- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
I didn’t realise just how congested the pre-season was until this season.
It all kicked off at the start of February with the Auckland Nines and just a week later came trials and the All-Stars.
Last weekend was the last round of trials and the World Club Series. Presumably, internationals will make a return next season cutting down the off-season further.
There is now a two-week lull before the season proper starts.
I have no vested interested in the pre-season. Any rugby league is good and I thoroughly enjoy watching many of the contests. It is a chance to see new stars and get excited about the upcoming campaign. It is just something to tie me over, nothing is quite like the first home game of the season.
All the matches have substantial claims as to why they should stay on the rugby league calendar. The Nines is a fun, free-flowing carnival that starts the season in a positive way while the All-Stars game is an important link to the Indigenous community.
I liked the World Club challenge when it was just the premiers of each competition taking each other on. However, this year it was a farce as all three NRL sides romped to victory with ease. It also contributed to plenty of the players from these sides missing the All-Stars.
There are plenty of players in those three sides who were genuine stars but did not play. It is obvious then that the concepts hurt each other, as asking players to play all these different competitions, one of which is halfway around the world, is just not feasible.
If the NRL hopes to keep all their different competitions and games then they surely have to do so at the expense of quality. Either that or they have to cut things down. The problem with that is obviously the financial side of things.
The new broadcast deal is close enough to $400 million per season. Without being too precise that represents about $2 million per game the NRL is bringing in. That is not exactly how it should be considered – obviously, State of Origin, finals and the like will be worth more.
However, that is a ball-park of what things are worth. If you cut games out, you cut value out. But keep stacking up the games, as has been evident over this month, and the quality is diluted.
The NRL may do well to focus on trying to find more value without more games.
Consider the NFL, they built up the half-time show because people were tuning out. Now half-time is talked about globally more than the game itself. Even if you have no understanding of the game it is appealing for its entertainment value.
I’ll come to the footy with nothing but the rugby league to watch and the same on TV. But with Origin, in particular, having a growing global audience, adding a bigger entertainment factor has the potential to add more viewers, especially before the match and at half-time.
The Super Bowl half-time show has got to be expensive but it pays for itself over again with what it is worth to its sponsors and the networks. With all due respect to him, Shannon Noll is not even close to what the NRL could be doing with that space.
I’ll say the same in regards to Cold Chisel. I appreciate their appeal to a certain demographic of fans but it would be a long bow to say that it appeals to the young and up-coming audience that every sport would want to have.
Don’t do away with the genre altogether, just appreciate the fan-base is not all middle-aged men that listen to Triple M.
It is evident that the NFL is thinking of their demographics too, often utilising global pop artists or a mixture of performers with different appeals.
Andrew Johns has also brought up the idea of naming grand final teams as an event. It uses the interest and appeal of the game without putting on more games and again may represent something else to sell to TV networks and sponsors.
I don’t have the answers but am merely posing the question. I would say the vast majority of fans would rather see the stars in action every weekend for the sake of a small cut-down rather than the likes of Johnathan Thurston being forced to turn his back on the Indigenous side because the workload is too much.
But if the NRL are to do this, they need to find value elsewhere in their product.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.