Trying to understand the mess - the NRL stakeholders

[lturner]

Anyone that owns the nrl will take an annual fee, if there was no profit no one would own it then there would be no game, the arl did the same thing when they owned it, i know you all hate news but there is no difference between the arl and news ltd, infact they have actually kept teams alive when they were struggling

The competition should be a not-for-profit entity with membership of the clubs and the rugby league governing body/bodies (in whatever form that may be ie ARL, NSWRL, QRL). No-one should actually make profits from the league itself, there is no need.

 

[Brutus]

I am happy to say after reading that post that I am all for StGeorge-illawarra relocating to another planet without air or water as long as they take their supporters with them.

Dragons' fans do not mind a lack of water as was experienced at Kogarah Oval last Sunday for a FINALS match

Peter Doust and his new band the BEAN COUNTERS are coming to a pub near you.

 

[Brutus]

Warriors are massive under achievers, their crowds for their circumstance are dreadful, they should be like the Broncos crowds, and their finacial situation remains parlous without the support of a multi millionaire.

.

They averaged 15k this year despite a horror season.

Under News' watch we've seen the game slowly struggle back to where the ARL already had it in 95... and its not even really there yet. Still no team in Perth. The 3rd SE QLD team that everyone is calling for already existed back then. And hey, so did the Bears. A 20 team comp may not have been sustained. Chances are the Crushers and Wests (and probably another couple of Sydney teams) would have died in the arse anyway. Better than the backstabbing, underhanded ways of the News Rugby League.

I am in no doubt that had there been no Superleague the Crushers and Perth Reds would still be in the comp today. The obstacles placed in front of the ARL-loyal Crushers were enormous for the majority of their excistence.

You are right though about teams like Wests.

 

[Goddo]

The competition should be a not-for-profit entity with membership of the clubs and the rugby league governing body/bodies (in whatever form that may be ie ARL, NSWRL, QRL). No-one should actually make profits from the league itself, there is no need.

:f: The owner of the game should be the game itself :f:

Any profits made should be held by the league to develop juniors, or help in establishing new clubs/promoting the game as a "rugby league war chest", not given away to a company that generates huge profits from televising the game at reduced value, writing news about the game, running two clubs in the game (both one team cities brisbane and melbourne). Ownership of that warchest should be on behalf of all the clubs jointly and spent in the best interests of the game.

Imagine if instead of to News, that $10m went into a kitty every year, earning interest. Come the time for a new TV deal, say 6 years, thats $66m (say interest of about $6m at 5%) that could be put to good use establishing a new club, relocating an existing one, developing facilities for clubs or promoting the game.

I know this is a bit rose coloured but with continued government spending, every team would have upgraded grounds, good facilities, promotion of matches, support of juniors and an expanded competition.

Combine this with a fairer TV deal; completely covering a raised salary cap, stopping players from leaving the game and allowing clubs to generate profits from Leagues clubs, merchandise and ticket sales.

Our game would mop the floor with the A League, Super15 Rugby, and we would go back to challenging the AFL for supremacy, and be winning.

People say the ARL were dodgy and they were, but so is News. They are a whole global corporation of dodgy. At least ARL were dodgy League blokes and not a pasty white south australian-american scumbag. All superleague did was give AFL a 20 year head start.

/Rant end

 

[Brutus]

:f: The owner of the game should be the game itself :f:

Any profits made should be held by the league to develop juniors, or help in establishing new clubs/promoting the game as a "rugby league war chest", not given away to a company that generates huge profits from televising the game at reduced value, writing news about the game, running two clubs in the game (both one team cities brisbane and melbourne). Ownership of that warchest should be on behalf of all the clubs jointly and spent in the best interests of the game.

Imagine if instead of to News, that $10m went into a kitty every year, earning interest. Come the time for a new TV deal, say 6 years, thats $66m (say interest of about $6m at 5%) that could be put to good use establishing a new club, relocating an existing one, developing facilities for clubs or promoting the game.

I know this is a bit rose coloured but with continued government spending, every team would have upgraded grounds, good facilities, promotion of matches, support of juniors and an expanded competition.

Combine this with a fairer TV deal; completely covering a raised salary cap, stopping players from leaving the game and allowing clubs to generate profits from Leagues clubs, merchandise and ticket sales.

Our game would mop the floor with the A League, Super15 Rugby, and we would go back to challenging the AFL for supremacy, and be winning.

People say the ARL were dodgy and they were, but so is News. They are a whole global corporation of dodgy. At least ARL were dodgy League blokes and not a pasty white south australian-american scumbag. All superleague did was give AFL a 20 year head start.

/Rant end

I tend to agree.

 

[Rockin Ronny]

:f: The owner of the game should be the game itself :f:

Any profits made should be held by the league to develop juniors, or help in establishing new clubs/promoting the game as a "rugby league war chest", not given away to a company that generates huge profits from televising the game at reduced value, writing news about the game, running two clubs in the game (both one team cities brisbane and melbourne). Ownership of that warchest should be on behalf of all the clubs jointly and spent in the best interests of the game.

Imagine if instead of to News, that $10m went into a kitty every year, earning interest. Come the time for a new TV deal, say 6 years, thats $66m (say interest of about $6m at 5%) that could be put to good use establishing a new club, relocating an existing one, developing facilities for clubs or promoting the game.

I know this is a bit rose coloured but with continued government spending, every team would have upgraded grounds, good facilities, promotion of matches, support of juniors and an expanded competition.

Combine this with a fairer TV deal; completely covering a raised salary cap, stopping players from leaving the game and allowing clubs to generate profits from Leagues clubs, merchandise and ticket sales.

Our game would mop the floor with the A League, Super15 Rugby, and we would go back to challenging the AFL for supremacy, and be winning.

People say the ARL were dodgy and they were, but so is News. They are a whole global corporation of dodgy. At least ARL were dodgy League blokes and not a pasty white south australian-american scumbag. All superleague did was give AFL a 20 year head start.

/Rant end

Very fair points.

News Limited and Free to Air stations should be begging to show the content (owned by itself, the game) and paying a fortune for it.

 

[Goddo]

Okay you agree with me on what the objectives are... back to what this thread is about.

ARE the commercial parties involved in the game holding it back? Why? How are they involved? How do we fix it?

 

[lturner]

:f: The owner of the game should be the game itself :f:

Any profits made should be held by the league to develop juniors, or help in establishing new clubs/promoting the game as a "rugby league war chest", not given away to a company that generates huge profits from televising the game at reduced value, writing news about the game, running two clubs in the game (both one team cities brisbane and melbourne). Ownership of that warchest should be on behalf of all the clubs jointly and spent in the best interests of the game.

Imagine if instead of to News, that $10m went into a kitty every year, earning interest. Come the time for a new TV deal, say 6 years, thats $66m (say interest of about $6m at 5%) that could be put to good use establishing a new club, relocating an existing one, developing facilities for clubs or promoting the game.

I know this is a bit rose coloured but with continued government spending, every team would have upgraded grounds, good facilities, promotion of matches, support of juniors and an expanded competition.

Combine this with a fairer TV deal; completely covering a raised salary cap, stopping players from leaving the game and allowing clubs to generate profits from Leagues clubs, merchandise and ticket sales.

Our game would mop the floor with the A League, Super15 Rugby, and we would go back to challenging the AFL for supremacy, and be winning.

People say the ARL were dodgy and they were, but so is News. They are a whole global corporation of dodgy. At least ARL were dodgy League blokes and not a pasty white south australian-american scumbag. All superleague did was give AFL a 20 year head start.

/Rant end

The sentiment of your rant is spot on. But the details are what's important here.

The competition should be owned by (1) the clubs and (2) the governing body/bodies of rugby league (the ARL, NSWRL, QRL, NZRL or a new governing body) as shareholders/members. Revenues from the competition (derived from TV rights and finals games) should be distributed directly to each shareholder/member.

The problem with having the competition singly owned and run by the governing body (eg the ARL) is that it concentrates too much power in a body which does not actually produce the thing which generates the money ie the games. Although it would be nice to believe that this body would always act in the best interests of the game/competition, in reality these administrators will always act (to some extent) in what is in their own best interests. This was ultimately the factor which made it possible for the Superleague fiasco to occur.

 

[Quidgybo]

The sentiment of your rant is spot on. But the details are what's important here.

The competition should be owned by (1) the clubs and (2) the governing body/bodies of rugby league (the ARL, NSWRL, QRL, NZRL or a new governing body) as shareholders/members. Revenues from the competition (derived from TV rights and finals games) should be distributed directly to each shareholder/member.

I'd suggest you miss one important stakeholder who we want on board and not working against us - the Players. I think we should take News Ltd's 50% share and divide it three ways between between a holding company for NRL member Clubs, the RLPA as representative body of the Players, and the NZRL as the second country where the NRL serves as the top tier of League (16.6% each). This would allow us to take the existing $8m annual dividend paid to News Ltd and redirect it to each of these three bodies. In this scenario each of the 16 clubs would get an extra $160k per season, the Players would get an extra $2.6m per season for pension and player welfare programs, and the NZRL would get a guaranteed revenue stream for funding domestic development (essentially in return for the profits the NRL make from their territory). The ARL would still own 50% and thus would maintain a veto on all decisions and the ability to pass most decisions with the support of any one of the other three stakeholders.

Of course $8m split three ways and another $8m to the ARL each year is just a starting point. All stakeholders are left with an incentive to make the NRL as successful and profitable as possible because the more successful the NRL is, the bigger the dividend they can reasonable expect to get in return. The more successful the NRL is the more money the ARL and NZRL receive for development and promotion of the game in their respective territories. The more successful the NRL the bigger the funding injection the clubs get to cover the gap between costs and revenue. And the more successful the NRL the bigger incentive for the players to work with the League instead of against it with excessive wage demands and threats of industrial action. Essentially it gets everyone pulling in the same direction - maximising the success of the NRL.

Leigh.

 

[Quidgybo]

It's one of those areas that would benefit from a second team, that could in itself see more juniors involved in the game, and also break the stranglehold that Union has over there, just by having a consistent timeslot (2pm NZ time always a NZ team on the TV), and as stated, usually one of the teams playing good footy.

Remember, 5.30pm in Australia is primetime in New Zealand. If we had all away matches for the New Zealand teams played in the 5.30pm slot on Saturday evenings then we could offer a package to New Zealand television that guarantees a live primetime match involving a Kiwi team every week of the season. That's the sort of thing likely to get Rugby League off Pay TV and on to Free to Air. And if every home game was played at 2pm NZT on Sundays then you have the option of offering Fox Sports in Australia a Sunday afternoon double or even triple header every week of the season. These are the sort of packages that are worth real increases in the value of our television rights.

Leigh.

 

[Quidgybo]

Good idea. The current disquiet over rugby's restrictive rules gives the NRL a great chance to capitalise. Christchurch is a better bet IMO than Wellington; twice the size (about the same as Canberra) with a well-loved ground to play at.

According to Wikipedia Wellington and Christchurch are about the same size. And I'd suggest that the population in Wellington's surrounding areas (like Pamerston North) would exceed that surrounding Christchurch by a fair bit...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_New_Zealand

But why one city or the other? If St George-Illawarra and Wests Tigers have taught us anything it's the benefit of not restricting yourself to one small area that struggles to support a full 12 home game program. Matches at Leichardt are sell outs these days simply because their reduced frequency makes them a novelty. They don't even need to be playing greatly supported opponents (eg. Cowboys, Melbourne). Individually Wellington and Christchurch are small markets like Wollongong or Canberra. Together they start to rival markets like Newcastle and even Auckland.

So instead of basing a second New Zealand team in one city or the other, learn the lesson of having two smaller areas sharing a team. Have a single team for Southern New Zealand. Base it in Wellington for administration, training etc and split home games 7-5 between Wellington and Christchurch. In the long term (20 years+) as the two cities grow to the point that each can easily support teams of their own teams full-time, move all games to Wellington and introduce a third New Zealand team in Christchurch.

Leigh.

 

[Rockin Ronny]

Okay you agree with me on what the objectives are... back to what this thread is about.

ARE the commercial parties involved in the game holding it back? Why? How are they involved? How do we fix it?

1. Get rid of News Limited, publicise the fact they have made hundreds of millions of dollars from their PayTV monopoly. If they don't, Fed govt shoud introduce competition into PayTV. Now that Telstra is being split up, it's the perfect time.
2. Introduce the AFL management model. Do not have club stalwarts in charge (the Arko syndrome) and engage professional, independent business people to run the game.
3. Review standard player payments and introduce massive incentives for success. Clubs can't afford to pay millions now - unless TV deals,sponsorship makes it possible.
4. Engage independent body to negotiate radio, TV, internet streaming, mobile rights etc with an open market to maximise value.
5. Reintroduce a genuine "criteria" to identfy which clubs need assistance or not. Ultimate model will see substantial, equal NRL grants to sustain clubs.
6. Bring back the Central Coast Bears and pay them $100 million compensation for the fraud perpetrated.

 

[Rockin Ronny]

Oh, and take Peter Peters and Greg Hartley off air - and nuke Brookvale Oval.