TV Rights deal and increase in salary cap

[saint pebba]

Just wanted to canvass some thoughts on this idea.

Currently the TV rights deal ends in 2012 and the NRL has started to garner interest from other networks however no new deal can be implemented until 2013 at the earliest.

Would everyone be against the idea of the NRL going to channel 9 and fox and offering them the following:

• New 6 year deal on TV rights to begin in 2011 (expires in 2016).
• Value of deal to be 35% higher than current deal(which i think is approx 90mil a year)

Whilst this is probably less than what the game could get from an open market it would enable more funds to go into the game 2 years earlier and assist in solving some of the issues with the salary cap.

The extra money could be used to increase the NRL grant to each club to 5 mil and increase the cap to 5.25 mil. The minimum wage could also be increased to $100k

 

[Big Mick]

I say this everytime this comes up.

Under the current AFL deal...they give each club $14m in grants every year.

Their cap is $7.85m

I see no reason that we cannot get AFL tv deal type money...at the very least what deal they got last time.

If we get that...this should be where we are at as far as players. Increase the squad size to 35. Increase minimum player payment to $125k, and increase the cap to $7m. Therefore leaving $7m for remaining expenses. Also means we can reduce the price of memberships as we wouldn't be solely reliant on that income.

 

[$$Poor Boy Blues$$]

I say this everytime this comes up.

Under the current AFL deal...they give each club $14m in grants every year.

Their cap is $7.85m

I see no reason that we cannot get AFL tv deal type money...at the very least what deal they got last time.

If we get that...this should be where we are at as far as players. Increase the squad size to 35. Increase minimum player payment to $125k, and increase the cap to $7m. Therefore leaving $7m for remaining expenses. Also means we can reduce the price of memberships as we wouldn't be solely reliant on that income.

Well said. Its too hard for the game to operate on the breadline that it does.

IMHO the cap needs to be twice what it is now at least. And that is easily achievable. The reasoning behind this is sound from every quarter you read.

 

[Mickyd39]

I say this everytime this comes up.

Under the current AFL deal...they give each club $14m in grants every year.

Their cap is $7.85m

I see no reason that we cannot get AFL tv deal type money...at the very least what deal they got last time.

If we get that...this should be where we are at as far as players. Increase the squad size to 35. Increase minimum player payment to $125k, and increase the cap to $7m. Therefore leaving $7m for remaining expenses. Also means we can reduce the price of memberships as we wouldn't be solely reliant on that income.

Good post.

With thinking like that Big Mick you should be in charge of the NRL.

Hold on a second..... you are making too much sense to be in charge of the NRL.:lol:

 

[babyg]

Worth looking at. There has to be a carrot and that will be either $$ or the timeframe.

I'd offer them the Friday night double header and the Sunday game only and the rest can be offered up after 2012. Up for grabs to all networks:

State of Origin - Ch7 or Ch9 can fight it out
Saturday night FTA game
Monday night footy - FTA or fox
Anzac games, Charity shield etc


I reckon they should put OneHD up against Foxsports for the rest. If fox try to screw them again, then we could have all NRL on FTA.

 

[jasonstevenswedgie]

What and end up in the same situation 3 years down the road. We are paying the price for our poor bargaining skills last time round

 

[sharko]

What and end up in the same situation 3 years down the road. We are paying the price for our poor bargaining skills last time round

It was not poor bargaining skills last time round..it was David Gallop (News Ltd lawyer and highy paid employee of News ltd) negotiating on behalf of the clubs with his employer or recent former employer. Both those parties thought it was great deal for them, Gallop because he is a News Ltd lackey and News Ltd because they got the highest rating code for a huge discount.
If Gallop is involved with the tv deal again then there will again be massive conflict of interest which will be to the detriment of league.

 

[nrlnrl]

If fox try to screw them again, then we could have all NRL on FTA.

well at least the crowds would go up then, because more games would be on delay & not live - that sounds like a winner

 

[saint pebba]

What and end up in the same situation 3 years down the road. We are paying the price for our poor bargaining skills last time round

How would we end up in the same position?

If we could get another 50 million a year the salary cap and grant could both be around 6.25 mil each year.

This would allow the minimum wage to go up $50k and the stars of the game could earn around $200k a season more.

 

[Goddo]

No, if we sell ourselves short we will again fall into the trap of not keeping up with inflation. The last deal seemed okay in the first year, but now we are getting to the back end of it it is woefully inadequate. Better to ride out the pain in the next year or two and have a big pay day in 2013

 

[Bulldog Force]

I say this everytime this comes up.

Under the current AFL deal...they give each club $14m in grants every year.

Their cap is $7.85m

I see no reason that we cannot get AFL tv deal type money...at the very least what deal they got last time.

If we get that...this should be where we are at as far as players. Increase the squad size to 35. Increase minimum player payment to $125k, and increase the cap to $7m. Therefore leaving $7m for remaining expenses. Also means we can reduce the price of memberships as we wouldn't be solely reliant on that income.

Surely someone like Heka Nanai isn't worth that much...?

 

[Talanexor]

Why do we need to increase the minimum wage? Surely most clubs would prefer to use the extra money to keep their stars instead of beefing up the pay packets of their worst players.

 

[saint pebba]

No, if we sell ourselves short we will again fall into the trap of not keeping up with inflation. The last deal seemed okay in the first year, but now we are getting to the back end of it it is woefully inadequate. Better to ride out the pain in the next year or two and have a big pay day in 2013

and then by 2017 we will be in the same boat as we are this year.

Any new deal must include a 3% increase year to allow for inflation just as the cap should allow for this.

 

[saint pebba]

Why do we need to increase the minimum wage? Surely most clubs would prefer to use the extra money to keep their stars instead of beefing up the pay packets of their worst players.

beacuse smashing your body up everyweek is a job worth alot more than 55k.

it should at least 100k.

 

[jasonstevenswedgie]

It was not poor bargaining skills last time round..it was David Gallop (News Ltd lawyer and highy paid employee of News ltd) negotiating on behalf of the clubs with his employer or recent former employer. Both those parties thought it was great deal for them, Gallop because he is a News Ltd lackey and News Ltd because they got the highest rating code for a huge discount.
If Gallop is involved with the tv deal again then there will again be massive conflict of interest which will be to the detriment of league.

yes poor bargaining by gallop on behalf of the clubs and players.
we signed a deal early because the previous one was grossly undervalued and we need the money.

I like your idea of a % increase each year but shouldnt it be inflation+ x amount to cover the value increase of the rights for each of the five years. That way our revenue pool grows each year instead of staying the same or shrinking in monetry value

 

[Goddo]

and then by 2017 we will be in the same boat as we are this year.

Any new deal must include a 3% increase year to allow for inflation just as the cap should allow for this.

Not if the next deal gives the game what its worth, we can increase the cap to $6m.

By going early you are giving all the negotiating power to News Ltd and Channel 9. How did that work out last time?

We need competition for the rights, not a closed door deal like you are suggesting. As I said, we are better riding the pain of the next couple of years out in order to hold all the bargaining power at the next deal. The NRL should be dictating terms, splitting the game into packages and creating a bidding war to ensure top dollar is payed for the TV rights, rather than an inhouse blowjob for News Ltd.

 

[Lockyer4President!]

Why are we focussing on making the salary cap $6 million in particular? Isn't the AFL cap $7M atm (granted their squads are larger)? We should be aiming for $10M because I doubt that they'll be keeping their cap at that level...

Wouldn't mind seeing special concessions given to clubs that sign players from other codes, we could finally kill off professional Union in Aus and NZ...

 

[Big Mick]

We should be aiming for $10M

No...we shouldn't.

$7m will be enough considering there will be about $2m worth of concessions included in a new salary cap system. I.e. Discount on players for loyalty, junior concessions, concessions for replacing an injured veteran.

Also on top of that better international rep payments.

Don't need more than $7m.

 

[Lockyer4President!]

No...we shouldn't.

$7m will be enough considering there will be about $2m worth of concessions included in a new salary cap system. I.e. Discount on players for loyalty, junior concessions, concessions for replacing an injured veteran.

Also on top of that better international rep payments.

Don't need more than $7m.

"No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

I don't think that other codes will rest on their laurels, if we rest on ours we run the risk of being caught in a similar situation. I'm not saying that $10M is the magic number but if we're aiming to be where others codes already are then we're just playing catch-up and we won't end up getting anywhere.

 

[applesauce]

"No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

I don't think that other codes will rest on their laurels, if we rest on ours we run the risk of being caught in a similar situation. I'm not saying that $10M is the magic number but if we're aiming to be where others codes already are then we're just playing catch-up and we won't end up getting anywhere.

Bang on the money.

The NRL need to at least get ahead of the AFL for a year or 2 in the salary cap. We need to have more $ to keep our players than the 2nd division French rugby at least for gods sake.

Then as the codes (AFL V NRL) keep on trying to out do each others prices the networks will need to take the higher rater more seriously and choose the higher tv rating sport (they aren't an endless money stream). This way networks might need to finally give RL the kind of money it deserves and stop inflating the AFL coffers.