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Opinion
At a previous job, the looming threat of mass layoffs was explained by the fact the company had huge overheads – millions of dollars per week – that meant fewer people on staff was the only way to stay afloat, despite the fact there were hundreds of millions in the coffers.
“We can’t just spend the money we’ve got saved, that’s for a rainy day,” the bean counters said.
Leaving aside the fact we were at the height of the pandemic – I’d have thought it was evidently pissing down, but never mind – my follow-up question was pretty straightforward: how much money do we make?
I get that the cost of keeping the lights on is substantial, but surely too is the cashflow. In a nutshell, you’re quick to decry costs, but how about you also tell us just how much money this place makes?
The response, as is so often the case when someone asks a straightforward question, was “ahh, you don’t understand the complexities”.
I’m the first to admit I probably don’t – I’m a words, not a numbers, guy.
But if it’s easy to explain one side of a financial equation, maybe you should make a concerted effort to simplify the communication of the other side too.
Nevertheless, citing issues beyond the comprehension of the average punter’s peabrain is a classic line of attack and one that the NRL loves to trot out.
In February this year, Andrew Abdo was keen to trumpet 2021 as “an incredibly strong year” for the NRL, as the game recorded a $43.1 million surplus.
Earlier this month, the Courier Mail reported the “surplus next season is expected to hit a record $50m”.
“The game’s finances have never been better,” ARLC chair Peter V’landys told News.
We’re making so. Much. Money. That’s the takeaway the ARLC is keen for you to have.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
Unless you ask them to spend some of it, as Penrith CEO Brian Fletcher did last weekend, taking to News’ Sydney papers to ridicule the paltry $200,000 his club received for winning the 2022 premiership.
“Peter V’landys keeps putting the prizemoney up in the racing but they go and halve it in football. I’d understand if the NRL had no money,” Fletcher said.
“We’re supposed to be bigger than the AFL but their premiers get $1.1 million.”
Abdo responded in Monday’s paper, saying next year’s prize pool “will be up by four times the current levels, subject to commission approval”.
“We halved it during Covid so it will go back to pre-Covid levels and then I’m putting a proposal forward to double those original levels. It would be the same principle for all prizemoney,” the game’s CEO said.
The Daily Telegraph trumpeted Abdo’s claims as the NRL’s “$1m prizemoney boost”, getting that figure by adding the grand final winners claiming $800K and the minor premiers taking home $200K.
I’ll make the observation that the reporter, Dean Ritchie, is clearly not a numbers guy either: “Abdo will recommend to the ARL Commission that all prizemoney be increased fourfold for next season… Winning the minor premiership was worth $100,000 but that figure may now double to $200,000”.
So which is it Dean – double or fourfold? Because fourfold $100,000 is not $200,000.
I’m not just highlighting Ritchie’s lack of calculation skills for poops and giggles – $400,000 is a figure that moves the needle for winning the JJ Giltinan Shield. And it’s an aspect of the competition that needs a bit more oomph about it, because $100K is not a just reward for the 25 weeks of excellence required to win the ‘minor’ title.
As for $800K for the winners of the whole shebang? Look, it’s a marked improvement, but can we agree that it’s still chicken feed for a competition that V’landys claims is about to have revenue “in excess of $600 million”.
This is, in Abdo’s words, “a premier competition”, yet the carrot to be the absolute best of the best is a figure worth a little more than one one-thousandth of total revenue.
It’s also really, really important to note that all these figure comes with the huge caveat of being a “proposal” that is “subject to commission approval”. At this stage, next year’s premiers will still be rewarded with two of Daly Cherry-Evans’ monthly paycheques.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
As for why an organisation clearing $40 million in profit each year is still offering once-in-a-century-pandemic prizemoney, Abdo reasoned “we need to rebuild the balance sheet and think about what the distributions are in the new world.”
Which is a roundabout way of saying, “ahh, you don’t understand the complexities”.
It’s simple: the NRL is rich. It makes hundreds of millions of dollars every year and clears tens of millions in profit.
But it’s hugely, wildly, exhaustively difficult to explain why that money should be spent.
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