ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys has rejected claims report warned against new team

ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys has rejected claims a two-year-old report warned against a 17th team entering the competition.

Australian Rugby League chair Peter V'landys is poised to hold a tense meeting with Gold Coast Titans Picture: Jonathan Ng

ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys has hit out at claims a two-year-old report compiled by the NRL raised concerns over adding a 17th team to the premiership as he prepares to meet the game’s most outspoken club on expansion, the Gold Coast Titans.

The report, put together by the NRL’s senior manager of strategic projects Lachlan Smith, was given to the ARL Commission in October 2019 after then-chief executive Todd Greenberg orchestrated a deep dive into the game’s footprint and future planning.

In an email to club chief executives 12 months earlier, Greenberg had told them the report would investigate whether the game’s footprint was optimal and what the game should look like in 50 years.

The report was at the centre of a story in The Weekend Australian in which Gold Coast chair Dennis Watt urged the NRL to make it public to help determine whether the game is ripe for expansion.

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Several sources with knowledge of the report said it warned of the perils of expansion. Watt said he had heard similar suggestions but V’landys, who will meet Titans officials on the Gold Coast on Wednesday as part of his club visits across the NRL, couldn’t hide his disappointment at what he said were inaccurate representations of Smith’s previous investigation.

“Their understanding of the report is completely inaccurate,” V’landys said.

“What they have been told and what is in the report is completely inaccurate and we are disappointed that they would release second-hand information that is inaccurate.”

The Gold Coast have taken a conservative approach to expansion and their hesitancy is understandable given they more than any other club have something to lose from another team in southeast Queensland.

Watt has voiced his fears that the club will be locked in a battle with a 17th team for sponsors, fans and players. It is an issue he and his owners Darryl Kelly and the Frizelle family are set to take up with V’landys and NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo when they meet on the Gold Coast on Wednesday.

The meeting promises to be a tense given the Titans’ outspoken stance on expansion and their view on the 2019 report, which was never publicly aired and is unlikely to be shared with the clubs given another report has since been commissioned.

The imminent meeting with the Titans comes as Manly owner Scott Penn once again raised the prospect of a new franchise potentially paying a fee to join the competition.

Penn, who has ploughed millions into the Sea Eagles to keep the club alive, believes the clubs have entered a golden age as their values sky rocket under the new structure, that means they are among the shareholders in the game.

Recent private equity investments in sports across the globe have given the NRL and their clubs an indication of the value of their organisations. Penn believes the game itself would be conservatively worth north of $1 billion, which would mean each existing club’s share would be valued at more than $40 million.

Any new club would need to be made a shareholder and as such, would in effect be given a slice of the game’s valuation. Penn believes they need to show they would generate enough revenue to justify their stake in the game, or they should be forced to pay a fee of some description for the right to enter the premiership.

“This all goes to the value of 17th and 18th teams should they come in and whether they are financially viable for the game, ” Penn said.

“The reality is we are only going to do it if it is going to be financially (beneficial). No-one wants to go backwards. If we look at some of the numbers being purported out there in the media at the moment around the All Blacks and Australian Rugby, where people are talking somewhere between $2-3 billion, then you go if the NRL is far superior as a league to both of those, what is the NRL worth?

“Even if you just look at the back of an envelope and said the league was worth $1 billion and there were 18 members who own the game – the 16 clubs and two state bodies … you have $50 million (per club) and change.

“On that basis, a club should be worth $50 million. So what I am saying is … if a club wants to come and have a seat at the table, they have to be stumping up.

“If you have a new person who wants to be a shareholder, they either take over an existing share or they buy in at that rate. If clubs are worth $50 million, that is what they need to be paying.

“That is a conversation that needs to happen.”