The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Wests Tigers, you're doing it wrong!

Dean Lawrence new author
Roar Rookie
26th August, 2015
Advertisement
The Wests Tigers are offloading Robbie Farah. (Image: AAP/Paul Miller)
Dean Lawrence new author
Roar Rookie
26th August, 2015
3

Diehard Tigers fans have a seemingly endless of moments where you wonder “if only”.

If only Benny Elias kicked the ball a metre higher in the 1989 grand final and missed the cross-bar.

If only Chris Heighington dived on the ball in the 2010 qualifying final against the Roosters.

If only Braith Anasta didn’t land a miraculous field goal 20 seconds later.

If only Lote Tuqiri caught the bomb from the Warriors’ Shaun Johnson in the 2011 semi-final.

Over the last few months I’ve found myself wondering, “If only the Tigers were run more like a business, rather than a footy club.”

We wouldn’t agree to contracts and transfers that would leave us paying stupid amounts of money to players and coaches no longer at the club.

We’d spend more efforts on front-house activities like attracting corporate sponsorship and partnerships for third-party deals to top up our stars’ salaries outside of the cap.

Advertisement

We’d run the club with a MoneyBall philosophy: build cheap yet talented players into superstars and sell them off to other clubs for profit to, again, solve cash-flow issues.

All legitimate activities that an organisation would discuss as a way of turning around results and avoiding folding entirely.

It was with this hat on that I viewed the news of the club looking to part ways with captain Robbie Farah.

My first reaction was one of positivity; a great business decision aimed at limiting the liability caught up in one player’s performance, given the amount of cap he consumes. A look to the future of the club.

There are too many examples of football players who don’t live in the ‘real world’. This was another example of how, in the ‘real world’, this decision wouldn’t even be blinked at. A company in today’s economy cares not about the tenure of its employees, but focuses on performance and results. How do I get the most out of my staff to drive profits and shareholder satisfaction?

The rugby league’s favourite word, loyalty, reared its head. This time it was the players asking for loyalty, which seemed a little hypocritical, especially coming from Tim Moltzen, who the Tigers stuck by during the 2011 contract backflip with St George Illawarra, and who has arguably spent more time on the sideline than the field since signing back with the Tigers.

Despite all of this clear reasoning and comparison, there’s one thing that this theory doesn’t take into account: the fans.

Advertisement

In business, the only external parties influencing the direction of the business are its shareholders. That’s where the comparison stops. A shareholder’s only interest in the company is financial; they don’t sit on the company’s floor, cheering it on until they’re blue in the face.

Fans are the determining factor in the success of rugby league clubs.

On matchday they drive ticket sales, pie sales, beer sales.

The rest of the time they drive merchandise sales, membership sales, sponsorship sales (what company wants to advertise with a team that no one is interested in watching?).

It is passion, desire, and dare I say it, loyalty, which keeps these fans coming back every year. Without these fans, clubs have no way to stay afloat without NRL assistance; which funnily enough, derives the majority of its revenue from broadcast deals driven by… fans!

For the record, I agree with the decision made by the Wests Tigers. Farah is in the twilight of his career, and has seemingly had too much influence over past club decisions.

But the way in which the whole saga has been handled again shows the ineptitude of the Tigers hierarchy and a complete disregard to the customers it serves, the fans. With a new board and a new coach, fans had hoped that days like this were behind them.

Advertisement

To put it in context; if next year Robbie Farah earns $1 million within a $6.8 million dollar salary cap, that is less than 15 per cent of the Tigers overall cap.

Yet there has been no justification and no real comment addressing a man who has been a fan favourite for almost 13 years. The club has simply put out an “it is what it is” statement and sent its coach out to face the media.

Does the club think fans will continue to show up and empty their wallets when the board keep making decisions costing them more money in the long run? It defies common sense, but then again, no one will ever accuse the Tigers hierarchy of having that!

close