Oh, I just watched the bit in the interview with him advocated a reduction from teams playing 24 to 22 games.
YES, YES, YEEEEEES! I've been saying that for long time that the regular season has to be reduced, especially if expansion occurs from 16 to 18 teams. I'm not sure if his idea of a conference system would work in an 18 team format; 20 teams would work (5 groups of 4 teams or 4 groups of 5 teams).
But 22 games can easily be obtained from 18 teams:
- 3 groups of 6 teams each.
- Each team plays each other times in their group twice, and once from the other two groups.
i.e. 5 teams x 2 + 12 teams x 1 = 22 games
In a 20 team comp:
- 5 groups of 4 teams each.
- Each team plays each other times in their group twice, and once from the other four groups.
i.e. 3 teams x 2 + 16 teams x 1 = 22 games.
If a 2nd Brisbane team is added to the comp, I'd have Brisbane/Brisbane 2/Gold Coast/North Queensland in one of the groups.
This just limits what you can do in other areas without actually offering much benefit....
For every demand you make on the draw, you need to give something away. I dont see any benefit of limiting ourselves to this regular season conference thing and it would mean losing control of a dozen other factors.
If we were to introduce Conferences, they would need to be focused on the finals; rather than a top 8 from all the teams, break the comp into 4 groups of 4 and have the top 2 of each move on (other something to that effect).
Short of that, the conference idea is pointless...
The only downside to reducing games is you need to make it up somewhere else for the advertisers to cough up the dollars.
Gives a bit more space for internationals and rep matches (a single Origin games gets the same number of viewers as a whole round of NRL so there is a lot of potential for the Roos and others).
Im actually a fan if limiting the NRL salarycap and putting more money into rep payments. You are still rewarding the best players with the biggest paychecks, but much of it will come down to performance and behaviour and we would have the best players fighting for spots rather than bitching about too many rep games...