Since Shane Richardson announced he was heading to the NRL and The Telegraph lost their ‘not enough rugby league experience’ angle, NRL executive salaries have become the latest target for their agenda.
There are at least weekly mentions on how the NRL executive remuneration is ‘out of control’ and speculating that ‘so and so’ is on $700,000 a year etc.
In The Telegraph‘s latest effort, entitled “Clubs to turn up heat on NRL over spiralling wages bill”, Phil Rothfield sensationally claims that the “recent hiring of South Sydney chief executive Shane Richardson on more than $500,000 a year has sent management wages spiralling higher than an Adam Reynolds bomb”.
Rothfield also suggests that when the code’s annual report is released this week the “combined wage bill of executive staff Dave Smith (CEO), Suzanne Young (COO), Todd Greenberg, Richardson, Sandra Olsen (media), Lewis Pullen (marketing), Nik Weekes (lawyer), Peter Brown (CFO) and senior consultants is more than $6 million”.
So how does the argument stack up?
Let’s pretend for a minute that Rothfield has some idea of the collective salary of the NRL executive team, $6 million is the equivalent of 1.9 per cent of the NRL’s 2013 reported revenue of $314 million, and revenue is expected to have grown significantly when the NRL 2014 annual report is released this week.
In contrast, according to the Brisbane Broncos 2013 annual report, the Broncos CEO Paul White earned $466,000 in 2013 when the club reported revenues of $35 million, which means the Broncos CEO’s salary equates to 1.3 per cent of annual revenue.
Now, throw in the rest of the Broncos executive team’s salary, made up of commercial operations manager Terry Reader on $250,000, former football operations manager Andrew Gee on $227,000, CFO Shirley Moro on $184,000 and company secretary Louise Lanigan on $98,000, and the collective salary amounts to $1.225 million, or 3.5 per cent, of 2013’s revenue of $35 million, nearly double that of the NRL executive.
Now, here’s the kicker. As most would know, the Brisbane Broncos’ majority and controlling shareholders are News Corp, whose chairman and representatives obviously approve the company’s remuneration. Moreover, the Broncos would not be unique, with other clubs’ executive teams likely earning similar salaries, only with lower revenues.
It would appear that the NRL is operating well within appropriate remuneration for an organisation of its size, projected growth and industry, but then I’m not trying to create a particular public perception.
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