NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg has one year to show us why he should keep his job
by Andrew Webster
On December 20, Todd Greenberg dispatched a friendly email to club bosses wishing them season's greetings for Christmas and New Year.
Apparently, a season exists outside of the rugby league season. Many of us call it "hell". While the NRL chief executive had their attention, he wanted to remind them about all the great things the game had achieved in 2017.
NRL boss Todd Greenberg. Photo: AAP
A new digital network! New stadiums! New owners for the Titans and Knights! A new strategic plan! A new collective bargaining agreement! New! New! New! Yay! Yay! Yay!
As one club boss told this column: "He forgot to add how the game has run out of money, but anyway ..."
"Importantly," Greenberg said in his email, "I believe we have made significant progress this year building a greater level of trust and collaboration among the game's largest stakeholders. This has been a key focus for me and one that will continue into the New Year."
This is where Greenberg often bemuses the audience he's speaking to. Because they know as much as he does that it's bullshit. Trust and collaboration have never been the game's strongest points, so much so that the clubs and the state leagues had to hold a gun to the commission's head in the past year so it could have its own people on board. On February 21, at the NRL's annual general meeting, the "independent commission" becomes the "sort-of independent commission" when two appointees from the clubs and one each from the NSWRL and QRL join the party.
The most significant change, though, is the man being bundled out the door: chairman John Grant, who is about to climb aboard a new gravy train headed towards the Rugby League International Federation. Mark the day down as the exact moment when Greenberg has one season to prove why he should keep his job.
No longer hamstrung by a chairman who micro-managed every detail of the game and not much of it particularly well, this is Greenberg's time to shine. His time to show us what he stands for. His vision for the game in the next five years. His time to give us less of Todd Greenberg, the politician, and more of Todd Greenberg, the leader of the game.
Replies
I say that it is not in him to make it work. he is too much of an insider, a political animal to make the hard calls. It is interesting that one of the NRL club bosses said he forgets who he is Bullhsting too at times.
I have worked in Mgt myself and you see these types in all Mgt teams. Talk themselves up focus on the achievable targets and work around the real issues.They eventually become weighed down with overpromising and under delivering and collapse under the weight on their shoulders.
He has done nothing about the real issues in the NRL. New stadiums is a state government initiative, nothing to do with the NRL. What has he done about TPA rorts, falling attendances, falling TV ratings, lack of cash flow in the game and the standard of refereeing. He has stood by the failure of the review system partly because he was the one who wanted it and partly because it was easier to claim there was no problem than to fix the problem.
With new faces that I see coming onto the Commission, I doubt he will last long at all.
In reference to the refereeing he has at least done something given they've restructured the referees management team, brought on board Michael Maguire and removed Tony Archer from his role and placed him in the development pathways. We'll see how that goes but it's an attempt at fixing it.
But on real issues such as TPAs we've heard diddly squat from him. He'll never do anything about it, mainly because he's said as much: "It's up to the teams to self-report." You might as well just say the NRL doesn't care about teams rorting the TPA system unless someone hands them the smoking gun, then they'll claim the system works.
Too much of a political insider, tends to doff his forelock to a Uncle Nick and a few club power brokers. How he managed to oversee the financial mismanagement of the game and escape real criticism is one of the mysteries
If he has been held back by Grant, give him 6 months to show some leadership and get to grips with TPAs and we may have some reason to let him continue. Personally would turf him sooner rather then later
Get V'Landys in to clean nrl up
He’s pure politician. Plain and simple.
His Christmas message should be put in a management course text book for all its fluff and meaningless waffle. ‘Greater levels of trust and collaboration?” Is he serious?
His tenure of CEO has had many failings but his greatest sin? The game has run out of cash. That’s completely unforgivable.
Agreed Mutt. What CEO would survive if they ran a company into the ground? He either takes the fans for mugs, or he has absolutely no idea what he is doing.
The entire NRL isn’t accountable to anyone.
The only things that have changed since the NRL finally got its first decent TV deal is we now have our very own office block in Moore Park full of executives doing who knows what, and we have a bunker.
Apart from that what’s changed?
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