The Rocket

20 odd years ago Oz hosting the union WC was big news. The announcement today of Australia hosting it in 2027 only got a small story on the front of the Sydney Morning Herald and didn`t even make the front page in the national broadsheet The Australian. There were three smallish articles on the front page of the sports section in The Oz, two of them negative; " Is this the decision that cements rugby as elitist? " and " Hosting World Cup won`t count for much if we don`t win " Good luck with that.

Nice sponsorship announcement in there as well. Digicel PNG is pleased to officially announce its sponsorship of the country’s National Rugby League Teams, the PNG Kumuls men’s team and the PNG Orchids women’s team. Our commitment to PNG’s national sport is our commitment to the people of Papua New Guinea and I am proud to announce that Digicel PNG will sponsor over K6 million in the next 3 years as part of our platinum sponsorship for both our National Rugby League teams and flag bearers, the PNG Kumuls and PNG Orchids, respectively. That`s about $2.5 million Australian or 1.5m pound over three years. Digicel announce sponsorship of PNG Orchids and Kumuls - Asia Pacific Rugby League (asiapacificrl.com)

Yep and I suppose the hope is, that`s what IMG can bring to the table.

It`s a funny thing that and I`ve seen it said many times by our English compatriots that the Kiwis are competitive with the Australians when the figures and the general consensus over here plainly contradicts it. I do wonder, and no offence to the English posters, that when you have a situation like theirs where the English team is literally light years ahead of most of its` NH rivals, the occasional victory by the Kiwi`s, and now the Tongans, over the Australians should be viewed as compulsory competitive International Rugby League. As I said in my last post it is going to take a lot, lot more than that before the vast majority of League and non-League fans over here view it otherwise. It was thirty years of Origin being neck and neck that allowed it to accommodate the 9 years of Queensland dominance.

The biggest concern I see for this is going to be the ability to pay for it, there`s no point sticking our head in the sand about this but the RFL are skint and even though it may be a sound long term investment, can they afford it now. On the other hand, English soccer I have no doubt can absorb the cost of the occasional unprofitable international. Players from both sides are going expected to be paid, probably the English than anyone, and there will be all the associated costs with running the game. It is very likely also that the crowd won`t be large and it may have limited value as a TV product. The RFL can`t afford to be running loss making tournaments at the moment no matter what the long-term benefits. Now, by how much and for how long IMG may be willing to subsidise this, that`s speculating that they are and it is a twelve year agreement after all, remains to be seen. No on consideration maybe apart from something against France which may be break even, I think like the press release said their plan will be to reengage with the NRL and through them the Pacific National teams.

This could change very quickly though I suspect if NZ, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji can reach their potential. If the Kiwis, who I think are the most likely, can start beating us as often or more often than we beat them Australian audiences will sit up and take notice pretty quickly. Union does not have a mortgage on Bledisloe Cup size crowds and ratings in either country if the Kiwi`s in League are seriously and consistently competitive. Like it or not there is a credibility gap with international League that is going to take a while to correct, but once corrected it will pretty quickly feed into crowds, ratings and broadcast rights value. The bad news for SL/IMG is that it will cost more to entice them up there, the good news, they will be worth more, when and if they do.

Everyone seems to conveniently forget that there would have been a Kangaroo Tour in 2019. Certainly putting a man in charge who went on four Kangaroo Tours, Mal Meninga, only supports the argument that the NRL wanted to reinstate this as regular fixture every four years. For Christs sakes we got a Kangaroo front of shirt sponsor, Gallaghers, a multinational British based insurance company, for the first time in donkey`s years probably on the back of the Kangaroo Tour and the World Cup and an on-going reengagement with international Rugby League. That leaves only two vacant end-of-seasons every four years. They`re the two you are going to have to fill. Perhaps: no touring SH Test teams following WC years; Kangaroo tour second year ( four year cycle) and third year maybe you can lure the Kiwis or one of the Pacific nations up for a month long tournament and fourth year WC again. The IMG statement very clearly stated in point three and four; #SuperLeague relegation could be scrapped Big invesment in streaming More focus on international matches Closer ties with Australia's NRL Personally I would have thought that point four would come before point three, but if this IMG is the $2 billion dollar company I`m hearing, if they come to the NRL waving a big enough carrot, given V`landy`s nose for a carrot, they will make it work somehow, but it`ll want to be a juicy carrot because I doubt he`ll do it out of the goodness of his heart.

It`s an interesting point Dave, I think it depends upon how we view the women`s comp. We had the Women`s game over here on at 2p.m. Sunday, directly before the men`s game at 4p.m. both televised on FTA. I initially though the 2p.m. slot was a bit of a graveyard time slot but in the end the ratings came in very strong for a new comp. I eventually came to the conclusion that obviously people were finding it easy to come inside just two hours early for their Sunday afternoon League fix. Having said that my initial concerns were supported by the fact that they weren`t getting great crowds which I wasn`t happy about because it`s not much fun I don`t imagine playing in front of near empty stadiums. Funny enough I posted on here somewhere how pleased I was when the ratings figures came out because at least the girls would know they had a pretty significant audience on TV. I`m hoping as the comp matures that supporting the women`s team will become as important as supporting the men`s and those fans will make the trip a bit earlier, this rather than the girl`s game being seen as the warm-up act. On your daughter it`s a funny thing I even discouraged my daughter from hanging around the League jocks at school because I thought they would be a bad influence with her studies. I`d take my boys to the League but not her. I let her play soccer and she was a real little tiger, in there boots and all. Now that I`ve had my eyes opened with the women`s comp and how so many of the girls come across as really polite and well-mannered I regret my decision, even if she had only gone down the path of refereeing or something else League related if she wanted to. I took her to a Group Three game last time she was home and she loved it, so it appears I hadn`t turned her off it for life.

Yeah sure mate, as I said I don`t know a lot about your stadiums and if the location is a problem you`d know that better than me. But the one thing I did like about what I`ve seen of the York stadium, and why I mentioned it, is that it is so fresh and new looking, and I think that as the Women`s League offers us an opportunity to present the game in a whole new light I think the shiny new stadium would fit right in with that narrative. When I say new light and I`m sure you are aware of this but I mean the way the women`s game is being played, `breath of fresh air ` is an expression I`ve seen used and used myself with regard our Women`s comp. I think the same can even be said of the way the women interview, I think you`ll agree the whole thing could hopefully be a whole new way of marketing and introducing people to the sport. Something I`ll admit I never would have picked in a million years if you asked me two years ago.

Get the stadium right it could be brilliant, don`t know a lot about your stadiums but I reckon that one at York looks the goods for a stand-alone Women`s final with a crowd of 8-10 000.

Saturday's @Betfred #ChallengeCup Semi-Final between @WiganWarriorsRL and @Saints1890 peaked at over 1 million viewers and pulled in the highest audience share in the UK for any game of Rugby League since the 2017 World Cup Final.. Worth clicking on the Betfred Challenge Cup there`s loads of highlights and nice stories in there.

@saints1890women kicked off a huge day of Rugby League action as they retained the @Betfred Women's #ChallengeCup title in front of a record UK crowd of 5,888 at Elland Road this afternoon! So nearly six thousand turned up early for the Women`s match. Very positive.

That`s an interesting one. Certainly the numbers around streaming were vague in the past especially since Fox League had no need to reveal them because they were advert free and there was no advantage in revealing them. Having said that I think that even three years ago the amount of people streaming was negligible compared to today. This is backed up by Foxtel having continually updated its` ratio of streaming to STB from around .43 to .89 over the last six months. In fact the recent Warriors v. Storm game had streaming actually out-rated STB 298 000 to 279 000. A sign of the times perhaps. But probably the best explanation I`ve heard is that the explosion of people subscribing to Foxtel`s NRL ( amongst other sports ) streaming service Kayo, up to 1.51m subscribers recently, means that many people who were previously only viewing a one, a couple or all of the three C9`s FTA games are now watching a lot more NRL having access now to all 8 matches through Kayo. Which at $25 per month is a fraction of Fox League STB.

I think that we`ve had a few pretty major upsets which has really lead to that rebound. There used to be a time in the NRL when upsets were pretty common, in fact the League was known for it. Unfortunately we seem to have got away from that the last few years, last weekend whilst we had pretty major boil overs in the first two games the rest unfortunately were pretty ordinary and even predictable. If that keeps I fear the numbers might drop. Nothing like not knowing the result to keep people tuning in.

I think the increase in hours is purely reflective of the fact people are watching more games. The hours watched is one of the strengths of our main competitor because their games go for considerably longer, more opportunity for adverts and sponsors to be seen. But from the figures I saw we are closing that gap as well, and all that with one less game per week.

Excellent figures and all the better considering one of our teams majority fan base is located overseas. Interestingly for the first time this week I saw some figures out of NZ. Despite being data from 2018 ( the only information available ) they are indicative of probably what they are now - despite the Warriors being woeful at times. In 2018 the Warriors averaged ~130 000 per game and games featuring other teams ~25 000 mark, you add that up over the course of the year I think it comes in around 7 500 000 views, that`s a lot when you consider that is only their NZ fan base and in total that year I think we came in around 111 000 000 regular season views. Read something interesting recently about the slipping of Origin numbers over recent years. One theory said the slippage had occurred in conjunction with the retirement of Queensland`s golden age and the associated superstars. Kind of made sense I thought. There is an added element now too with Fittler and Slate going head to head. I`m hoping with Billy Slater in charge and the rise of Ponga/ Grant/Munster/Walker/ Cobbo etc we may start to see numbers rebuild as people, especially Queenslanders, tune again in to see these superstars.

That would be viewers, however it is worth noting that for each game whilst you would have supporters of both teams and then third parties who just watch out of interest, certainly some of these may watch more than one game throughout the weekend. So despite there being 5 233 000 viewers for round 8, there may be individuals in there who watch more than one game and therefore are counted more than once. Despite this, it is the headline figure that all codes battle for bragging rights over throughout the year despite this being only one aspect in determining advertising rates and attractiveness for sponsorships.

Put this up not as a point scoring opportunity rather to show what a bumper year the NRL are having. I think round 9 came in over 5 million as well. 633k year average for the NRL up to the end of round 8. 588k year average for the AFL. NRL NRL 2022 NRL 2021 NRL 2019 NRL R1 5.332m 5.117m 4.045m NRL R2 4.587 4.633 3.8 NRL R3 5.052 4.52 3.721 NRL R4 4.967 4.57 3.783 NRL R5 4.773 4.908 3.671 NRL R6 4.94 4.577 4.119 NRL R7 5.682 4.766 4.344 NRl R8 5.233 4.548 3.693 Total 40566000 33091000 27483000 Average 633,844 517,047 429,422 Hours 67,339,560 54,931,060 45,621,780 % inc/dec 2021 22.59% % inc/dec 2019 47.60%

I read in on an Aussie site that posts League (mostly NRL) stuff, I straight away came over to TRL forum to see whether it was up, couldn`t see it anywhere so I stuck it up here, I`m really pleased for you all, I think it`s a great result, and the women`s result I though was brilliant. Great result, there`s life in the old girl yet.

Sorry if this has already been posted. Strong figures for @TheChallengeCup on @BBCSport yesterday. 900k peak watched Wigan v Sts, averaged at 700k. Women’s final peaked at 300k, with average 200k. Huddersfield v HullKR peaked at 700k and averaged at 600k. I thought it looked pretty good.

I saw the same thing done by our main competitor the other day where the total profit was almost totally made up by a Gov`t grant. However I suppose as long as it is clearly itemised then it`s not hard to deduce the real underlying profit. However having said that, any headline figure quoted in the media or where ever could be misleading, but hey they`re businesses aren`t they, honesty and openness are often what you can get away with. As far as writing it down, wouldn`t that be more appropriate for the asset that it was used to build rather than the income generated, or in this case given as a grant, that was used to pay for the construction of said asset.

Spot on mate, if anything now the League`s clubs have become a lender of last resort to most of the Rugby League side of operation only tipping in money during a bad year when there is a short fall. Ironically given the wealth of some of our Leagues club, many owning extensive property and other investments worth literally 10`s & 10`s of millions of dollars, I feel like they don`t put enough into the Rugby League side of things. Many, as you note have become way, way more than that now and are a valuable social hub in many communities and are entertainment and service providing conglomerates in their own right. I say hats off to the people who one hundred years ago at the time of the nascent Rugby League competition in Australia had the foresight to buy property and form social clubs to be based around their Rugby League clubs. Look at Redcliffe, got some unwanted vacant land on the cheap fifty years ago and now have a shopping centre amongst other things on it, all earning income and increasing in value.

I think that`s a really interesting idea but I suppose it could run the risk of alienating fans maybe even sponsors who want to go straight up. It`d certainly be worth offering to clubs though and may reveal clubs that are just happy being Championship sides. If clubs started declaring themselves as solely Championship clubs it would then possibly add to the credibility/status of that comp as they may become a dominant club in that competition, sort of like the St. Helens of the Championship, if you get my drift. They would become the team to beat in the Championship and a drawcard in themselves. However whether fans and sponsors would be happy with that, that would remain to be seen. I suppose the situation could arise if they were dominant for several years they may be able to build themselves into a situation where they were ready for a crack at the Super League. The Championship btw is a competition I think that doesn`t get the credit it deserves.. I think your idea of one or two year ring-fence ( once you`re up ) almost has to be a minimum though if we are going to break out of this ridiculous yo-yo situation.

This just came in as well. North Queensland have announced a profit of 15.974m for 2021 (including building grant of 8.7m). Revenue rose 159% to 65.408m for 2021. Sponsorship rose 39% to 8.98m, while gate takings rose 181% tto 8.96m https://cowboysleagues.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/AnnualReport-2021-DL.pdf

Given they are probably the biggest Rugby League club in the world I thought anyone who`s into this sort of thing might find this interesting. 220414---2021-annual-report-brisbane-broncos-limited.pdf The real action starts on page 24.