost of raising revenue.
Monies spent on the NRL’s digital department, for example, are included in this figure, while the revenue raised from this division is included in broadcast revenue.
NRL clubs asking ARLC chair Peter V’landys to search the books at headquarters to find additional funds to pay their bills could have accessed all this information if they were diligent in detecting any over-spending.
The
Herald understands clubs were granted access to accounts on a quarterly basis, although V’landys suspects this was changed to half-yearly meetings.
Calls by the RLPA for greater transparency are risible, given the annual report was published last year and it took this old ex-school teacher only the recent weekend of the coronavirus lockdown to interpret NRL accounts.
Yet the blame game over “where did the [2018-22] $1.8 billion broadcasting money go?” continues, despite only one-and-a-quarter years of the contract being outlaid.
Whether you prefer the NRL “wastes” $182m a year, or spends a sober $20.342m on administration, V’landys says, “the coronavirus crisis has highlighted that the cost structure of the game as a whole is not sustainable and the ARLC will lead by example in significantly reducing its spending on the administration of the game”.
