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Fixing the rugby league pre-season

29th January, 2015
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The Auckland Nines should be rescheduled to avoid season-threatening injuries. (Source: www.photosport.co.nz)
Expert
29th January, 2015
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Tomorrow, rugby league’s most ordered, sensible pre-season since the end of the Tooheys Challenge in 1995 will kick off in Auckland.

WANT TO LIVE STREAM THE AUCKLAND NINES? HERE’S HOW

A Nines tournament, followed by the Charity Shield, an All Star game and a six-team World Club Series looks organised and restrained compared to some of the chaos of recent seasons, when millions of dollars worth of football flesh ran around on paddocks in front of fans who didn’t even pay to get in.

But an improvement isn’t a solution. The rugby league pre-season is a potential goldmine for the game if done properly.

Let’s have a look at some of the inconsistencies.

One, television rights to rugby league games are worth $1.025 billion dollars – but when the same teams run around in February, you can’t even watch a live stream of the match. There is no radio commentary either, no sponsors. Essentially, the same product that generates such a massive income is valued at zero.

Two, most games held in Sydney during the season run at a loss on gate receipts – more than 50 per cent of them. There is a lack of scarcity in the Sydney market, which makes the audience complacent. So what do we do in February? We put more games on in Sydney (although this year, not too many).

Three, Nines is seen as an ideal way to expand the code, allowing amateur and semi-amateur teams to compete with the pros because of the open nature of the play and short game time. Nines is also seen as a passage into the summer sports market for rugby league in Australasia. So what do we do? We invite the same 16 teams to the NRL Nines every year, leaving no incentive for anyone else to take it up.

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Here’s some ideas for eradicating these inconsistencies.

Many NRL clubs want to live stream their trials – Melbourne did it last year. But Telstra at one stage claimed to own every pre-season game, even though they weren’t showing them. Even if that stance has now softened, because all the club sites are set up according to a Telstra proforma, there is nowhere to put the feed.

Going to external sites like LiveStream and Ustream are not things Telstra are going to encourage. What should happen is that February should be new media month for the NRL – everything that the rights holders do during the season should be replicated on internet radio and TV for the pre-season – panel shows, open line, hour-long match build-ups – the lot.

It’s a golden opportunity to research what works and what people respond to. English clubs sell subscriptions to their club ‘TV’ in the pre-season because that’s when they have properties – matches – that aren’t covered by broadcast deals. NRL clubs do nothing despite the same advantage.

As for playing games in Sydney, soiling your own market should be banned in the pre-season. February is missionary time – spread the word in expansion areas. But clubs don’t share information about who is trying to get their games. If they did, we could say ‘you want an NRL game, Adelaide? Let’s see how you go with a trial first’. Instead, a club will just do a deal with Adelaide. A whole Nines circuit could be floated if we worked together to offer suitors a bigger carrot in return for jumping through some hoops.

The Nines must be opened up to new teams. Personally, I’d like to see the Australian states play – Ben Barba for Northern Territory, Joel Reddy for South Australia, that sort of thing, because it’s an untapped facet of our game – but I realise the pre-season has ‘club’ stamped all over it. Coaches want uninterrupted access to their players at this time. But a summer Nines circuit could act as qualifiers for Eden Park, with overseas clubs playing for the right to appear and cop 100 grand.

The overall match schedule is about to be rationalised and there will be pressure to punt the pre-season completely. I oppose this. We just need to maximise the benefit to the game of every minute our players are on the field – and at the moment we’re just not doing that.

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