Super League II? Please. But big questions remain for Dave Smith and the NRL
Andrew Webster Chief Sports Writer, The Sydney Morning Herald
Forget about Super League Mark II. It won't be happening. There will be no rebel league or civil war.
But there can be no hiding from the fact rugby league will be white-knuckling for the next six months in the most important period for the game since the independent commission was formed in February 2012.
Whether ARL chairman John Grant or chief executive Dave Smith have a job at the end of it will be interesting, because Rupert Murdoch will want a stick with a head on it,
Game of Thrones-style, if peace is to be reached.
Let's put some of the bullshit and agenda aside, for a moment, and consider what's really going on.
Smith signed a $925 million deal with Channel Nine boss David Gyngell from 2018 just over a fortnight ago.
It was considered then – and still is – a superb victory for the game. Four premium matches, in prime-time, live, on free-to-air. More eyeballs than ever before will watch rugby league, under a draw where the NRL decides which team plays each other, and where and when.
Sound like a dud deal to you, Mr and Mrs Rugby League Fan?
But it came at a cost.
Smith just poked the biggest bear known this side of Holt Street, with Murdoch and News Corp blowing as much as "$300 million to $400 million" in its deal with AFL a week later just to make a point.
Because he can. Because he is Rupert Murdoch. He's a very big bear.
When you go to war with Murdoch, you need serious support, and that's where Grant and Smith are struggling for friends.
Smith has done a deal with Gyngell for a competition that effectively only has four clubs secured to it.
Those four clubs are funded by the NRL – Newcastle, Wests Tigers, Dragons, Gold Coast – and they re-signed beyond the current television broadcast deal.
There are 12 remaining clubs that have increasingly felt unwanted, unloved and – most importantly – underfunded for too long.
Naively, Smith thought they would all follow. Now they are holding out, engaged in the same standoff with Smith not too dissimilar to the one Smith is having with Murdoch.
The NRL knows it, too.
News Corp reported on Monday that Grant was feverishly calling club bosses, looking for support. It is understood he was also asking some clubs to sign agreements binding them to the NRL competition from 2018.
"Why would we do that?" one club boss told this column. "We haven't seen what the rest of the broadcast deal would be."
There have been growing murmurs about breakaway leagues from some dissatisfied club bosses for some time. They are just theories and rhetoric.
Murdoch and News Corp no longer have the stranglehold on rugby league they've enjoyed for more than two decades. It's been interesting to see how poorly they've reacted to it.
When the NRL announced its deal with Nine, the fingers were immediately pointed at former chief executive Kim Williams, who conceded first and last broadcast rights until the end of 2027 when the previous broadcast deal was done.
Then Murdoch arrived in town, and felt so chastened by Smith's deal with Gyngell that he stayed in the country a little longer to secure and announce the AFL broadcast rights for Fox Sports.
When Murdoch said he considered AFL to be "the premium code", it exposed precisely what it has always been to him: a vehicle for profits.
Smith knew there would be consequences, waiting for the obligatory stories in News Corp publications slamming him and his administration. And, of course, calling for his head.
Almost nobody at League Central was around during Super League Mark I. They've been stunned at the ferocity of the attacks. Those who remember the original war have barely batted at eyelid.
Bullshit aside, here's the deal.
Smith must secure about another $1 billion for the remaining half of the broadcast deal from 2018.
He's going to need much of that from Murdoch's Fox Sports, which also needs rugby league as much as rugby league needs his dollars.
Who will blink first? The banker or the very big bear?
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...nd-the-nrl-20150824-gj69uc.html#ixzz3jioeEMi0
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