Off the Wall

SPENDING THE TELEVISION REVENUE WISELY....
-By Jeff Wall.


The Weekend Australian interview with the CEO of the NRL has largely gone without mention elsewhere.
That is probably because it was hardly a headline grabbing interview.
The main news to emerge was that he was conducting a "root and branch" review of the finances of the NRL.
The only surprise in that is that it is only happening now!
Lets face it, the finances of the NRL have undergone a radical chance the start of the year.
There are not many companies - and that is what the NRL really is - that are called on to manage a 100 per cent lift in their key income source virtually overnight.
That is what happened when the new television/new media deal kicked in at the start of the year.
The annual payment to the game for free to air and pay rights, and related new media has gone from around $120 million a year to over $200 million a year.
Since then we have heard little substantial about how the money is to be spent - apart from the fact a sizeable slice is being put aside into an NRL version of the "Future Fund."
But my alarm bells rang when I noticed in a column the day after the Smith interview that the NRL HQ has 140 employees!!!!!
Really?
I had been on alert on the NRL "bureaucracy" issue following