Final Whistle: Money, money, money – and why rugby league has so little of it

[Mark S]

12 minutes ago, M j M said:

I don't think that's the case at all really. There are lots of examples of clubs who have really turned themselves around who are widely recognised in the sport for the progress they have and/or are making.

Warrington are probably the best example of long term progression on and off field from where they were at the end of the winter era to now but there are lots of others, Bradford's ascent to the top was similarly lauded but sadly came to an end. 

When Bradford collapsed, there was a chorus of ‘I told you so’. 

[M j M]

9 minutes ago, Mark S said:

When Bradford collapsed, there was a chorus of ‘I told you so’. 

Not sure that's quite the right interpretation. The club had been living beyond its means for a few years, by the end there's no doubt of that. And so a lot of people got satisfaction from being able to see where it would end. But before all that the club's transformation was very much appreciated.

[Martyn Sadler]

I see some people have criticised the article at the head of this thread.

It's an article that appears in the January edition of Rugby League World magazine.

Earlier this week I was telephoned by a very wealthy Super League club owner telling me how interesting he had found the piece and wanting further discussions about the way in which major sports are structured.

I think at last there is an openness to new ideas about structure and governance that would be designed to maximise the chances of genuine financial and spectator growth for Super League.

I hope that means that some changes will be on the way.

So I'm happy to acknowledge that some people on here are already so knowledgeable that it didn't tell them anything new.

But not everyone is in such a fortunate position that they can't learn anything.

I'll deal with a few individual comments individually.

 

[Martyn Sadler]

On 27/12/2024 at 23:20, Sports Prophet said:

I was hoping to read an investigation piece to really make me ponder and learn more. I feel like this article hardly scratched the surface and it certainly didn’t reveal anything new to me. 

Good for you!

If we want to learn something new, maybe we should ask you to write something.

[Martyn Sadler]

On 27/12/2024 at 23:43, Damien said:

It just offers nothing. Look at all these US sports, that are much bigger anyway and are in a richer and larger country, and why hasn't RL done that. Oh and Nigel Wood, he's fab. Again.

You obviously didn't understand the point that was being made.

[M j M]

On 29/12/2024 at 12:58, The Future is League said:

Who's idea was it for the Catalan Dragons to pay the travelling costs of visiting teams?

The other Super League clubs, who do you think?

[Martyn Sadler]

On 28/12/2024 at 07:46, gingerjon said:

I think he's saying we should spend more on marketing and developing a framework in which that marketing can be successful.

I wonder if there are any articles about the RFL not spending money directly on the game but spending it on such a thing. The writer would surely be in favour.

You came to my rescue!

[Martyn Sadler]

On 28/12/2024 at 07:54, Wakefield Ram said:

One of the biggest challenges in selling SL is that it's become a grinding war of attrition.

Based on taking minimal risks to avoid the crime of an "error", it's predominantly one man drives into a group of 2/3/4 players who try to take the opponent to ground as slowly as possible and then lie on top of him to further slow the game down. Do this 5 times and then kick where the receiving team will deliberately obstruct the chasers to reduce the chance of anything like a contested kick.

We must be the only sport where we actively have tried to remove excitement from the game and make it slower.

Don't believe me? Watch some of this 2000 Championship GF. 

 

You make an interesting point.

If we want spectacular action, we have to try to stop teams being perfect.

Perfect defence means a grinding game, which is unlikely to attract new supporters.

[Martyn Sadler]

On 28/12/2024 at 10:50, M j M said:

I struggled to get past the second para which uses "sports" as the plural in the American sense rather than "sport".

But beyond that it was just a list of huge sports with such dizzyingly different social and economic landscapes to Rugby League that we may as well be comparing it to Moon Hockey.

I've always assumed that you are quite an intelligent guy behind that aggressive facade.

But your intelligence seems to have temporarily abandoned you in this instance.

The point about the NFL is that before the 1960s it was by no means the behemoth it is now.

The 1959 season had 12 teams that played a 12-week season plus the Championship game between the two Conference leaders.

In many cases the crowds were distinctly modest and the NFL was miles behind Baseball and College Football as a spectator sport.

At the same time, Rugby League was by a significant margin the second biggest spectator sport in the UK.

But since then the NFL has grown immeasurably bigger while Rugby League in this country has stagnated in relative terms.

So the question is, how did the NFL grow so much while Rugby League didn't.

It's a complex subject with a range of answers.

But one answer is that in 1960 Pete Rozelle became the Commissioner of the NFL and introduced a range of policies that were designed to expand the NFL's footprint.

In my view Rozelle was the greatest ever sports administrator. By the time he retired in 1989 the NFL had grown to 28 clubs and had established itself as the major sporting competition in the USA.

The question is, what lessons can we learn from the NFL's remarkable growth, and what factors couldn't be replicated?

Allocating a significant proportion of the game's income to marketing it is just one of those lessons.

[Martyn Sadler]

On 29/12/2024 at 12:44, OriginalMrC said:

On the original article I'm not sure what it's getting at?! 

Then either read it again or ask @gingerjon

[Martyn Sadler]

On 29/12/2024 at 18:57, Dunbar said:

The article quoted is clearly nonsense, comparing Rugby League to one of the biggest sports leagues in the biggest sports market on the planet makes no sense.

And you are clearly obtuse!

[Dunbar]

4 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

And you are clearly obtuse!

I try not to be, I hope I come across as open minded and respectful on here.  But comparing Rugby League to Baseball is nonsense, there is literally no point.

Anyway, a Happy New Year to you.

[Martyn Sadler]

On 30/12/2024 at 11:58, Worzel said:

This entire article only exists for Martyn to continue to propagate the myth that Nigel Wood was a successful leader, based solely on one TV contract, rather than the utter strategically incompetent failure who was responsible for the subsequent continued decline of the sport, extracting disproportionate personal wealth from the game in the process. There’s none so blind as those who will not see.

At this stage I’m genuinely starting to wonder if Wood has kidnapped some of Martyn’s loved ones and is using that as leverage

I don't think Nigel was a successful leader.

He was a successful negotiator with Sky and he got the RFL's finances back on track.

But he didn't understand how to market the game.

It's perfectly possible to be good at one aspect of the job but not at another.

[Martyn Sadler]

6 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

I try not to be, I hope I come across as open minded and respectful on here.  But comparing Rugby League to Baseball is nonsense, there is literally no point.

Anyway, a Happy New Year to you.

And to you.

I'm not really comparing Rugby League to Baseball.

I'm simply pointing out that some sports experience massive growth and others don't, as reflected in player salaries.

I'm sure that you, like me, would like to see Rugby League players earning far more than they do.

[Dunbar]

4 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

And to you.

I'm not really comparing Rugby League to Baseball.

I'm simply pointing out that some sports experience massive growth and others don't, as reflected in player salaries.

I'm sure that you, like me, would like to see Rugby League players earning far more than they do.

Indeed I would like our players to be rewarded more for their efforts.  But within the appropriate commercial framework in which the sport operates... we have seen what wage inflation has done to other sports who try to live beyond their means.

There are comparatives to be made, but I am not sure that a $765 million contract is a sensible one, although I am aware that sometimes you need to use figures that grab the attention.

[dkw]

Baseball is not sensible in any way when it comes to contracts, my favourite example is Bobby Bonilla, he gets paid more than 1 million dollars a year since 2011 until he's 72 in 2035. It's utterly insane 

Just Google baseball ridiculous contracts, it's unbelievable. 

I know that's not really the point of the article, I just find it hilarious how bad baseball games is.

Edited December 31, 2024 by dkw

[Toby Chopra]

50 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

I see some people have criticised the article at the head of this thread.

It's an article that appears in the January edition of Rugby League World magazine.

Earlier this week I was telephoned by a very wealthy Super League club owner telling me how interesting he had found the piece and wanting further discussions about the way in which major sports are structured.

I think at last there is an openness to new ideas about structure and governance that would be designed to maximise the chances of genuine financial and spectator growth for Super League.

I hope that means that some changes will be on the way.

So I'm happy to acknowledge that some people on here are already so knowledgeable that it didn't tell them anything new.

But not everyone is in such a fortunate position that they can't learn anything.

I'll deal with a few individual comments individually.

 

We've just entered a period of new ideas on structure and governance - amongst other things - with our partnership with IMG, aimed at boosting the financial strength of the sport. Are you saying we should give up on that already and come up with some as-yet-undefined alternative?

(As an aside, IMG have partnered with the NFL for two decades and know everything there is to know about the US sports market. It's their job. So although I hope you enjoyed your chat with a very wealthy Superleague owner, if he wants to know about the development of the US sports market, please tell him to talk to the expert consultants he's already paying who'll give him chapter and verse.)

[gingerjon]

20 minutes ago, dkw said:

Baseball is not sensible in any way when it comes to contracts, my favourite example is Bobby Bonilla, he gets paid more than 1 million dollars a year since 2011 until he's 72 in 2035. It's utterly insane 

Just Google baseball ridiculous contracts, it's unbelievable. 

I know that's not really the point of the article, I just find it hilarious how bad baseball games is.

You don't even need to dig too deep - look at how Shohei Ohtani's is structured.

AFAIK, Soto's is unusual because he is actually getting the money in the straightforward way you would expect, albeit, he will not be playing when he is 41.

[Martyn Sadler]

15 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

We've just entered a period of new ideas on structure and governance - amongst other things - with our partnership with IMG, aimed at boosting the financial strength of the sport. Are you saying we should give up on that already and come up with some as-yet-undefined alternative?

(As an aside, IMG have partnered with the NFL for two decades and know everything there is to know about the US sports market. It's their job. So although I hope you enjoyed your chat with a very wealthy Superleague owner, if he wants to know about the development of the US sports market, please tell him to talk to the expert consultants he's already paying who'll give him chapter and verse.)

To my knowledge IMG have shown no interest in the structure and governance of Rugby League, presumably because it's not part of their contract.

They're trying to gild the lily rather than re-structure it.

We'll see whether that changes but I haven't yet seen many signs.

But we continue to live in hope.

 

[RigbyLuger]

3 hours ago, Mark S said:

When Bradford collapsed, there was a chorus of ‘I told you so’. 

It was built on sand, that was the problem. 

[M j M]

7 minutes ago, RigbyLuger said:

It was built on sand, that was the problem. 

No more than most other clubs whose main Going Concern strategy is "hope the rich backer doesn't die". 

That's still slightly more than the Bulls were able to have, I'll give you that.

[gingerjon]

28 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

To my knowledge IMG have shown no interest in the structure and governance of Rugby League, presumably because it's not part of their contract.

I thought the whole tri-fold restructure RFL / RL Commercial / Super League was because of the IMG/RFL partnership? I may have that wrong.

Either way, this link says IMG have a representative on the boards of both the RFL and RL Commercial.

https://www.rugby-league.com/governance/about-the-rfl/rl-commercial-board

[Toby Chopra]

31 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

To my knowledge IMG have shown no interest in the structure and governance of Rugby League, presumably because it's not part of their contract.

They're trying to gild the lily rather than re-structure it.

We'll see whether that changes but I haven't yet seen many signs.

But we continue to live in hope.

 

I can't agree. Whatever you think of them, the gradings (structure) and the founding of Rugby League Commercial (governance) are both radical changes that have been recently enacted to precisely address the issue raised in your piece. That is, the commercial stagnation of UK rugby league. We'll see in due course whether they deliver, but not to acknowledge them suggests we're just coasting along doing the same old. We're definitely not.

[Martyn Sadler]

19 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I thought the whole tri-fold restructure RFL / RL Commercial / Super League was because of the IMG/RFL partnership? I may have that wrong.

Either way, this link says IMG have a representative on the boards of both the RFL and RL Commercial.

https://www.rugby-league.com/governance/about-the-rfl/rl-commercial-board

The re-structure operation was carried out before IMG's involvement although IMG probably wouldn't have come on board without it.

I think you'll find that IMG have that representation on those two boards to protect their own interests.

I haven't heard anything about any IMG proposals to improve the governance of those bodies.

[Martyn Sadler]

18 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

I can't agree. Whatever you think of them, the gradings (structure) and the founding of Rugby League Commercial (governance) are both radical changes that have been recently enacted to precisely address the issue raised in your piece. That is, the commercial stagnation of UK rugby league. We'll see in due course whether they deliver, but not to acknowledge them suggests we're just coasting along doing the same old. We're definitely not.

RL Commercial was created to unify the RFL's commercial and marketing operations.

You're quite right about that.

But in terms of results, it's the same old or even worse than the same old.

I wish it weren't so.