I'll start off with mine.
In order for the NRL to be successful, it needs to retain its star players, reward loyalty, keep developing new players, and also provide more incentive to representative players. It also needs to ensure all clubs are competitive and economically viable so that they don't collapse but we can't let a single club cause the downfall of the NRL.
Star Players
Each club should be allowed to spend $1 million each year on 2 of its star or marquee players who have been in the NRL under 7 years. These 2 players will be the poster boys or representatives of the club basically. In our case they will be Jarryd Hayne and someone like Feleti Mateo (though he won't be paid $500,000) because players like Nathan Hindmarsh, Nathan Cayless and Timana Tahu are considered veterans.
Rewarding Loyalty
Each club should be granted $1 million for 2-4 players who have been playing for their NRL club for 7 years or more. Eg. Nathan Hindmarsh, Nathan Cayless and Luke Burt. Fuifui Moimoi next year.
Any player who plays in the NRL for more than 10 years will be given $100,000 when they retire with the NRL and sign a contract to not play for Super League, Union, AFL etc.
Developing New Players
Each club should be granted $1 million on players under the age of 21 who have been playing with the juniors of the club for more than 3 years. These players can only be signed on for contracts up to 3 years and afterwards they will be moved in the regular category or superstars. The club will declare these star juniors at the beginning of the season.
Regular Players
The NRL squad will be modified to 30 players due to the high injury rate in recent years and there will be $3 million for the other players which will amount to around 20 or so with the average salary for the regular NRL player being $150,000, quite a reasonable amount. The minimum salary will remain at $50,000 though no club may have more than 10 players paid $50,000 so that they do not hog the star players.
Thus the salary cap is $6 million for 30 players. 3rd party agreements are outside the cap and cannot exceed $500,000 each year for the club. This pushes the 3rd parties to instead sponsor the club instead of just the players, bringing more money to the clubs.
Off Contract Players and Keeping "experiencing difficulty" Clubs Competitive
When a player goes off contract he will be offered to choose any club he wants. However if he wishes to earn more money, he can enter the "player draft" which each team is allowed to bid for him. He will be offered a bonus 20% by the NRL or 3rd party sponsors if they are big names, which will not count towards the cap, if he is bought by a club who is considered "experiencing difficulty" and in the case of this year, the Sharks. There will be 4 "experiencing difficulty teams each year." A maximum of 2 players for the "experiencing difficulty" can have the 20% bonus.
In order for the clubs to be able to afford all this and for the NRL's viability due to its lack of money, all players must participate in 4 major promotion campaigns each year. Eg. Parramatta players can advertise for Body Science, Pirtek and whatever new sponsor they get in the future. Clubs should be encouraged to have at least 5 major sponsors.
Representative Players
All Test match players must be paid $15,000 per game. Including the 18th man as he trains with them.
All State of Origin players must be paid $10,000 per game.
NRL All Stars and Indigenous All Stars players must be paid $10,000 per game.
Funding All This
This will be difficult to fund in 2011 and once again the NRL will require financial aid from the supporters, which may mean increased ticket prices of around $3 per game. We may also need some major sponsors such as TAB Sportsbet, Telstra, Toyota, Woolworths and a few banks. These firms can also provide a certain amount of free tickets to games to their customers if they sponsor past a certain threshold. They can call upon certain players to do certain marketing campaigns though this needs to be worked out by these firms, the NRL and the players (with potential extra payments that don't count towards 3rd party agreements or salary cap as this is for the entire NRL not the club and only the most elite will be chosen for these marketing campaigns).
The NRL should also earn money from the new television deal in 2012, potentially the reported $1 billion or greater and if Channel 7 is prepared to bid a respectable amount of money etc, they can choose to show all the games of a certain club.They can bid to show all Parramatta games for the year. Only the highest bidding Channel is allowed to show all games of 1 particular club so that way it doesn't clash when the club takes on another club that been bid on by another channel. 4 Channels should be granted to show NRL games (Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10 and Fox) with each having 2 games a week.
The federal government will also need to fund the NRL more and the State government should offer more money if it wishes to keep the Grand Final (I obviously want it in Sydney but we need to extract the money from them). There should also be an annual massive campaign to promote NRL to young chilren ie under 16, with all the clubs going to Queensland and NSW to a certain ovals with 3 or 4 players voted by fans from each club. They should play touch footy with these children and the children can get autographs. This allows these players to endorse the sponsors of the NRL at this event and thus the sponsors will be happier.
Conclusion
I believe this plan is quite complex though viable with sufficient funding. An average salary for a non superstar and non veteran player of $150,000 is not too bad. The big names still stay with their clubs on deals of $500,000 if they're superstars or ranging from $250,000 - $500,000 if they're veterans with their clubs. The $100,000 bonus at the end of their 10 year NRL Career also entices them to always stay with the NRL. Representative players are paid a reasonable amount and the sponsors that are sponsoring clubs are promoted sufficiently by the entire club (allowed to use any players) so they get something out of their money.
Now post your ideas.
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Replies
Good work David, you should definitely submit your work to the NRL as they are asking for help.
TV rights will bring in quite a large sum of money, depending on how competitive the channels are. How competitive the channels are will be dependent on how many NRL fans are out there who will be willing to boost their ratings by watching. I'm guessing Channel 7 is prepared to make a major bid considering the success of the Matty Johns Show in recent weeks since its debut. The Federal Government is quite conservative for a Labor government but they should be willing to fund the NRL more if enough fans voice their message. Luckily it's not a Liberal government, otherwise the game will be getting less bucks as they brag about how they always have a budget surplus.
As for juniors, it's really important for us to spend a fair bit of money on them but discipline and integrity must be taught and enforced more heavily. Juniors are the future of the game and some do end up as flops but without keeping these players we would never have got players like Hayne and Inu in recent years. Yes Inu was a little expensive but if he's willing to stay with us, we'll get out value out of him. We are yet to see whether Mortimer turns out to be great. He's still got another 2-3 years to prove his skills as a play maker.
Everything I've proposed has been optimistic but it's realistically possible if officials, players, fans, sponsors, major firms and the government all co-operate. If we all co-operate we will see NRL continue to bloom and truly become Australia's outright number 1 winter sport.
As for Rudd, he seems to want to throw money everywhere except League, maybe soccer is his sport.
Seriously, you should submit your plan to the NRL.
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