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If you love the NRL and want it to succeed you definitely should read this. I am nothing but a high school drop out who works on a gas rig out west Queensland but I have a massive passion for sport.
I follow most sports, but here I wanna talk about rugby league. .
I can’t help but notice the poor crowds in the NRL. Nothing worse then seeing each game and there are more empty seats in the stands than filled ones.
I have been dwelling on this for months.
I have become so frustrated by how poorly the NRL is run.
To think people are being paid big dollars to make it work but after looking over other codes and how they do things better and worse and coming together with a few simple things that can make the NRL a better and fairer competition.
A few things to think about to make the NRL “the greatest game of all” once more.
Teams should play each other once
By shortening the competition it makes it fair.
The less games you would think would generate a lot more hunger for the fans to attend matches.
Even though the broadcasting rights want more and more football the facts are the crowd numbers are poor and players have shorter careers.
Origin should be stand alone
It has been spoken about for many years.
But to make the competition fair for clubs it should be stand alone either mid season or after the season.
Without Origin I personally think the NRL would fold, It generates huge money and popularity into the game and now its going global.
We need a Challenge Cup
Super League has the Challenge Cup which is a knockout competition with top tier and second tier teams.
If the Competition was shortened to only playing every team once in the NRL. Throw a Challenge Cup in the mix and have the top four QRL and NSW cup teams play in the knockout competition?
Cull Sydney teams
Somehow the NRL has to make some very tough decisions. Deciding who in Sydney needs to be culled or relocated. Yes there is so much history in Sydney but the simple fact Sydney isn’t supporting the clubs.
Expansion
There are many options to put or relocate teams in the NRL.
Obvious options are Perth, Brisbane, Central Queensland, Sunshine Coast? But I am from a small town one hour west of Brisbane called Toowoomba.
The Titans v Cowboys trial match was played here February and boosted a capacity crowd of 8,500 people.
Toowoomba is one of the biggest inland cities in Australia and is a massive rugby league town.
Building a stadium that could hold between 15,000-25,000 people, similar to what Sydney sides have, and give the town a professional team to follow and support would be huge.
I don’t think a second Brisbane team is the answer, it should be outside Brisbane.
The other option is Perth, which would be a hard market to crack in a very strong AFL area and solid rugby union following as well.
Home grand finals
Looking at other codes such as the NFL in the USA, the Super Rugby Competition.
The Superbowl is one of the biggest sporting events on the calendar world wide and what is so good about it is that every year it is hosted by a different place.
The experience of the massive day is shared across the country.
In rugby union the top ranked side through the regular season makes the grand final will host it.
This rewards sides for having a good season, but also rewards the fans to give them a grand final at there own turf.
Sydney currently holds the grand final every year.
The NRL has 10 Sydney sides, six teams from other areas.
I don’t understand how it would be fair if the New Zealand Warriors were minor premiers and made the grand final yet had to play it in Sydney.
10/16 teams from Sydney are good odds that it would be played in Sydney most years, but to give the motivation for all clubs to strive to be up there to have a chance to host it would be a good motivation and share the experience like Super Rugby and the Superbowl gives to all the cities.
More live games
When the new billion-dollar deal was made last year, we all thought the game has reached a new high, top dollar earnings. But in actual fact the game is on the downhill slide.
Free-to-air show one live game of NRL a week. The other two games are delayed.
Australia gets between 3-5 NFL games live each week. The AFL shows five games live to free-to-air.
No one likes and most people don’t watch delayed games (especially if your team loses).
The deal with Channel Nine is terrible.
The NRL are slowly watching AFL take over. Young kids are growing up watching AFL and in 20 years time the next generation will be AFL. Why?
There are five games a week at popular viewing times.
What would I do if I was the NRL?
I would have a minimum of three live to air NRL games on TV, one Friday, Saturday night and one Sunday afternoon.
If they broadcaster cannot show the live game another broadcaster should have the rights.
If they wanted to play two games on Friday night the other goes to FOXTEL, so the fans have the option to watch either game live.
The free-to-air broadcaster has the priority choice of what games they would prefer to show, for example local derbys.
Games in country towns
Building fan-base and popularity is difficult but why not play more games in country towns?
It’s a national competition, and with crowd numbers very poor at times, I don’t see why they don’t share the love of the game to towns that don’t get to see the top teams week in week out.
It frustrates me when you sit there and hear the NRL talk about how its the greatest game of all, when any mug only has to watch the television to realise that its dying a slow death.
NRL needs to look at other codes and find out what works and what doesn’t.
They need to make some changes and start promoting the game to its full potential.
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