Two teams have reportedly pulled out of the NRLW this season, leaving the future of the fledgling competition in doubt.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Roosters have already told the NRL that they will not take part in this year’s elite women’s league if it is to go ahead while the Warriors will do the same.
Cost-cutting measures because of the coronavirus pandemic reportedly made it difficult for the clubs to continue their involvement.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
With only four teams in the women’s competition, it raises questions about the sustainability of the NRLW.
Established for the 2018 season, the NRLW had been growing in popularity over its two seasons.
Last month the NRL announced that 20 women would be contracted to NRLW sides as other sports such as cricket, AFLW and rugby sevens lifted their support for women’s sport.
Noosa Duck
Roar Rookie
Mushi, it was tongue in cheek , however it begs the question. To be honest the balance sheet is not as bad as many make out, and there has been a huge increase of spending across the board but sadly it takes this huge very costly organisation to make it happen my point being do we need such a costly "thingo "to keep neutrality.
Noosa Duck
Roar Rookie
TWS even Graham Hughes stated exactly this on his afternoon radio show on Monday. Exactly...
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
I'd say no given part of the NRL Commissions' biggest failure is conceding to club demands for more money.
Cathar Treize
Roar Guru
Roy Masters, finally some common sense & basic journalism 101 something Newsltd can't even manage https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/the-nrl-had-its-books-open-but-clubs-and-players-didn-t-want-to-read-them-20200330-p54fdr.html
mushi
Roar Guru
"Could a board of directors of Club CEO’s do just as good a job without the massive overheads that the commission now eat up out of the revenue stream." This would be a very odd governance labyrinth that would not be considered appropriate. How would they serve the best for the game on a national scale whilst also serving the best for the individual club? They'd be regulating themselves, almost every decision would be a conflict of interest for someone. It also would likely save very little as the directors fees would likely be the same as the liability and time doesn't change.
mushi
Roar Guru
On the salaries, The players actually get a lower percentage than NFL or nba. You threw out the population of Texas being marginally higher than Aus as some smoking gun. Here’s some more context. The combined salary cap of the AFL and NRL is what ~A$370m? On today’s exchange rate that’s what US$225m barely more than 1 NFL team at ~US$200m , Texas has 2 in addition to US$270m in baseball, and US$375 in basketball. So how does comparing us to Texas, who have a $US1bn payroll for 7 pro sports teams, show the smoking gun of population not supporting the payroll?
Noosa Duck
Roar Rookie
By the time this is over there will need to be a very hard long look at the NRL, how it is run and the financial viability of actually having and financing the NRL Commission. Could a board of directors of Club CEO's do just as good a job without the massive overheads that the commission now eat up out of the revenue stream. Whatsmore, the reason that the VFL/AFL regime has been so successful is because they were never in a position to have the luxury of licenced leagues clubs to support them financially. They built their game on club memberships. Richmond has 103,000 and Collingwood 85,000 members even the fledgling GWS Giants have 30,000 members. The NRL club with the most members is the Broncos with 34,000 members and the average across the NRL is now just on 20,000. I do not know what membership costs for the AFL but at just $25 that would be additional income of $2.5 million alone for Richmond. Simply put, this country does not have the population to support so many different codes of sports and pay the sort of money we are now paying some players. To put things into perspective there are more people in Texas alone (28.5 million) than there are in Australia and there are just on 40 million in California . For once I agree with Joey Johns, quality not quantity is the key to success for Rugby league.