Is it happening???

[Pulga]

5 hours ago, Dave T said:

Do the NRL market their product well? They have a lot of pants crowds. What exactly do they do? What will transfer to the European game? 

 

They sell $215m worth of apparel per year in NZ and Australia. What do you think?

What's SL's 5 year broadcast deal worth?

[Big Picture]

5 hours ago, fieldofclothofgold said:

Their Origin games remind me of American culture . In USA they have Army V Navy and College football, something seperate from the club competition.  

Army v Navy is part of the annual schedule of the Army and Navy military colleges' varsity teams, both of which are part the NCAA.

[Oxford]

4 hours ago, Man of Kent said:

Canberra Raiders? There haven’t been this many English imports since Captain Cook thought ‘Hmm, this place looks nice. Let’s set up here’

The evidence is from a club and has little to no relation to the business plan of an organisation the size of the NRL.

[Big Picture]

4 hours ago, M j M said:

I'd be on board with it though because maybe we need, at last, to be pragmatic. The NRL can fund Melbourne because of total dominance in their heartlands. We simply have not got that and if I were a pragmatic investor I might well think it would be a lot more productive to use investment to rebuild and reinforce existing core markets than grow new ones, at least in a first phase. Making our northern citadels impenetrable fortresses where tv viewing figures are robust and where you can't take a walk or a drive without being reminded that this is a sport that obsesses the locals and is a proud symbol of local identity would give us a much stronger base from which to later fund genuine expansion.

I could get on board with that approach, sacrilegious as it may be to many Rugby League evangelists. But I suspect it might well be what an NRL controlled Super League would seek to do.

I suspect that you are right, but it wouldn't work because the Aussie RL heartland is completely different from the UK RL heartland.  They have strength because they're a dominant sport in two of the three biggest states which include two of the country's three biggest cities.  If instead they were based in SA and WA they wouldn't be strong, they'd be weak like the RFL and SL are.  The approach which you suggest won't work with British RL because the heartland is economically weak and the traditional clubs can't access the sort of money needed to sustain a big time major pro sports operation.  We've seen this film before, when Brisbane took over London, rebranded them as the Broncos and applied their Aussie expertise down in London.  It didn't work.

[Copa]

38 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

I suspect that you are right, but it wouldn't work because the Aussie RL heartland is completely different from the UK RL heartland.  They have strength because they're a dominant sport in two of the three biggest states which include two of the country's three biggest cities.  If instead they were based in SA and WA they wouldn't be strong, they'd be weak like the RFL and SL are.  The approach which you suggest won't work with British RL because the heartland is economically weak and the traditional clubs can't access the sort of money needed to sustain a big time major pro sports operation.  We've seen this film before, when Brisbane took over London, rebranded them as the Broncos and applied their Aussie expertise down in London.  It didn't work.

NRL sports management has no doubt moved on significantly since the mid 90s so I’m not sure the comparison with a Brisbane club team in the mid-90s buying the London team is comparable.

I’d love to know what unrealised potential  V’landys and his troops see in SL. I suspect there’s a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of centralising and consolidating parts of the business that are now done by individual SL clubs.

The NRL has also invested significantly in the digital side of the business. They may see a lot of unrealised potential in that space for SL..

I suspect they’ll also be able to sell a more comprehensive TV rights product internationally if they control both competitions.

Additionally, if the NRL do plan to start their own digital channel and break free at some point from the FTA channels, it’d be great to have every SL game and every NRL game available to broadcast.

[Newguy]

17 minutes ago, Copa said:

NRL sports management has no doubt moved on significantly since the mid 90s so I’m not sure the comparison with a Brisbane club team in the mid-90s buying the London team is comparable.

I’d love to know what unrealised potential  V’landys and his troops see in SL. I suspect there’s a lot of low hanging fruit in terms of centralising and consolidating parts of the business that are now done by individual SL clubs.

The NRL has also invested significantly in the digital side of the business. They may see a lot of unrealised potential in that space for SL..

I suspect they’ll also be able to sell a more comprehensive TV rights product internationally if they control both competitions.

Additionally, if the NRL do plan to start their own digital channel and break free at some point from the FTA channels, it’d be great to have every SL game and every NRL game available to broadcast.

The NRL does not have to compete in Australia with the Behemoth that is the EPL though, what works in Aus may not necessarily translate to the UK. Liverpool, Everton, Leeds, Man City and Newton Heath, they dominate sport in the NW which is rugby league's heartland. Who is going to be buying these TV rights outside of Aus/NZ & GB? If true it will be quite interesting to see how it all pans out.

[The Rocket]

3 hours ago, Smudger06 said:

The potential is truly massive. The end product from the long game will blow away anything Union can muster up never mind AFL. 

Love it ! That`s the sort of positive mental attitude that V`landy`s and the NRL will bring to Rugby League in the Northern hemisphere.

[goldcoaster]

I like the idea of having NRLAU/NZ and NRLUK/Fra -two separate leagues, but under one banner. I think the name Super League will go.

If it does happen, I'd like to see the UK/Fra NRL competition get the investment required bridge the gap to the NRL AU/NZ in terms of revenue from TV, sponsors etc. with the aim that all NRL clubs in both hemispheres have the same salary cap.

Of course, if it does happen I can see the number of NRL UK/Fra teams reducing to maybe 10 (8 UK clubs + 2 French) and I think P&R may go. But I can see a champions league/ Heineken Cup style comp happen as well, which means more content = more revenue.

[The Rocket]

3 hours ago, Manxmanc said:

There's much speculation here about Super League becoming a NRL feeder league. An alternative view would be that they effectively morph into one as a global NRL? entity, the constituent leagues/conferences not in organisational conflict.

 

Yes I noticed a lot of those posts as well, at the end of the day there will be very little advantage of the SLE becoming a feeder system for the NRL, it just doesn`t make sense, we have new pathways of players opening up everywhere over here, PNG, Pacific Islands and NZ now that V`landys has put Gould in charge of that, as much as we criticise Gould, youth and development is his passion, witness the production line he has started at Penrith and the Roosters are still benefitting from his work in the 90`s.

No, they will want an independently strong Northern hemisphere that in the long run can offer us a more meaningful international calendar because as I said before in this era of globalisation, people want to see global sports with global rivalries and global sponsors.

If there is one irony in all of this, and one that V`landy`s and co. would no doubt be aware of, there is more danger of southern hemisphere Rugby League becoming a feeder system to northern hemisphere Rugby League if the game took off in the northern hemisphere, especially given the size of the market and amounts of money available up there. Sometimes I do think we must be careful what we wish for, however as I said before V`landy`s is a break or break through bloke who thinks globally, so, not the time to be timid, let`s go for it.

 

 

[fieldofclothofgold]

3 hours ago, Big Picture said:

Army v Navy is part of the annual schedule of the Army and Navy military colleges' varsity teams, both of which are part the NCAA.

Yes ,but what I'm referring to by that in my opinion The Australian culture is more like the American culture than ours . The Origin game is similar to the Army Navy game the way people take sides and its separate from from the league's.  I lived in Philadelphia when they had the forces game there everybody in the city was either rooting for one or the other . I gather its similar with the origin series in Oz . We cant whip up that kind of ferver with the Rose's games . Meaning I think it would be difficult transplanting an Australian style over here 

[Henson Park Old Firm]

16 NRL Clubs + 12 Super League Clubs + Toulouse Olympic + PNG Hunters + One Welsh club (North Wales Celtic) + French Champions of Elite 1 =

32 team, 8 pool, every 4 years

 

WORLD CLUB CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!!!

 

 

[GUBRATS]

Funny as

[The Future is League]

15 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

 

Perhaps not yet.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/reports-of-nrl-super-league-takeover-wide-of-mark-20201210-p56mh4.html

[JohnM]

This report on Sky News. Was it by Kay Burley or Beth Rigby?

[Henson Park Old Firm]

https://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-in-informal-talks-to-buy-a-stake-in-the-english-super-league/news-story/5e2afe19a79b6f8d802fb2f70e2a8cd9

[gingerjon]

18 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

Perhaps not yet.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/reports-of-nrl-super-league-takeover-wide-of-mark-20201210-p56mh4.html

They can both be true. The NRL has not held talks but informal discussions have taken/are taking place.

[Rupert Prince]

8 hours ago, M j M said:

Private Equity might walk away from Super League and decide to shut it down, liquidate everything they control.

The NRL may walk away if it doesn't work but they aren't going to kill off the sport in this country in the process.

The way these thing work as you claim is flawed and in any event remains the same with NRL.  Its the NRL that would asset strip.  And where is their money coming from?

[Rupert Prince]

44 minutes ago, JohnM said:

This report on Sky News. Was it by Kay Burley or Beth Rigby?

Ms Burley was in the loo at the time.

[Rupert Prince]

2 hours ago, Henson Park Old Firm said:

16 NRL Clubs + 12 Super League Clubs + Toulouse Olympic + PNG Hunters + One Welsh club (North Wales Celtic) + French Champions of Elite 1 =

32 team, 8 pool, every 4 years

WORLD CLUB CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!!!

Criss crossing the globe in one of Elon Musks hypersonic space planes, no doubt.

[Henson Park Old Firm]

20 minutes ago, Rupert Prince said:

Criss crossing the globe in one of Elon Musks hypersonic space planes, no doubt.

That's the spirit...

[M j M]

1 hour ago, JohnM said:

This report on Sky News. Was it by Kay Burley or Beth Rigby?

Sky's business side are actually often pretty informed. When the business I was working for was going through administration and then looking for buyers they knew about stuff which was happening almost before we did - we ended up concluding they had a mole either in the boardroom or more likely at one of the professional advisors who like to brag about juicy deals they are working on. Similar happened at my current company when we were put up for sale - they reported on it before almost anyone at head office knew.

Not so say this is true but these guys are often on the mark.

[westlondonfan]

I imagine the NRL are concerned about the long-term trajectory of the super league rugby league in the northern hemisphere. Is not in their  interest to lose England/GB as a competitive international team or for the super league to end up as a semiprofessional competition. I don’t know when his proposal was first made but looking at what happened with Toronto and then the reduced funding for the replacement 12th team I  would be having real concerns about the future of rugby in the northern hemisphere if I were them.

Perhaps  this offers some hope for Toronto Wolfpack after all?

[RP London]

5 hours ago, goldcoaster said:

I like the idea of having NRLAU/NZ and NRLUK/Fra -two separate leagues, but under one banner. I think the name Super League will go.

If it does happen, I'd like to see the UK/Fra NRL competition get the investment required bridge the gap to the NRL AU/NZ in terms of revenue from TV, sponsors etc. with the aim that all NRL clubs in both hemispheres have the same salary cap.

Of course, if it does happen I can see the number of NRL UK/Fra teams reducing to maybe 10 (8 UK clubs + 2 French) and I think P&R may go. But I can see a champions league/ Heineken Cup style comp happen as well, which means more content = more revenue.

I could see it become more like the NFL with a "Super Bowl" style world club challenge at the end of it.. 

Games lead up to the NRL Eur and NRL Aus final (as per the AFC and NFC Conference games) winners face each other.. 

through the season its home and way for Europe teams, Home or away for Aus teams and cross fixtures for the loop games.. (the teams go on a 3-4 week tour basically, one year they are in aus one year in Europe).. 

its a simple model but would build well.. and potentially attract money in Europe to add a few more stronger teams as they come through to the to table (expanding the league to be equal in number to Australia which can be down with P&R and adding the numbers as the teams grow)

[Wire quin]

3 hours ago, Henson Park Old Firm said:

16 NRL Clubs + 12 Super League Clubs + Toulouse Olympic + PNG Hunters + One Welsh club (North Wales Celtic) + French Champions of Elite 1 =

32 team, 8 pool, every 4 years

 

WORLD CLUB CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!!!

 

 

And nothing in the capital hmmmmm

[Hela Wigmen]

I have to say that I was sceptical about this article, given it originated here through Sky News, rather than from a Rugby League source, and rather than coming from the Australian media, who have only picked this up far later and with them suggesting that it’s an attempt to drive up the fee a Private Equity Firm parts with. 

Out of the two, The NRL and Private Equity, its hard to say what I’d rather without any detail of either plan, if there even is both on the table.