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November 1 continues to be touted as the birth date of rugby league’s new independent commission – provided News Ltd and the ARL can iron out the final few details of the agreement, the biggest being a non-compete clause ensuring News don’t start another Super League war.
While on the surface this seems like a reasonable request, the fact that News now has first and last right of refusal on televised rugby league in Australia until 2027 should really be all the non-compete clause the ARL needs.
2027 is sixteen years away. Sixteen years!
To give this a little bit of perspective, let’s go back to 1984 and have a quick chat with newly installed NSWRL chairman, Ken Arthurson.
“Arko, congratulations on getting the gig.”
“Cheers, just really happy to be doing my part for rugby league in Sydney.”
“Don’t you mean your part for rugby league in Australia?”
“Why would I mean that? Oh because of the new teams from Illawarra and Canberra. Sorry, three seasons in and I keep forgetting the game’s expanded.”
“Look, I’ve come to give you a quick warning about the future of the game. Come the mid-nineties there’s going to be a war.”
“Mate I already saw ‘The Terminator’, I know what’s coming…”
“A different war Arko. Way more serious. A Rugby League war. Y’see Rupert Murdoch is going to decide the best way to get people to buy pay TV subscriptions is through televised rugby league.
The clubs, headed by the Brisbane Broncos, are going to decide that Rupert is on to something and a lot of them are going to defect to his side. Then a whole stack of players from loyal clubs are going to decide the salary cap is cramping their earning potential so they’ll go to the rebel league too. The game will be torn apart.”
“What you just said made no sense. Why the hell would Rupert Murdoch give a crap about Rugby League – the bloke’s from Melbourne and lives in the States – in fact I’m pretty sure he’s trying to become a Seppo as we speak.
“Secondly, what the hell is pay TV – TV you pay for? What idiot is going to pay for TV when they can get it for free?
“Thirdly I’m the head of the NSWRL and as such, the Brisbane whatever-you-just-called-thems can do what they like, it’s none of my concern.
“And as for the players, their salaries are only capped by however many hours they work at their job. If they’re bright enough to be a doctor as well as a prop forward more power to them but if a bloke’s running behind a garbage truck to help make ends meet, well I did as much when I was wearing number 7 for Manly back in the ‘50’s.”
“Arko, you have to believe me. It’ll tear the game apart. It’ll take years to fix. A lawyer who never even played the game will end up running the show!”
“You’re an idiot and I have a rugby league competition worth thousands of dollars to run. Get out of my present.”
Hard as nails that Ken Arthurson.
But perhaps the point has been made?
The ARL want News to sign a non-compete clause to guarantee there will never be another rebel league. And while the ARL are right to try and safeguard the game against being fractured the way it was in the mid-nineties, do they really think News is the only company capable of achieving this end?
Go to the year 2027 (no ridiculous dialogue this time, promise) and the future could literally be anything. The continuing boom of the internet means the next rebel league could be called the Google League. It sounds ridiculous now but so did a media company setting up a rugby league competition – right up until it started happening in 1995.
If the independent commission are serious about safe guarding the game against another rebel league they don’t need a promise from News not to set one up, they need to examine exactly why Super League caused the fractures it did.
Without going in to any great detail, the fractures already existed, the Super League war just made them far more apparent.
By 1995 the clubs weren’t happy with the ARL which had expanded the competition by four teams in a bid to become a national competition but had also told the existing clubs this amount of teams would not be sustainable long term and some (Sydney) teams would have to fold or amalgamate.
This threat saw Balmain become the Sydney Tigers, Canterbury-Bankstown become the Sydney Bulldogs and Easts become the Sydney City Roosters (a tragedy which still has not been rectified).
The players weren’t happy because their salaries were at best a supplement to their actual jobs. A salary cap of $1.8 million between 25 players meant teams could have perhaps four or five professional footballers in first grade with the rest also trying to fit another job around the relentless training, travelling and injuries of playing in a competition which featured a 22 week regular season and teams in Auckland, Townsville and Perth.
Finally, the fans weren’t happy – although perhaps we weren’t aware of it since we lived in blissful ignorance. Getting two games a week, on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, as well as a sixty minute highlight package on the ABC on Saturday afternoon was the extent of televised rugby league. Could you imagine two full games on TV a week in this day and age?
For all the issues it caused, Super League jolted rugby league into the truly professional era, one in which the clubs are largely financially viable, the players are compensated to the point that they can live solely off their footballing salaries and the fans can see every game of every round – provided Rupert receives his monthly remuneration.
News is right to say no to a non-compete clause. Not because they want to set up another rebel league( why would they leave the one they have to set up another?) Rather because the future could hold anything they want to have options.
The ARL and independent commission simply need to recognize the same thing – the future could hold anything. So rather than spend time ensuring News don’t start another Super League they should learn lessons from the past to make sure Google League, Microsoft League or iLeague never get up and running.
And the best way to do that? Ensure the clubs, players and fans are happy.
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