Peter V’landys Q&A: NRL expansion favourite revealed

In a wide-ranging interview with Phil Rothfield, ARLC chair Peter V’landys reveals the favourite to snare the game’s 18th licence, while adressing the bush footy crisis. WATCH PVL’s exclusive interview.

Peter V’landys has hit back at the knockers of the NRL’s Las Vegas adventure, revealing it is part of a long-term plan for rugby league to build a $1 billion asset base.

In a wide-ranging interview, V’landys also talks of his hopes to bring back the North Sydney Bears as part of expansion, a funding plan for desperate country rugby league clubs and plans to cash in on the game’s next television deal.

On the Bears, he says: “It makes sense that we bring them back in some capacity – they’ve got to be in the equation.”

BUZZ: How’s Las Vegas looking? Some narks out there are half bagging it.

PVL: I appreciate the narks because it motivates you. It motivates you to prove them wrong. I can sit back and do nothing and watch the game because it’s doing exceptionally well and rest on my laurels. But I’d be negligent in my duties if I did that.

If you’re the chairman of the game, you’ve got to look at growth. You’ve got to look at how you’re going to improve the game, how are you going to get new revenues. And the one market that we’ve never really attacked is America. There’s 340 million people in the US.

Peter V'landys wants the Bears back in the NRL

We have 25 million in Australia. When we were looking at Amazon and Apple and all those big players, they kept saying to me, why would we be interested in you when there’s 40 million people in California? And I thought to myself, they’re right in a sense. We’re in a small market. Imagine if we could capture a big market, and even if we got 1 per cent of the American market, we’d have more subscribers in America than we would in Australia on broadcast.

So it’s a big challenge and you can’t do it in one go.

BUZZ: Will you lose money?

PVL: That depends on how you look at losing money. Sometimes you have a loss leader, where you invest money to get money into the future. So it will cost us money this year, but probably no more than what it used to be to launch the season.

BUZZ: I guess if we didn’t have the change you’re talking about, we’d still have 10 or 12 Sydney-based NSWRL teams. State of Origin wouldn’t have happened. We’d still be having interstate blowouts. Everyone bagged Origin back in 1980 – said it was an exhibition game.

PVL: Exactly. The first thing that I learned is to turn Twitter off. The majority of people aren’t represented on social media. I can tell you that for a fact, because everywhere I go, I get a different version. And every poll that we do provides a different version. But any game that doesn’t try to improve itself to get the new demographics will perish. There’s examples of that everywhere, where you’ve seen organisations that have just sat back, hoped for the best, and then perished.

BUZZ: I sat there with you at The Everest as Sweet Caroline was being played. I asked you then, is this your greatest achievement as an administrator? Could Las Vegas be rugby league’s Everest? I’m talking long term. I’m not talking three weekends away.

PVL: I think in six or seven years, people will sit back and say, geez, how good was that? I’m very confident of the initiative. But like anything else, if you don’t implement it right, it’s going to fail. The beauty about The Everest is that it was implemented, I think in the best possible premium manner. And we attracted a certain market. We attracted the under-30s. And it’s the same with Vegas. We’re going to get people that like sport.

You’re also going to make revenue out of sports wagering. Sports wagering in America is booming. I mean, they take $200 million in turnover on ping pong, because it’s such a big market. So they’re going to love betting on rugby league.

BUZZ: So what’s successful – 40,000 people in the stadium?

PVL: The crowd is not what’s going to be successful for me. The whole idea of it is to sell our broadcast. Now we’ve got a product called Watch NRL. And it’s a premium product made by Fox. When I was over in the US at the White House, there were some big VIPs there from Australia.

And every one of them that lived in America came and told me how good the Watch NRL app was. I don’t want to tell Matty Johns this, but they loved all the shows, especially the Matty Johns, Cooper Cronk show.

The NRL is targeting millions of potential followers in the US.

It made me think … we only have 3000 subscriptions in America. I was told no one knows about the app. So the whole idea is to promote it with this game. If we can sell a million subscriptions over five years, you’re going to be generating significant revenues and that’s the whole purpose of this, is to get the new market of people watching. Now there’s 300,000 Australians living in the US, even if you’ve got 150,000 of those, that’s $25m additional revenue each year.

BUZZ: And being live on Fox over there … this event is going to be huge for that sort of awareness?

PVL: Without that we couldn’t do it. For people that don’t know how big Fox One is, it’s the biggest sports channel in America. It’s got 220 million subscribers – and we’re going to be live in peak time with our game. And now that strategy is to try to get one game a week on Fox One. If we can do that, your subscriptions are going to come in very, very quickly.

BUZZ: Peter, please don’t have one of your referee crackdowns. That grand final referee – he let the game flow – it was beautiful. It’s gotta be a great spectacle for the US fans.

PVL: No look – I think the game has really evolved well with the rule changes. In the first year, people were getting used to it. But now that everyone’s used to it and it’s sped the game up … I’m a statistics man. You know, we’ve gone to 59 minutes of play. That’s what you want – the consistent play. Rugby union, which I don’t want to kick someone while they’re down – is 33 minutes. You’re getting a lot more entertainment value out of rugby league.

BUZZ: Let’s talk expansion. There’s talk PNG will be announced as 18th team later this year.

PVL: PNG is the favourite. One of the guys I look up to who has been a leader of the game for many years is Nick Politis. I met Nick just before I got on to the commission. He says we should have 20 teams. You’ve got to listen to a successful businessman with his rugby league knowledge. We might not stop at 18. At the end of the day, it’s the broadcasters that pay for it with extra product. As long as we’ve got the talent. That’s why we’re now investing so much on pathways and participation. The idea is to have more boys and girls playing.

BUZZ: Please tell me you’re going to include the North Sydney Bears?

PVL: Everywhere I go, that always the question … when are you bringing back the Bears? I didn’t realise they had so many old fans.

BUZZ: Ten and tens of thousands that we lost from the game.

PVL: As I said, it’s the most commonly asked question. They’ve got to be in the equation. They can’t be standalone in Sydney because there’s too many already. However, they can certainly be part of a new team, whether it be in Perth, the Pacific, wherever. They’re so passionate and you want that.

BUZZ: Come on, tell me, will you bring them back?

PVL: I’m only one decision maker.

BUZZ: But you’re a very influential decision maker.

PVL: It makes sense that we bring them back in some capacity, because they’ve got 200,000 members. That’s important. We brought the Dolphins in as 17th team because they were bringing new fans into the game, not people following the Broncos. They did a study and showed they’d bring all these new people to rugby league. That’s vital. You want to bring the casual viewer in to become an engaged fan. The Bears have got that.

BUZZ: Crystal ball. Ten years. We’re back at North Sydney Oval. Not every week.

PVL: Well in 10 years’ time, I would think we’ll have 20 teams.

BUZZ: You’re a busy man running Racing NSW and the NRL. How long can you keep doing two such high pressure jobs.

PVL: It could never be any worse than it was during Covid. The hours I put in … I don’t know how I did it myself. It was a lot of work and a lot of stress. It’s nowhere near as work intensive now. I’ve got a very good CEO at the NRL. I can monitor things rather than be hands-on.

BUZZ: I want to ask you about Andrew Abdo. He’s got his critics. He’s been kicked a bit over the last six months. The RLPA dispute. You had to come in and fix it. Last week, you had to step in and sort out the clubs and their problem with Vegas. Is he doing a good job?

PVL: Andrew Abdo is one of the best CEOs I’ve ever worked with. Andrew is trying to do his best for rugby league at all times. His intention is right, but he gets into arguments with people. It’s easy for me to come in at the end after all the arguments. The emotion has taken over the common sense. You take the emotion away, compromise a little bit, and get a deal done. By the time I get there, they’re fatigued. That’s what chairs are for – to come in and assist with the process. We all have weaknesses. I certainly do. Andrew needs to work on those areas he’s not strong on. But the game is very fortunate to have him.

Peter V'landys says the game is in good hands under Andrew Abdo’s guidance. Picture: Matt King/Getty Images

BUZZ: NRL finances. You’re building a nice asset base. A resort on the Sunshine Coast, a hotel in Cronulla and a restaurant/hotel in Brisbane. This is impressive, especially as other sports like the A-League and rugby union are on their knees.

PVL: When Covid hit we had no assets. We were months off not being able to pay our bills. With no assets you can’t borrow any money. Lending institutions want security. If we get another emergency we don’t want to go through the stress and drama to survive. The RLPA and the clubs have been great partners in both agreeing in this cycle to have $300m worth of assets. We’re united. In 10 years, I hope it’s well in excess of a $1 billion. That’s what we’re aiming for. We’ve got a hotel strategy and we’re looking at another big one. We’ve got some brilliant business minds involved in the game.

BUZZ: It’s great to have all this money, but I worry about bush footy. Wagga was once a great rugby league town. Laurie Daley’s team in Junee has fallen over. Can we pump some of this investment money into the bush.

PVL: I grew up in country rugby league. There was a real buzz about it. We want to get back to that. People tell me it’s not necessarily money, but people migrating out of country towns. I don’t buy that. I’m looking at it now. We’ve developed a new organisation call Participation Australia to look after the entire country. I’m also looking at some direct funding for some of the country clubs. The NSWRL and QRL run the competitions, but they don’t fund the clubs. I want to change that. Even money for registrations, insurance, footballs and jumpers.

One of the things we’ve previously dropped the ball on is schools. We’ve put on a lot of new development officers to get the relationship back with schools. To their credit, the AFL had a strategy where they did a major investment in schools well.

BUZZ: You’ve achieved so much as an administrator but there’s one thing you haven’t got over the line – funding for Sydney’s suburban grounds. Shark Park holds 13,000. Can you please do something about it.

PVL: We’ve done better than what we get credit for. The previous government reneged on $800m but gave us $500m – $300m for Penrith and the rest for centres of excellence.

I think the new premier (Chris Minns) is as good a person as I’ve met in politics. He’s a very impressive guy. And a can-do man. He’s got a budget repair job at the moment, which he’s trying to fix. But I’ve told him point-blank we need money for Shark Park, at the very minimum for a centre of excellence. He’s got other priorities, but we’ll get there.

BUZZ: This time every year we run the story that we’re going to move the grand final out of Sydney.

PVL: The grand final is our greatest asset. Every state in Australia wants it. So you’ve got to look at selling it. You’ve known me for a long time … I don’t bluff. My job is to make sure the game gets as much revenue and profit as we can.

BUZZ: What about the next TV deal. It’s not up until 2027, but I’m sure you’re already thinking about it. I saw last year Channel 7 wants Origin.

PVL: Free to air is not where we get our main source of revenue. It comes from subscription television.

The way people are watching sport is changing quickly and they are moving away from traditional TVs to other devices and subscribe to the content they want to watch.

The product fee sport we receive will depend on the subscriptions and the advertising from those platforms.