BS.
Whether you like it or not RL is a business, to survive it needs to make money if it doesn't make money it dies out as a profession, its directly comparative to any other business in this regard.
The game in of it's self is not an employer, you can go pick up a footy right now and play RL, you won't see a dime for it.
Any suggestion like this is purely idealistic, and ridiculous in a real world context, frankly it's utopian.
Again this is idealistic BS.
The NRL does not get that money from "the game", they get it from people who buy the NRls' tickets and products and from TV broadcasters that buy the NRLs' product to broadcast on their channels cause it makes money for them cause it rates well and advertisers want their ads to run during shows that rate well.
If it were purely the game that brought in money then every competition would be profitable.
Josh Hodgson et.al are contractors, they don't owe anything to their old employers, and it's beside the point anyway.
And what of NZs' players basically all of them were developed on the NRL's dime, thus don't they owe the NRL their profession and therefore shouldn't play in this game using this logic?
Only if you refuse to organise compensation, and the clubs have shown time and again that they are willing to release players when they aren't in season, in other words they seem to be fine with players taking on a second job so long as it doesn't effect them.
Actually their is something in their contracts that says that they can't play for another team (including rep football) without a release from the club (unless the club is run by idiots that is), and a players will doesn't really matter, they agreed to and signed that contract.
Would you care if you had someone working for you and they were unhappy cause you wouldn't let them go in the middle of their shift to work for someone else and still expected to be payed by you during that time, yes you would care, if you were like me you would say I'm happy to let you go work for them, but your fired if you do, unless that other company was some compensating me for my loss or at least was covering my risk in that employees contract, in other words paying the wages that I owe him during the time he is working for them (unless he the employee was to wave them), and their insurance is covering that employee while he is working for them, and depending on the business I'd want to be payed for lost income for the time that employee was away and anytime that they couldn't work cause of an injury sustained while working for them.
But they should get a say when it's players (their employees) contracted to their clubs (their businesses) that are being used in the game, cause it is them that is being most affected by the game
The majority of the players in the game in Denver are contracted to NRL clubs, yet the NRL and NRL clubs won't see a dime from it even if it is successful, and their's no compensation for their loss, that is wrong and it's stupid cause if I was a rich guy looking into investing into the NRL I'd be like nah as if the NRL are willing to force me to release players to this game when it's not in my interest then what else are they willing to do that would seriously negatively effect my business?!
Can we stop with it's during a week off BS, even if it's played in a week off it's still going to effect the players time at their clubs, they are going to miss training, they are going to come back jet lagged and not able to preform at their best for a while, some will be injured, some may even be seriously injured and need time off, etc, etc.
The effects from this game aren't just going to be felt on this one week off, and even if it was it'd still be morally wrong.
Except everybody involved in an international match is compensated in soccer, all the leagues see money from their governing bodies (right up to FIFA) explicitly to compensate for this sort of stuff, that isn't the case in RL, if it was we wouldn't have a problem, and even with that compensation very, very rarely would you see a game where a competition that isn't involved at all is the source for basically all the players for a game unconnected to them to be played during their season...
So no it's not comparable at all, cause they actually have the compensation that I'm arguing for.
I already named two before, capital flight and devaluation of the competitions to the benefit of one off big time promoters who will move on from RL as soon as it doesn't make any money for them cause the sport isn't their bread and butter and they aren't reliant on it to make a living.