With talk of the Independent Commission set to increase as the expected implementation date approaches, the annual Tom Brock lecture illustrated to me that the Commission needs some ‘dinosaurs’ on its board. Just not ones similar to those in attendance.
Having gone to this year’s Tom Brock lecture for the first time and as by far the youngest attendee at age 22, at least ten years too young to have any first hand recollections of the very historical events discussed at the lecture, I attended the event with some trepidation.
However, I was pleasantly surprised by the eloquent presentation from Mr John Fahey, whom my mother had to explain is in fact quite a remarkable man. As discussed in Spiro Zavo’s recent article, Mr Fahey made several insightful comments regarding the running of many aspects of the game. However, one thing I wholeheartedly disagreed with was Mr Fahey’s assertion that the greatest threat to rugby league was taxation on poker machines. This struck me as a particularly archaic opinion.
During the open forum, the question was asked and was again raised in the comments section of Spiro’s article, whether Mr Fahey would make himself available to become a member of the Independent Commission. The idea of which shocked me.
As perhaps part of the upcoming new breed of sports managers with a business dominated background, I believe that all sports, including rugby league and its clubs, should be financially viable based on the revenues it can create from its own existence, rather than any hand out given to it by a leagues club. I also believe that any potential member of the Independent Commission should share this belief and should consider the future of the game and its clubs to be in improving game revenues through membership, sponsorship and broadcast rights rather than relying on or reclaiming lost pokie tax monies.
On that line of thinking, if the Cronulla Sharks manage to survive by developing their tremendous land assets, what does it say about the value of the club or what it brings to the competition if the reason for its survival has nothing to do with the club itself but rather the big buildings that are developed adjacent to the seemingly abandoned stadium?
One of the many reasons AFL clubs have generally outgrown NRL clubs is because historically, they have not had the same reliance on poker machines or other such safety blankets to ensure their survival. AFL clubs knew that survival was based on their own financial strength which meant attracting members, sponsors and generally making sound financial decisions even if it meant coerced relocation.
The free ride given to rugby league by poker machines, was exactly that, a free ride. The sooner everyone involved in rugby league, including sports historians, accepts that those days are now past the sooner rugby league will be able to make up lost ground to its competitors.
The Independent Commission needs dinosaurs, but only the modern day corporate kind who like any good T-Rex, have the right skills and philosophy to hunt down its prey.
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All the team list information for Round 9.
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