TV deal will make or break David Gallop
RUGBY league boss David Gallop faces his stiffest test as a football administrator in coming months. Forget badly behaved footballers. They have become part and parcel of Gallop's job description in recent years.
The big challenge for the NRL chief will come when he sits at the negotiating table with media heavies to determine television rights for the next five years.
Gallop has been set up for an almighty triumph, or a monumental fall, by the AFL rights deal that was signed off this week.
With a whopping $1.2 billion changing hands, Gallop now faces either a bare cupboard or a pot of gold when he pens his deal with the networks.
He's under enormous pressure from clubs and players to come up with something as magical as the AFL's billion-dollar mark when he negotiates the deal. It's a far cry from the $500 million the NRL received last time.
The upbeat talk coming from Gallop's office is that the AFL's coup can only be good for league. It proves, he says, that television sports rights are big, big business at present - the most lucrative they have ever been.
It's true that league is in a rosier position, ratings-wise, than AFL, being marginally ahead on national television ratings and holding an edge on pay television, too.
An astonishing 77 of the top 100 programs on Foxtel are NRL matches.
Gallop predicts another bidding war is on the cards and that the Seven and Ten networks will take part in the auction against Nine and Foxtel.
But there's a catch here. AFL boss Andrew Demetriou managed to engage all television networks in a duel for the rights. Foxtel's desire to enhance its AFL image was at the heart of it.
Currently suffering because it can only show the weaker AFL games live, Foxtel went all out to secure every single match for live coverage.
Some commentators incorrectly claimed yesterday that Foxtel would now attract stronger games; the fact is that they have now grabbed all nine games, every weekend, for live coverage.
The hitch for Gallop as he seeks the pot of gold is that Foxtel already has a strong showing in league (not to mention how much it just paid for AFL). Lucky for him, though, Super Saturday is Foxtel's jewel in the crown and won't be given up without an almighty fight.
The chance of the pay television network forking out another several hundred million for rights to more games is, however, minimal.
The Nine Network is unlikely to agree to Foxtel showing more matches live, so Gallop is stuck with trying to extricate as much as possible from a bidding war between the free-to-air networks if he is to achieve the outcome he desires.
Assuming Seven, Ten and Nine engage, Seven is a genuine chance of securing both State of Origin and club rights. Kerry Stokes is cashed up and it is entirely feasible that the two codes could co-exist on one network because of the new digital channels.
It's a given that Nine will bid, but how high will they have to go?
Ten is the wildcard in the pack. Having missed out on AFL and deciding to scale back sports coverage on its One HD digital channel, the big question is whether league remains a priority.
The network's kingpin, Lachlan Murdoch, is a league nut. Ten is in dire need of advertising revenue and ratings. It has suffered badly this year through its failed foray into news and current affairs. League may well be the answer.
Gallop is the central player in the negotiations. His hands are now tied, as he has been forbidden to proceed until the new commission is up and running.
Given that there are many hurdles to jump before that commission is in place, Gallop is running out of time to weigh up carefully the options that will give him the biggest bang for his buck.
If Gallop fails to secure the big billion-dollar deal, he will face a hostile group of club bosses who believe he undersold them last time around.
If the league chief doesn't deliver, he will have them jumping all over him.
These are interesting days indeed for the NRL.
The AFL has once again set the benchmark, even though its product, on paper, is worth less than the NRL's.
Demetriou's coup has set up an enthralling battlefield for Gallop. His future in the job depends on whether or not he can navigate his way through the negotiations with as sound a hand as we have seen from Demetriou.
Nobody will remember Gallop for how he handled the latest off-field crisis.
The back-stabbers in club land have their eyes firmly on how he manages the television deal.
Chances are he will emerge a hero from the deal.
However, like it or not, the NRL boss is fighting for his job if he fails.