Vale: Terry Hill
4 hours ago | National Rugby League
The challenges, complexities, and frankly the downside, of private
ownership of NRL clubs was not on the ARLC agenda, it now must surely
be.
The overnight news that the Gold Coast Titans are clearly facing a
financial crisis is sad, and serious for the club, and the game.
But it is hardly a unique occurrence in the NRL!!
One of the issues
that has caused massive turmoil at the Sea Eagles has been the
increasingly poisonous relationship between the owners.
You have to
worry about ownership issues at the Knights, given the owner's track
record elsewhere...including at the NSL team he also owns.
The Warriors seem to survive on a wing and a prayer with all kind of uncertainties surrounding its ownership.
The
most stable ownership arrangements are at the Broncos and the Storm,
where News Limited is the majority owner and the sole owner
respectively.
But if the new head of News in Australia, Kym Williams, decides to see
the Storm it will be interesting to see if he gets any serious offers.
And
when you look at the NRL clubs that are effectively owned by their
licensed clubs just about all of them are under some financial pressure -
some are under real stress.
The future structure of the whole game needs the most thorough consideration - and not just driven by "expansion".
The ARLC needs to look in detail at the viability of the current sixteen NRL clubs AND the feeder clubs that serve them.
It also needs to look at the whole issue of private ownership.
Is it really working? Should private ownership conditions be tightened?
And not until that is all done should there even be initial consideration of expansion.
The television rights agreement is important to the game's financial viability, and that of the 16 current clubs.
But it is not the only factor.
What
is the point of having a good television agreement when the majority of
clubs are struggling to be viable...and two or three are unviable?
Even the best possible tv rights outcome won't solve the financial
challenges facing a worrying number of clubs - club/member owned and
private owned.