RL CEO Andrew Abdo has flagged potential for an expanded NRLW competition to be sold as a separate entity in the next broadcast rights cycle in the hope the women’s game can stand on its own feet financially by 2028.
Wednesday’s announcement of
fast-tracked expansion to a 10-team NRLW competition next year was doubled down with Abdo “pretty confident we’re going to be announcing a further expanded competition in 2024.”
The eventual end goal is for every NRL team to boast an NRLW counterpart.
Industry sources have indicated that running an NRLW program, including feeder sides and pathways programs, can cost a club upwards of $1 million a year.
Where once the NRL charge $50,000 licence fees to participate in the NRLW, separate grants for women’s teams will be provided from next season, matching a salary cap that is yet to be locked in, but expected to all but double this year’s $350,000 figure.
One NRLW CEO indicated that overall costs would see clubs emerge with “not much change from half a million” after the NRL grant.
However, multiple rival bosses are optimistic that revenue from sponsors, corporate and government partnerships would offset those costs and see their women’s operations all but break even.
The Raiders, Wests Tigers, Sharks and Cowboys will all field maiden NRLW teams in 2023.
Negotiations around the next free-to-air and subscription television deals are likely to be broached in the next few years given both Nine, publishers of this masthead, and Foxtel are locked in as broadcasters until 2027.
While several players and coaches have expressed concerns over talent depth as the women’s game rapidly expands, Abdo is hopeful the NRLW is a significant bargaining chip in its own right in five years’ time.
“Our job is to build this competition in terms of teams and depth so that when we’re having the rights negotiations for 2028, we’re putting forward something that’s really compelling, that will be valued and bought potentially as a standalone (product) in its own right,” Abdo told the Herald.
negotiations midway through the current deal – so in two or three years we’ll be having the conversation.
“In the meantime, outside of TV deals and those cycles, we’ll work with corporates and sponsors to increase those streams and the clubs are the same.
“The more money we can bring in, the more we can invest out. Having the women’s game able to re-invest back into the athletes and into the grass roots of the game, that’s what we’re aspiring for.”
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/ab...-in-next-tv-rights-talks-20220616-p5aucx.html
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www.footyindustry.com
