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With the regular NRL season now over, the ladder is complete and we have our minor premiers, top eight and wooden spooners.
However, while the dominant teams have justified their seasons’ toil with their spot on the premiership ladder, their on-field success has had little to no bearing on the kind of television coverage they received.
Going through the season regular, televised games were given points – four for a Friday night game, three for the Sunday afternoon free-to-air (FTA) game, two for the Monday night game, and one for the Saturday and Sunday Foxtel games.
With this point scoring system, many teams’ positions on the televised table are starkly different to where they finished on the NRL table (the number listed before the team names):
3. Brisbane Broncos: 78
5. St George Illawarra: 64
10. South Sydney Rabbitohs: 62
4. Wests Tigers : 62
14. Parramatta Eels: 58
9. Canterbury Bulldogs: 56
2. Manly Sea Eagles: 56
16. Gold Coast Titans: 52
12. Penrith Panthers: 49
11. Sydney Roosters: 47
1. Melbourne Storm: 44
7. North Queensland Cowboys: 42
8. Newcastle Knights: 43
13. Cronulla Sharks: 39
6. NZ Warriors: 33
15. Canberra Raiders: 33
(A full breakdown of the season’s FTA and Foxtel coverage can be provided as a Word or Excel document upon request.)
The average score is 51.125, of which four teams that made the semi-finals (including the minor premiers) are below, while four of the bottom eight teams – including the wooden spooners – are above.
Channel 9 have always maintained they pick the FTA games based on what they think will win them the highest ratings, with 9’s head of sport Steve Crawley saying in 2009, “The bottom line is that everything television does is directed by ratings. We wouldn’t pick them if we didn’t think they’d rate.”
While showing teams, such as Brisbane, who are known to have a broad supporter base sounds like a good basis for selecting who plays the FTA games, the reality is that of the 700,000 plus people who tune in to Friday night footy, many will not be fans of the teams playing but rather simply fans – people who are keen to watch a good game or two.
With this in mind, the disparity shown on the above table more or less negates Channel 9’s argument completely. When the best team in the competition plays over half their games on Foxtel’s Saturday or Sunday afternoon slots, Channel 9 surely cannot say they pick the ratings winners on the basis of football merit.
Though Souths missed the top eight (again) finishing the season 10th, they had a dream season for being on the box, playing nine Friday night games and four Sunday FTA games. That’s a season of consistent FTA coverage for a team, which found consistent form in its final six weeks.
Parramatta and the Gold Coast each played eight games on a Friday – that’s two more games than either of them won the entire season.
Parramatta also played three FTA Sunday afternoon games for a total of 11 games shown on FTA. Six of these 11 games were shown between rounds 12 and 25, a period in which the Eels won a grand total of one match.
The argument for Gold Coast receiving so many Friday night games is the two Friday night game system favours Queensland sides. The proof of this is the Broncos, who were the runaway winners on the televised ladder and played 16 of their games – two thirds of the season – on Friday night.
However, the two Friday games are supposed to be for the benefit of Queensland – not just South East Queensland. The vast geographic majority of the state would see themselves as being aligned with the Cowboys who were well below the televised average, playing five Friday games and just six FTA games all season.
This is a team who have had an astonishing season, missing the top four by a single point led by the peerless Jonathon Thurston, the rejuvenated Matt Bowen and the game’s best prop in Matt Scott.
Perhaps no team could feel as hard-done-by however, as the Knights. Though their season was certainly one of peaks and troughs, they have made the top eight on points differential after playing some fantastic attacking footy including being the only team all season to score 50 points in a game.
And what was their televised schedule like? Seven FTA games and the only one of those that was on a Friday night was the last game of their regular season. This is a club which may not have the broadest supporter base in terms of ticketed members but had an average home game attendance of 19,126 – third in the league only to Brisbane (33,209) and the Bulldogs (19,528).
(Obviously the Storm and Warriors would have plenty to complain about too but games are televised differently in to Victoria and New Zealand, which is an entirely different article.)
So exactly what basis Channel 9 uses to determine what will make a rugby league game attractive to viewers, it’s clearly not a team’s form.
However, the real problem with the current system for televising games lies in the massive disparity it creates between the haves and have-nots of the game.
The salary cap is in place to ensure an equal spread of talent but one need only look at Brisbane’s playing roster to realise there are other ways of attracting players than simply with money.
Having fantastic facilities, great coaching, support and training staff and great corporate connections which can help set a player up for life after footy are all ways a club can coax a player to stay with or join a club when the upfront contract is less than other clubs are offering.
One of the biggest chips clubs have when seeking to attract corporate dollars – i.e. how clubs manage to pay for all these extras that interest a player – is how much television exposure a company will receive by putting their logo on a club’s jerseys.
A club like Brisbane has massive advantages over just about every single club in the NRL by virtue of being the only team in Australia’s third biggest city based on gross population and Australia’s biggest city based on Rugby League fan population.
But when Broncos management sit down to re-negotiate terms with major sponsor NRMA insurance, one of the first things they will mention is the fantastic FTA exposure NRMA get 16 Friday nights – and two Sunday afternoons – of the year.
Meanwhile, down in Canberra, a similar meeting will occur between Raiders management and major sponsor CFMEU. One of the first things CFMEU will bring up is the fact that their logo was seen on FTA television twice all year. Twice. The Raiders received two Friday night games and no Sunday afternoon FTA games at all.
Though Canberra’s season was a shambles to say the very least, it wouldn’t help them for next season if their major sponsor decides to re-negotiate terms based on the fact that most people will see the advertising on a Raiders replica jersey in Rebel Sport before they see Josh Dugan wearing it on the box.
The NRL argues the need for a salary cap on the basis that “it assists in ‘spreading the playing talent’ so that a few better resourced clubs cannot simply out-bid not so well resourced teams for all of the best players.”
If the NRL are serious about keeping an even competition, they need to ensure a few better resourced clubs cannot simply out-bid not so well resourced teams for all of the best corporate sponsorships.
If your company was offered to be shown on free-to-air television 18 times or twice a year, which club are you going to advertise with or, more importantly, how much would you pay them respectively?
The season needs to be set in advance, with all clubs sharing equal FTA and Foxtel games – at least on average over two seasons.
Channel 9 might argue ‘if it ain’t broke’, based on their television ratings, but when teams that finish the season 10th, 14th and 16th overall receive far more FTA television games than the teams that come first, sixth and seventh, it’s clear the season needs to be fixed.
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