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NRL faces major turmoil as clubs threaten breakaway league

T-Boon

Coach
Messages
15,890
I don't think its necessarily about a number, its about the fact that in rushing through a funding deal last year so Grant could escape the pressure from newscorp he screwed up and effectively aligned the interests of the games two biggest stakeholder groups, the players & the clubs. Now all future CBA's could cripple the codes finances. It's easy to look at it with a hypothetical salary cap and conclude the game can afford it, but with these license agreements being for perpetuity the ARLC will be forced to deal with an aligned lobby group of players & clubs for all future CBA negotiations, by granting this funding deal they are effectively legislating their bargaining position away.

Exactly, with a grant linked to the salary cap as a percentage it is now for the first time in the clubs interest for the the players wages to actually inflate.
 

T-Boon

Coach
Messages
15,890
I enjoy nfl but the reason why it's a thriving sport and business isn't down to its attacking attractiveness.

There's lessons for the nrl to learn from nfl but ole t boob is barking up the wrong tree.

"The NFL rules committee stated bluntly: "Each game should provide a maximum of entertainment insofar as it can be controlled by the rules and officials" The entertainment value of the game it added, could be measured by "the number pf plays per game of a type that will be pleasing to the audience" ": Evolution of the NFL Rules NFL Football Operations.
 

adamkungl

Immortal
Messages
42,971
End of day, as much as I think Gould is a self opinionated self serving tool most of the time, he does have a point.
On $500mill annual revenue the NRL should be able to afford:
$200mill to clubs
$100mill to grass roots
$200mill to administer NRL and grow the game, pay for touch link up, rep payments etc and put some aside for rainy days

The ARLC should be transparent on admin costs of running RL and have a set target % of income to keep the reigns on snr management who like to throw money around like confetti.

The above is the exact point of this whole thing.

The NRL's current priorities are the reverse of this.
Evidence:
-their statements that they need to backtrack on club funding commitments to fund grassroots and administration tasks.
-their annual report which lists available club funding as leftovers after administration costs.
 

adamkungl

Immortal
Messages
42,971
T-boob still going on about NFL rule changes in a thread about NRL funding disagreements, good to see nothing's changed in the last week
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
69,879
I don't think its necessarily about a number, its about the fact that in rushing through a funding deal last year so Grant could escape the pressure from newscorp he screwed up and effectively aligned the interests of the games two biggest stakeholder groups, the players & the clubs. Now all future CBA's could cripple the codes finances. It's easy to look at it with a hypothetical salary cap and conclude the game can afford it, but with these license agreements being for perpetuity the ARLC will be forced to deal with an aligned lobby group of players & clubs for all future CBA negotiations, by granting this funding deal they are effectively legislating their bargaining position away. And for that Grant should be removed. I have never understood the association between what the players earn and what funding the clubs require beyond the salary cap to remain sustainable, the two are not linked in my mind. A far better funding model would be to grant both players & clubs a percentage of the games revenue, negotiated individually. Clubs could still receive millions above the cap annually but its not linked with what the players earn.

Yeh the ARLC stuffed up big time 12 months ago on offering something that could prove an unsustainable model into the future. I still get the sense the real play here is the clubs wanting to change the constitutional make up of the commission before they get locked into a perpetual licsense and lose their 5 yearLy threat of breaking away as a bargaining tool. The funding issue is just the bullet the clubs have been handed to push this through. Watch them agree to less funding in return for more influence on the commission.
 

BuffaloRules

Coach
Messages
15,564
Yeh the ARLC stuffed up big time 12 months ago on offering something that could prove an unsustainable model into the future. I still get the sense the real play here is the clubs wanting to change the constitutional make up of the commission before they get locked into a perpetual licsense and lose their 5 yearLy threat of breaking away as a bargaining tool. The funding issue is just the bullet the clubs have been handed to push this through. Watch them agree to less funding in return for more influence on the commission.

I prefer to look at it as the Clubs have been handed the bullet to get rid of the Head of an administration who is way out of his depth and doesn't actually do anything except run up the bill....

It goes beyond something the man said a year ago...
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
69,879
You give grant to much credit I feel. He is just one of the commission who will be advised by the CEO and Snr management. The clubs currently have limited influence despite having 17 votes in terms of commission make up and choice of chair. I can see them wanting that changed. Grant may be the decision maker or may just be disrespectful in the way he communicates with clubs (I heard him at a stakeholder breakfast a couple of years ago and wasn't impressed at all with the way he presented himself or the game) and want him gone as the mouthpiece but the real long term goal for them is more influence on the commission, an dthey need to make it happen now before they get locked into perpetual licenses and lose all bargaining power in the future.


The guy who set up the commission feels the clubs and two of the state bodies having any influence on the commission was a big mistake so god forbid they actually get more influence.

Smith wouldn't let clubs rule the roost and they got rid of him, grant next. They will be loving a yes man like Greenburg as CEO and would no doubt love a Quayle/Politis ticket from club land to be chair.
 

BuffaloRules

Coach
Messages
15,564
The guy that set the commission up must have had some misgivings or else he wouldn't have proposed to allow the clubs and state bodies to all be able to bind together to get rid of commissioners that were particularly on the nose...

I wouldn't mind Quayle coming back for a while to get over this hump....
 

Perth Red

Post Whore
Messages
69,879
Just comparing the 2015 annual reports shows

NRL revenue. $334mill Grant allocation to 16 clubs $162mill = 48% of revenue
AFL revenue. $494mill Grant allocation to 18 clubs. $245mill = 49.5% of revenue

Pretty equal.

There's quite a few questions re revenue and funding that the media should be asking imo.
1. Why does Telstra get naming rights to NRL for effectively free whilst Toyota pay $10mill a year for afl ones?
2. Why did the NRL lose over $6mill on events last year?
3. Why did we see a turn around from $21.8mill surplus to $12.5mill loss in one year despite a non tv revenue increase of $10.2mill?
 

T-Boon

Coach
Messages
15,890
T-boob still going on about NFL rule changes in a thread about NRL funding disagreements, good to see nothing's changed in the last week

Hey, I didn't bring it up and I suggested it be moved to the fight club but as per usually people just can't help but attack Boon. Haha. Its all good.
 

AlwaysGreen

Post Whore
Messages
50,458
"The NFL rules committee stated bluntly: "Each game should provide a maximum of entertainment insofar as it can be controlled by the rules and officials" The entertainment value of the game it added, could be measured by "the number pf plays per game of a type that will be pleasing to the audience" ": Evolution of the NFL Rules NFL Football Operations.
Got a point? Do you really think any sport in the world (apart from union) wants to minimise entertainment?
 

T-Boon

Coach
Messages
15,890
who gives two f**ks about NFL?

boring as bat shit

the only real reason to give a shit about NFL is from an administrative perspective. We would be crazy not to look at what they do as much as possible. A lot of it is relevant to the administration of the NRL. They have the benefit of a massive 300mill Uni educated braintrust and billionaires all over the place. We've got...Sharp, Gould, Grant, Tinkler.
 

T-Boon

Coach
Messages
15,890
Got a point? Do you really think any sport in the world (apart from union) wants to minimise entertainment?

It is over, I won. Lets move over to fight club if you think you can get up off the canvas. This thread is about the NRL's fight with wasteful clubs.
 

T-Boon

Coach
Messages
15,890
There's quite a few questions re revenue and funding that the media should be asking imo.
1. Why does Telstra get naming rights to NRL for effectively free whilst Toyota pay $10mill a year for afl ones?
2. Why did the NRL lose over $6mill on events last year?
3. Why did we see a turn around from $21.8mill surplus to $12.5mill loss in one year despite a non tv revenue increase of $10.2mill?


The biggest questions I have are about the NRL digital plan.

So we now have control of our own digit and Grant said in February that we want to be "the leading edge in providing digital content". Does this take an massive cash investment? If it does does it provide a big return?
Would it mean we have more control over media on rugby league PR? Like, is it a way we can control the brand? We all know how negative News Ltd is about about Rugby League.
It is sort of a new idea for the NRL to invest in assets. So I wish they would tell us more.
 

Von Hipper

Juniors
Messages
178
I was talking like a sport like the NFL, which shares out their tv revenue out amongst the franchises to the tune of $226m each against a salary cap of about $155m
Most of the big european actually give 90% of tv revenue straight back to the top flight clubs. While the big super clubs like man u & real madrid spend over that ( because of no salary cap plus money from the euro comps) most clubs pay their entire wages out of that tv money. Nba are the same, their record tv deal is getting shared around the league so the players get their share.

Crikey - those are the exact sports we SHOULD NOT be copying. Its the dream of the NRL club bosses tho! Its a fallacy in our little market right now. They want too much too soon, if ever we can do that. The way those competitions are set up too are waaaay different to ours. Just because they do it does not mean we should instantly do that.

These are economies. You cannot just point to the NBA and go "hey, NBA - wow....its better than us by ages! ohhh". Mate, they are not comparable. They are both sports and thats about it.

I do not get why and its not just you, but people always compare and go we should do X, Y, Z.

We need Australian solutions to australian sports.
 

Von Hipper

Juniors
Messages
178
Gee you can talk some uninformed rubbish...

How is the NFL competing against College Football? They deliberately do not schedule games on Saturdays because they want College Football to dominate TV on Saturdays during the regular season Sept - December so they can earn enough TV money to stand on their own two feet.... The NFL don't even schedule games on Friday nights as this is when High School football is played...

He is not talking rubbish - just because he did not go over every single point. Im sure there are cultural and technical reasons, historical ones even, but they stay out of each others way. The college scene is huge in USA (we all know this) and its a big market. Its not the Aussie sporting predator mindset. You get 100k to see one team in college, you'll get 80k (both capacity) the next day somewhere else. Big deal.

They compete and co exist. Way different mindset. In spite, I would suppose the papers being full of crap - that people can enjoy more than one sport. I dont think you appreciate how ideological and possessed some fans here used to be. Bigoted, when it comes to sport - a real british mindset.

__

The NCAA is massive, its a major institution and part of American history, culture and nationhood. Its bigger than any sport league (in fact it has multiple sports going on), but NFL have leveraged the media and resources well. Not being tied down and remember there used to be two leagues much like SL and ARL here... the NFL has picked up pace since what the 60s, leaving even baseball behind. Some people consider the NFL a cancer and in fact you can live your life in USA without ever having to see NFL - and you would still be watching entertaining, quality 'football'. Maybe that example is a bit too much - but consider baseball and its lower leagues - people without a major league team have no trouble turning out in 10's thousands watching the levels below and supporting them hard.

Much is made about how 'plastic' the NFL and NBA, baseball is (not so much) but the truth is all those sports have massive grassroots attachments to local areas. Supporting your local schools is a huge deal in America. These guys get up and pray and crap like that about all this. lolz

(NO, this cannot be replicated here like that, and we should stop pretending we want to be those leagues to a 'T')
 
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