Roy Masters on Gallop's problems

[The Preacher]

By the way Skeepe, nice to see you have an ARL affiliate as part of your sig. :lol: :lol:

 

[Kurt Angle]

news ltd said recently they had no plans on leaving RL. they were apparently committed to improving the game (their words).

That statement was in relation to recent claims about an early departure. All News has is a binding partnership arrangement with the ARL lasting to 2018. They can't arbitrarily force all parties to extend it beyond that.

i always though the TV deals were poor, more so Ch 9. as Ch 9 got an extra game, the increase was not at all satisfactory.

Most people thought the increase was satisfactory.

And the big issue here is timing.

AFL gets first bite of the cherry, and at the moment it requires two stations to broadcast it.
7 & 10 get AFL, it only leaves channel 9.. and that's a supply/demand issue.
Unless the NRL get a 4 year agreement to put itself ahead of AFL in TV rights scheduling, or a 4th FTA TV channel starts in Australia... Gallop can't do much more.

compare the AFL naming rights / internet deals to the NRLs. they also get way more there too. so its not just the case of packer bidding up the TV rights.

most of this is the legacy of SL that league is perceived as a weak sport, and AFL a strong one. AFL then gets offered better deals and we don't.

Yes, and Gallop has done a great deal in ammending that.
The most effective way for that to be reversed it to display strength, with crowds attending games. Average figures have gone from 12,000 to almost 18,000 under his leadership.. without attacking other sports or pissing people off, which AFL and RU have done and are suffering for now.

Other than that what do you want gallop to do, pay for the cab fares for guy stoo laxy to go to the game on their own accord.

AFL gets $80 more than RL for its TV rights despite RL getting more viewers (incluing origin, tests and a longer NRL season vs AFL).

$80 hey.. I might put the NRL back on equal billing from my next pay cheque.
If you mean $80 million, all of the AFL's TV income comes from the $780 million deal... the susequent PayTV deal is an arrangement between FoxSports and the channel 7/10 consortium and regarded as the value to reimburse this consortium to buy 4 games of the 8 the 7/10 consortium have initial rights to. This has no bearing on the NRL's relationship with FoxSports, and can't be used as a bargaining tool as the deal was subsequent to the NRL deal.

Gallop can't be looking over the shoulder of FoxSports and 7/10 execs during their meeting and advise on what is a suitable number.

even the S14 get something like $50 million from foxsports for the Aussie teams, and nobody watches.

The SANZAR deal is $US 365 million over 5 years, with the ARU getting 29% or less.

$US 73 million a year, about $95 million, the ARU gets 29%, or about $25 million for all 7 games a week, a long way away from the NRL.

when you compare what RL gets to other sports, we are getting ripped off.

Then stop punishing yourself with envy. RL is better than it was last year, which was better than the year before that, which was better than the year before that.

Gallop simply did not do a good job there, and the game is paying the price. if i were negotiating, i would bring up the stats that other sports get, and compare their viewers to ours.

So because there is disparity, you believe Gallop didn't do this ? He just walked in rolled some dice and said that's the number I want?

SANZAR took a hit last time, AFL got over the odds in money due to a Kerry Packer gamble. RL probably got slightly less than it deserves, and I would say due to factors outside of Gallops control.

 

[Brutus]

roy masters is the pinnacle of rugby league writer at the moment. not since the lat Chippy Frinlingos do we have someone writing about the game that knows what is going on.

Chippy would not have the guts to write about the code like Roy does. Most probably because he was a News employee. He was just like the rest of them.

 

[dallymessenger]

So anyone involved in Super League didn't have the best interests of the game at heart? Whereas I'm sure of course that Arthurson and Quayle were not interested in their own little agendas.

You ARL snobs sure make me laugh. :lol:

You act as though it was a battle between good vs evil, and the good guys were the ARL. Far from it mate. The ARL were so corrupt and invested in their own interests that more than half the clubs couldn't wait to get out of there.

absolute gibberish. it was a battle between good and evil, and evil won out.

What was arko fighting for - nothing much, just the tradition of australian RL that was built up by people that set up this game in 1908. Under Arko'r rule, the game was expanding very well, profits / revenues were all growing strongly. in 1995 the game was at the strongest it had ever been, hence the interest of News Ltd.

Rupert Murdoch was only interested in the Pay TV rights for RL, to make Foxpsorts work. he was correct there, RL has been a ratings gold mine for Fox. the only vision that Murdoch had for the game was profits for Foxsports.

The Broncos insitgated the whole idea because of a paranoia that they were going to be booted out of the competition.

To show that the people behind SL were wrong, Wayne Bennett recently said that if he knew what damage SL would do to the game, they would never have gone for it. not an apology, but its a start.

Ken Arthurson fought for the history of the game. a game that was owned by the ARL. WTF has News Ltd got to do with ownerhsip of our game.

The sad thing is that the sport that survived against the odds in its early days to become the great sport it is today, now represents some number in the notes of the News Ltd balance sheet. People like Henry Hoyle, Victor Trumper and Albert Baskiville would turn in their graves to see what has happened to the game.

Arko was / is a hero of mine.

Finally, all i want to say is get f**ked!

 

[dallymessenger]

I'm hardly a snob, Skeepe, and as far as corruption goes, maybe you should check you're own backyard before you start talking about others.
Super league DIDN"T have the best interests of the game at heart, they had the best interest of their bank accounts at heart, the same as they have now.
Some f**king VISION that turned out to be.
You wouldn't know sh!t from clay if you tasted it you moron.
The only reason clubs left the ARL was GREED, nothing more, nothing less.
John Quayle was the best administrator this game has ever had and the best it will ever have, a tireless worker and a champion bloke.
Come back when you have some idea what you're talking about.

cronulla & penrith left the ARL for fear they would be made to merge or die if the comp. moved to 14 teams. their betrayal of the ARL paid out.

how the hell do you rank Cronulla over the Central Coast Bears, which is what the NRL did with its rankings.

RL is a big sport in Oz. it could be so much bigger if the people running it were interested in growing the game, rather than the corporate interests of news ltd

 

[dallymessenger]

Chippy would not have the guts to write about the code like Roy does. Most probably because he was a News employee.

I love the work that masters is doing.

as someone who is pointing out how poor our TV deals are, and blaming news ltd as the cause, he is raising some very important points.

 

[Brutus]

AFL gets first bite of the cherry, and at the moment it requires two stations to broadcast it.
7 & 10 get AFL, it only leaves channel 9.. and that's a supply/demand issue.
Unless the NRL get a 4 year agreement to put itself ahead of AFL in TV rights scheduling, or a 4th FTA TV channel starts in Australia... Gallop can't do much more.



.

I disagree. Nothing stopping Gallop from offering at least one FTA game a week to the other channels. Just because 7 or 10 has the AFL doesn't mean they wouldn't be interested in showing one at least NRL game per weekend.

We have been dudded big time in the media deals.

 

[dallymessenger]

That statement was in relation to recent claims about an early departure. All News has is a binding partnership arrangement with the ARL lasting to 2018. They can't arbitrarily force all parties to extend it beyond that.



Most people thought the increase was satisfactory.

And the big issue here is timing.

AFL gets first bite of the cherry, and at the moment it requires two stations to broadcast it.
7 & 10 get AFL, it only leaves channel 9.. and that's a supply/demand issue.
Unless the NRL get a 4 year agreement to put itself ahead of AFL in TV rights scheduling, or a 4th FTA TV channel starts in Australia... Gallop can't do much more.



Yes, and Gallop has done a great deal in ammending that.
The most effective way for that to be reversed it to display strength, with crowds attending games. Average figures have gone from 12,000 to almost 18,000 under his leadership.. without attacking other sports or pissing people off, which AFL and RU have done and are suffering for now.

Other than that what do you want gallop to do, pay for the cab fares for guy stoo laxy to go to the game on their own accord.



$80 hey.. I might put the NRL back on equal billing from my next pay cheque.
If you mean $80 million, all of the AFL's TV income comes from the $780 million deal... the susequent PayTV deal is an arrangement between FoxSports and the channel 7/10 consortium and regarded as the value to reimburse this consortium to buy 4 games of the 8 the 7/10 consortium have initial rights to. This has no bearing on the NRL's relationship with FoxSports, and can't be used as a bargaining tool as the deal was subsequent to the NRL deal.

Gallop can't be looking over the shoulder of FoxSports and 7/10 execs during their meeting and advise on what is a suitable number.



The SANZAR deal is $US 365 million over 5 years, with the ARU getting 29% or less.

$US 73 million a year, about $95 million, the ARU gets 29%, or about $25 million for all 7 games a week, a long way away from the NRL.



Then stop punishing yourself with envy. RL is better than it was last year, which was better than the year before that, which was better than the year before that.



So because there is disparity, you believe Gallop didn't do this ? He just walked in rolled some dice and said that's the number I want?

SANZAR took a hit last time, AFL got over the odds in money due to a Kerry Packer gamble. RL probably got slightly less than it deserves, and I would say due to factors outside of Gallops control.

fair call, that is a great post.

not sure about your figures for S14 - i've read that the ARU gets $50 p.a. as their share. even at $25 million, the ratings it gets don't even justify that. sanzar did not take a hit last time. it was speculated that would happen, but it did not occur.

our internet / naming rights deal is not great when you take out the contra. if it were, the Salary Cap would be going up now by more.

i was not happy with the Ch 9 deal - if other's were, thats their choice. what Nine are paying now is what i thought they would pay for 2 games a week. with a third game, an extra $10 - $15 million was required. Nine suckered us last time with the deal we signed, and we've signed another poor deal again.

Re . Fox deal with AFL - it sets a benchmark. If Foxsports are prepared to pay twice the cash per game that RL gets to Ch 7, that helps them underwrite the ludicrous sums of money that 7 / 10 pay to AFL, so AFL is a direct beneficiary. If foxsports has that kind of money, it should have been invested in its number one rating program.

David Gallop is on the record as saying that Foxsports are using the profits from RL to underwrite Fox's Pay TV deal with AFL. does that sound like a good result for league ??

Roy Masters has highlighted that PMG, the entity which owns the NRL deal, makes a profit of $60 million p.a. Most of this profit comes from onselling the NRL rights for more money to Foxsports than what they pay the NRL for it. when the AFL rights were up for tender, Foxsports was the entity involved, with PMG not keen to lessen their profits on the over-priced deal.

Gallop has done a fantastic deal so far in running the game. However, the Tv deals we have are poor. As he has signed those deals, he is responsible. the game needs more money, and deserves it too. if gallop can't get that from his old employer's, then an indepedant person is required.

i'm sick of seeing league losing player's to union when we should have more money. the game in the bush needs more money. the ARL needs more money for development officers. and we need more clubs in the NRL to get back to where we were in 1995.

 

[McCrud]

Look, the SL/News Ltd. bashing gets rather tiresome. They have done plenty wrong, and they certainly are not perfect, but at least they are trying.

As we all know, News Ltd. continues to own and fund the Nth Qld Cowboys and the Melbourne Storm.

They bailed out the Cowboys when they were in deep doggy-doo-doo, helped them along, and now the future looks very rosy.

The Melbourne Storm are the code's gateway into the Victorian market, and last year we saw 900,000 odd Victorians watch the NRL GF, a remarkable effort IMO. Despite the fact the club has cost an untold amount of millions, News Ltd. continues to pick up the bill. We need the Storm to grow out code - and News Ltd. are the ones picking up the huge tab.

People always like to bash News Ltd. - but in respect to these two clubs, I don't think the fans are complaining. At least they are prepared to back the code in this instance.

When's James Packer going to put his hand in his own pocket to grow the code? When is Packer going to foot the bill for an expansion club? The prick never will - the 'best friends of Rugby League' don't give a f**k about us or the code. Why can't Packer do a little bit for Rugby League - he's mooched off the code forever, and he still isn't prepared to do his bit to expand the game (being aligned with the Sydney Roosters simply isn't enough).

Packer/Channel Nine will gladly pay a pittance for the broadcasting rights, do nothing for the promotion of the code, give the public a tawdry and cringe-worthy primetime RL program (Thusday Night Footy Show) - and then to top it all off, deliberately genius the growth of our code by shutting out prime-time (or anytime) FTA broadcasting of the Melbourne Storm in Victoria. It's a f**king disgrace.

 

[dallymessenger]

Look, the SL/News Ltd. bashing gets rather tiresome. They have done plenty wrong, and they certainly are not perfect, but at least they are trying.

As we all know, News Ltd. continues to own and fund the Nth Qld Cowboys and the Melbourne Storm.

They bailed out the Cowboys when they were in deep doggy-doo-doo, helped them along, and now the future looks very rosy.

The Melbourne Storm are the code's gateway into the Victorian market, and last year we saw 900,000 odd Victorians watch the NRL GF, a remarkable effort IMO. Despite the fact the club has cost an untold amount of millions, News Ltd. continues to pick up the bill. We need the Storm to grow out code - and News Ltd. are the ones picking up the huge tab.

People always like to bash News Ltd. - but in respect to these two clubs, I don't think the fans are complaining. At least they are prepared to back the code in this instance.

When's James Packer going to put his hand in his own pocket to grow the code? When is Packer going to foot the bill for an expansion club? The prick never will - the 'best friends of Rugby League' don't give a f**k about us or the code. Why can't Packer do a little bit for Rugby League - he's mooched off the code forever, and he still isn't prepared to do his bit to expand the game (being aligned with the Sydney Roosters simply isn't enough).

Packer/Channel Nine will gladly pay a pittance for the broadcasting rights, do nothing for the promotion of the code, give the public a tawdry and cringe-worthy primetime RL program (Thusday Night Footy Show) - and then to top it all off, deliberately genius the growth of our code by shutting out prime-time (or anytime) FTA broadcasting of the Melbourne Storm in Victoria. It's a f**king disgrace.

the money for those clubs comes direct from the $8 million dividend taken from merchandise sales the game makes.

if those 2 clubs can't stand on their own two feet, then maybe they shouldn't be here, and i am a strong fan of both clubs, esp. the storm.

if the loss of the storm and the cowboys was the price paid to get news ltd out of the game, i would pay it.

agree on packer though.

 

[The Preacher]

Look, the SL/News Ltd. bashing gets rather tiresome. They have done plenty wrong, and they certainly are not perfect, but at least they are trying.

As we all know, News Ltd. continues to own and fund the Nth Qld Cowboys and the Melbourne Storm.

They bailed out the Cowboys when they were in deep doggy-doo-doo, helped them along, and now the future looks very rosy.

The Melbourne Storm are the code's gateway into the Victorian market, and last year we saw 900,000 odd Victorians watch the NRL GF, a remarkable effort IMO. Despite the fact the club has cost an untold amount of millions, News Ltd. continues to pick up the bill. We need the Storm to grow out code - and News Ltd. are the ones picking up the huge tab.

People always like to bash News Ltd. - but in respect to these two clubs, I don't think the fans are complaining. At least they are prepared to back the code in this instance.

When's James Packer going to put his hand in his own pocket to grow the code? When is Packer going to foot the bill for an expansion club? The prick never will - the 'best friends of Rugby League' don't give a f**k about us or the code. Why can't Packer do a little bit for Rugby League - he's mooched off the code forever, and he still isn't prepared to do his bit to expand the game (being aligned with the Sydney Roosters simply isn't enough).

Packer/Channel Nine will gladly pay a pittance for the broadcasting rights, do nothing for the promotion of the code, give the public a tawdry and cringe-worthy primetime RL program (Thusday Night Footy Show) - and then to top it all off, deliberately genius the growth of our code by shutting out prime-time (or anytime) FTA broadcasting of the Melbourne Storm in Victoria. It's a f**king disgrace.

Oh, so it's all the Packer's fault? Weren't they the top bid for the TV rights, did they come in third but still win the rights??? Who bid higher ???
They don't want to buy an expansion team, they buy casinos.
Contact Ch.9 if you're dirty on their time schedules, I always write to News to let them know what i think of them !!
What the footy show has to do with any of this has got me f**ked, but it's your right not to like or watch it.
Nothing you say has taken away any blame for the unrest that stupid league caused, and of course they're propping up The Storm, they started them, but i'm sure whoever was running the show would do everything in their power to keep them going.

 

[dallymessenger]

Who would've thought the Murdoch vision would be one where AFL would be paid more than RL despite league getting more ratings.

If he had explained it like that, i don't think many clubs would have betrayed the ARL, even the Broncos.

 

[McCrud]

Roy Masters on the cancer that is the Packer/Channel Nine consortium.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/league/how-news-ltd-sunk-its-claws-in-league/2007/03/09/1173166982379.html?page=5

James Packer, however, puts nothing back into the game, despite sharing with News Ltd half the Fox Sports profits and is desperate the NRL do a deal with Betfair which he half owns.

The Packers also did well when News Ltd cut PBL into Fox Sports as part of the peace deal between the warring media companies at the end of the Super League war.

Packer bought in at cost price and now shares the massive profits of Fox Sports without commitments to NRL clubs.

Thanks James - you are a true hero to Rugby League.

 

[Kurt Angle]

fair call, that is a great post.

not sure about your figures for S14 - i've read that the ARU gets $50 p.a. as their share. even at $25 million, the ratings it gets don't even justify that. sanzar did not take a hit last time. it was speculated that would happen, but it did not occur.

SANZAR got hammered on their last deal.

The 1995 deal was $US500 million for 10 years.. looks like $50 mil per year, but the payments were increasing.

For the the 2005 deal, SANZAR had to throw in NPC, currie cup, add 2 more teams to the sh*tty 12 and had to increase the tri-nations tests from 6 to 9. They stripped the cuborad bare.

In nominal terms, the 2005 payment, the first year of the 2005 deal was less than the 2004 payment, the last year of the 1995 deal.

SANZAR got belted.

our internet / naming rights deal is not great when you take out the contra. if it were, the Salary Cap would be going up now by more.

What contra do Telstra offer the NRL ? I don't see a great deal.

The banner on top of this page is a flash Telstra ad with AFL.. that's contra.. I see very little NRL contra anywhere from Telstra.. I would suspect the NRL has gone cash heavy. And that probably helped fund the $700,000 salary cap increase, which is over 20% from the previous level.

i was not happy with the Ch 9 deal - if other's were, thats their choice. what Nine are paying now is what i thought they would pay for 2 games a week. with a third game, an extra $10 - $15 million was required. Nine suckered us last time with the deal we signed, and we've signed another poor deal again.

Re . Fox deal with AFL - it sets a benchmark.

It is a benchmark that was established AFTER the NRL deal. The NRL can't use that as a benchmark if it didn't exist at the time.

If Foxsports are prepared to pay twice the cash per game that RL gets to Ch 7, that helps them underwrite the ludicrous sums of money that 7 / 10 pay to AFL, so AFL is a direct beneficiary.

AFL only benefits from the $780 mil it received from the consortium. A $1 package or $100,000,000 package make no difference to the coffers of the AFL.

If foxsports has that kind of money, it should have been invested in its number one rating program.

You don't go into a negotiation knowing what the true status of the opposite party is. Gallop can't be held liable for lacking ESP.

David Gallop is on the record as saying that Foxsports are using the profits from RL to underwrite Fox's Pay TV deal with AFL. does that sound like a good result for league ??

No, but as I said, the 7/10 deal with foxsports was signed after the NRL deal. If it was signed afterwards, the NRL would have a case, but now it has a contract to be bound by.

Roy Masters has highlighted that PMG, the entity which owns the NRL deal, makes a profit of $60 million p.a. Most of this profit comes from onselling the NRL rights for more money to Foxsports than what they pay the NRL for it. when the AFL rights were up for tender, Foxsports was the entity involved, with PMG not keen to lessen their profits on the over-priced deal.

I don' t know who owns PMG, but if that's the case then sure, that margin should be trimmed. I can't comment on that.

Gallop has done a fantastic deal so far in running the game. However, the Tv deals we have are poor. As he has signed those deals, he is responsible. the game needs more money, and deserves it too. if gallop can't get that from his old employer's, then an indepedant person is required.

If a better person than Gallop applies, then I'll support that person.

i'm sick of seeing league losing player's to union when we should have more money. the game in the bush needs more money. the ARL needs more money for development officers. and we need more clubs in the NRL to get back to where we were in 1995.

And Gallop is steering us in the direction that will provide for us more money.

 

[Kurt Angle]

When's James Packer going to put his hand in his own pocket to grow the code? When is Packer going to foot the bill for an expansion club? The prick never will - the 'best friends of Rugby League' don't give a f**k about us or the code. Why can't Packer do a little bit for Rugby League - he's mooched off the code forever, and he still isn't prepared to do his bit to expand the game (being aligned with the Sydney Roosters simply isn't enough).

There was an interview in BOSS magazine (supplement to the AFR) with J.Packer last year.

He said he's not that much into RL anymore since Super League.

 

[McCrud]

There was an interview in BOSS magazine (supplement to the AFR) with J.Packer last year.

He said he's not that much into RL anymore since Super League.

And it shows.

 

[dallymessenger]

SANZAR got hammered on their last deal.

The 1995 deal was $US500 million for 10 years.. looks like $50 mil per year, but the payments were increasing.

For the the 2005 deal, SANZAR had to throw in NPC, currie cup, add 2 more teams to the sh*tty 12 and had to increase the tri-nations tests from 6 to 9. They stripped the cuborad bare.

In nominal terms, the 2005 payment, the first year of the 2005 deal was less than the 2004 payment, the last year of the 1995 deal.

SANZAR got belted.



What contra do Telstra offer the NRL ? I don't see a great deal.

The banner on top of this page is a flash Telstra ad with AFL.. that's contra.. I see very little NRL contra anywhere from Telstra.. I would suspect the NRL has gone cash heavy. And that probably helped fund the $700,000 salary cap increase, which is over 20% from the previous level.

i was not happy with the Ch 9 deal - if other's were, thats their choice. what Nine are paying now is what i thought they would pay for 2 games a week. with a third game, an extra $10 - $15 million was required. Nine suckered us last time with the deal we signed, and we've signed another poor deal again.



It is a benchmark that was established AFTER the NRL deal. The NRL can't use that as a benchmark if it didn't exist at the time.



AFL only benefits from the $780 mil it received from the consortium. A $1 package or $100,000,000 package make no difference to the coffers of the AFL.



You don't go into a negotiation knowing what the true status of the opposite party is. Gallop can't be held liable for lacking ESP.



No, but as I said, the 7/10 deal with foxsports was signed after the NRL deal. If it was signed afterwards, the NRL would have a case, but now it has a contract to be bound by.



I don' t know who owns PMG, but if that's the case then sure, that margin should be trimmed. I can't comment on that.



If a better person than Gallop applies, then I'll support that person.



And Gallop is steering us in the direction that will provide for us more money.

going into our next tv deals then gallop has the benchmark set here as a starting point. then on top of that we expect some inflationary effect too.

so if our next TV deals don't get at least $80 million more, but more like $100 million, they will still be poor.

PMG is owned by news and packer.

there wasn't a large cash increase in the Telstra deal, hence the reason why the salary cap can only go up by $100,000. it was that cofusion that caused willie to assume there was more money.

the sanzar money didn't go down. but the points you raise about extra content does mean they had to give more, i forget about those aspects.

the salary cap increase was funded by our increased tv deals (mostly)

 

[sharko]

Someone should tell Packer that Ron L Hubbard watches NRL and belts himself off senseless about it..you'd see young Jamie pitching in tens of millions to the code then!

 

[yosh64]

The way to go is to spread coverage of the sport over as many media outlets as possible, even if it means slightly less money.
eg.
NRL - Channel 9/Fox Sports
Internationals - Channel 7
State of Origin - Channel 10

That way each channel has a vested interest in promoting the game at some level.

I agree. Although you'd only want NRL and Rep games sold. Cause then there would be a bidding war as one player wont want to miss out and get nothing. More money would come from this deal.

You'd expect to see players in the rep teams to then ask for more money as they would be able to see just how much money the NRL/ARL gets from all rep games.

Clearly though there is some form of politics involved in the NRL/News ltd/PBL threesome that stops this from happening.

 

[nqboy]

He's faulted here for the TV deal.. which is a crock of sh*t....

When we got our $500 million, we thought it was very good.. and it is.

Only when AFL got $780 million did many of you feel dudded. AFL isn't gettting $780 million because they are that much more valuable or have better negotiators. AFL is getting $780 million because Packer gambled.. and won.. in an effort to f*ck up the finances of channel 7, and is a completely seperate issue to the business acumen of Gallop.

BS. I was pissed off Nein signed without Seven or Ten being given the opportunity to bid. That figure should have been much higher. Then there was no national prime time coverage, not even a weak imitation of an attempt at it, just some half-assed clause with no teeth.

I don't blame Gallop entirely as there is little he can do to change it while News Ltd own half the game. But I do pull him up when he tries to convince me that they really are doing the best thing for the game. What a crock.

He's either naive, stupid or lying. And I don't believe for a moment he's naive or stupid.