State of Origin 2016: Queensland and NSW are the losers in NRL’s Origin sale

HOW much money is enough for rugby league to generate from its State of Origin machine? The answer is, how much are you willing to pay?

HOW much money is enough for rugby league to generate from its State of Origin machine?

How much income is enough for the ARL Commission to allow it to stage Origin matches in the states that contest them and care what the results will be?

The answer to both questions is a brazen, unemotional one: “Well, how much are you willing to pay?’’

Maroons and Blues fans will be the ones to miss out — or pay up.

NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg’s disclosure to The Courier-Mail that as many as one Origin match a year might be taken to markets other than Queensland and NSW also serves as a reminder to the state governments in the two major league states.

The Palaszczuk Government has to decide — and decide soon — how much they would be willing to bid for a third game in any season.

The AFL has never played a grand final outside Melbourne and the NRL has agreed to play 20 straight grand finals at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium after first playing as many as four grand finals in Brisbane and other cities during a stadium rebuild.

Yet State of Origin fits the view of some at the NRL as the ideal product to take to developing markets willing to pay a multimillion-dollar event fee.

The NRL achieved a 70 per cent increase in free-to-air television rights alone for the years 2018-2022, which will be the bare minimum period which the league will soon schedule Origin matches.

Asked if every decision in rugby league has to come down to maximising income, QRL managing director Rob Moore said: “I don’t think it does, but it contributes.

“It’s a big part economically of the game, outside broadcast revenues. It’s the money that gets invested back into the game.

“In this day and age most things will have an element of economics in the discussions.’’

Moore reckons discussions with the NRL about Origin match allocation from 2018 onwards will probably start in mid-July.

So the clock is ticking for the Palaszczuk Government to conclude how much they value Origin as a community asset and as a tourism magnet.

The State Government has either been deaf or resistant to pleas from Suncorp Stadium hirers to spend as little as $10 million on putting in public wi-fi in and replacing its 13-year-old video screens.

These issues have been included in ongoing talks with the NRL over the State Government’s wish for Brisbane to host one or two grand finals in the years when ANZ Stadium is unavailable.

Inside one of the new Suncorp Stadium corporate suites.

It’s a disincentive for the NRL to bring major events to Suncorp Stadium with its current facilities if their corporate clients do not have a level of facility or technology which is available at interstate stadiums.

The State Government’s Stadiums Queensland funded renovation last year for corporate boxes in the Castlemaine St grandstand.

It was a start — the Hale St stand corporate facilities are basically as they were in the 2003 redevelopment.

Some Palaszczuk Government ministers “get it’’. Not enough yet, though. Hopefully they do, soon.

There’s merit to say that the current cycle in which one Origin match every three years is about the right balance in taking a game to another state (or country) while servicing the states who play Origin.

But that’s not a discussion either the Queensland or NSW Governments can win anymore.

Originally published as State of Origin 2016: Queensland and NSW are the losers in NRL’s Origin sale