Second NRL club in Brisbane should not come at the expense of a Sydney team
There are good reasons to place a second NRL team in Brisbane — but to do so at the expense of one of the Sydney clubs would mean a damaging blow to the code’s biggest strength, writes PAUL KENT.
Opinion
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Robbie Farah has a sense for the dramatic that has not been seen since William Webb Ellis first picked up a soccer ball and dared rivals to mow him down on the way through.
Farah came to notice for the wider public when he plucked a can from the esky several years back and made his way around to the Leichhardt Oval scoreboard for a Sunday afternoon farewell that made all the papers.
In light of that, the popular gag at Tigers training this week is that Sunday’s game won’t start until the ambulance backs up to the race and, with Eye of the Tiger blaring, the back doors spring open and Farah leaps from the gurney onto the playing field.
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Channel 9 won’t be showing it, though.
As only rugby league can, Channel 9 boss Tom Malone called for the NRL to sack one of its Sydney teams over the weekend to bring in a second Brisbane team, saying there was not enough talent to expand to 18 teams.
Within 24 hours Malone got his receipt when it emerged Fox Sports’ Wests Tigers-Cronulla game at 2pm will decide the top eight while Nine’s Panthers-Knights 4pm game will be background noise in some pub.
Malone called the NRL and asked that the games be swapped around.
The NRL, still smarting from his claim a day earlier, could not hang up the phone quick enough.
Malone is lightly experienced in sport and should not be hanged for pushing the interests of his employer, but what he suggests is madness.
The narrative going around town that nine clubs in Sydney is too many overlooks the legitimate fact Sydney is the biggest sporting market in Australia and that nine NRL teams gives the game a lock in Sydney the other codes are all attempting to break.
As one NRL official said, “That’s the strength of the game.”
It would be crazy to kill a Sydney club for the sake of, what?
Did we learn anything from Super League?
The NRL is currently undergoing a review to determine what the game’s footprint should look like.
In the past, expansion has become topical whenever a consortium has decided they should have a second Brisbane team or a Perth side or someone playing out of Central Queensland and they put a bid together and pressure applied.
This time, the NRL is driving it.
Rather than land a team in Perth and finding there is little financial support the game is doing a costing.
There are two components to consider.
The first is whether there is value for the TV broadcasters.
It does not sit easily with some fans but the reality is 60 per cent of the game’s revenue comes from the broadcasters. To follow through any plan the NRL must determine these new markets will add incremental value to the broadcast deal, both current and future.
If not, forget it.
The second is whether the new markets bring a similar incremental value through sponsorships, memberships and fans that would justify the extra expense of the extra teams.
Already clubs get $13 million annually from the game. There is no point committing to that, plus running costs, if the income does not at least match it.
The report is expected to be finished by the year’s end but a preliminary report will go to the ARL Commission late next month.
Early analysis supports a second team in Brisbane. There is value in relation to broadcast money. There is interest in the potential for a game every weekend in Brisbane although, under the uncertainties of the draw, if there can be a round with no weekend game in Sydney there can certainly be a game-free weekend
The Central Coast is no hope because it brings little more than population. Strong juniors don’t mean strong football clubs. Their lack of corporate money is fatal.
There is evidence of life in Perth, with some broadcast appeal, but deeper analysis of the costs involved in not only flying teams in and out of Perth each week, but also broadcast costs, are yet to be considered.
Arguments about a lack of talent also fail under cross examination.
While there would obviously be some dilution in talent — it is impossible to go from 16 teams to 18 teams without it — it also holds true that while ever that thinking remains the game can never expand.
This time, and it doesn’t often get said here, the game is leading the thinking.
And what the NRL remains sure of, though, is that nine Sydney teams works.