Eels Blogs

This is a topic i have been dreading for years and been saying the issues for years. I need to write this down as the ideas presented recently are concerning for the NRL moving forward. To summarise, the NRL are looking at, once 20 teams are in, of going to a 19 round competition, everyone plays each other once, a stand alone rep period and conferences. Now let me start with the draw.

Firstly, the NRL should never be going to 20 teams, particularly this fast but it is inevitable so have to deal. Do not get me started with PNG either which is the dumbest idea the NRL have had in a long time. But the draw, ok. In the article presented it stated the amount of games difference between 27 rounds (24 games per team) and 19 rounds (19 per team). The issue with this is TV deals. They are paying for product. Quite frankly the best sporting product in the country is what they are buying. The NRL are bringing more teams in, you think bigger deal with more games weekly. More games means more ads and marketing opportunities and more time slots. People watching NRL every Sunday and Monday night. The issue with the proposed idea is less product means less money. I use the anology of buying a car. If you go to buy a new car for $25k, it comes with GPS, leather seats, heated seats and a full spare tire. 3 years later, you go to the same dealership they try to sell you the same model of car, though no GPS and full spare tire. They ask for $35k. Are you going to buy it when there is less? No you will not.

Wayne Bennett brought up the same sentiments that the game is about money, less games means less money in the game. Less money in the game and players get paid less. It is why when players complained about the amount of footy they had to play i would reply "That's fine but don't complain with less money in your pocket". The article played devil's advocate stating it is only a 14 game difference between 27 rounds of 2025 and 19 rounds. Issue is they did not include the extra 2 games a week that the extra 3 teams would include. So no it is not 213 games with semis included it is 249 games. That 14 game difference becomes 50. That is a lot of games and money left on the table. They brought up an example of 253 games in 1998 and saying it didn't lead to more revenue. Well they were coming off the Super League War which hurt the game and took two decades to fully recover, some argue the game will never fully recover from the Super League War. The game is at it's best right now and need to strike when the iron is hot. Plus the NRL has February to first Sunday in October. With this concept the game will start later and finish earlier. Less NRL on screens for certain amount of time. More down periods and letting the AFL have up to a month by themselves with no competition for ratings and paper space. The broadcasters also want content all year round to warrant the subscriptions and use of ads. If you only have 7 months worth of product compared to 8 for example, more down time where they are not getting ratings all year round. They worked it out with the pre-season challenge to broadcast all the games, they rate very well. Fox Sports are very happy with the ratings and their advertisements are getting utilised more often and the price to advertise is higher with more slots as well the subscribers are happy getting their money's worth for NRL with an extra month of it. 

The other issue with a 19 round draw is home/away games and members. Firstly having odd number of games means some teams have more away games then some. This is a disadvantage. Fans will complain "Why do Brisbane get 10 home games and we only get 9?" Right now it is 12/12. Granted some teams use Magic Round and go to country areas or interstate to play home games but that is on the club not the NRL, it is the club who gets blamed for the stupidity. The other aspect is members, right now as a season ticket holder i have 11 games offered. With this i could have 9 games. Are they expecting me to pay the same or even more for 2 less games a year? Some teams could offer 3 less games a year? So teams lose more money with less home games a year. 

Next issue is stand alone Origin. You shut the game down for three weeks to play Origin. What is going to fill in the gap for broadcasters and fans in the meantime while waiting for Origin? They mentioned a 3 game series between Samoa and Tonga. Ok fair, but was it that good of footy to have a stand alone time slot every week? Plus not only are teams sweating on Origin for their players to get through but now test matches. Teams could have 2 players in Origin to worry about now could have an extra 3-4 in the test matches as well. Then you have the mid week media, what are they going to talk about all week? This years Origin media was boring as watching paint dry, that is an insult to paint drying. It was the same crap every day and made me honestly waiting for Origin to be over to get back to club footy. The crap of "We are preparing this way" and "Queensland are this" and "NSW are this" it was like the promotion of a boxing match it was rubbish. Imagine that for three weeks with limiting the NRL stories? 

Then how do those not participating in the rep games stay match fit for 3 weeks? 3 weeks off for a player or two is fine. But most of a squad? Coaches and trainers have admitted that the clubs need a mini pre-season to get into match preparation from nearly a month off. If you want to grow the international game without having it all at the end of the year, have the rep round again like a few years ago in the middle of the season. The NRL takes a back seat to rep games, Origin played on Sunday night and those players have more time to recover from Origin to back-up. 

The last issue is the biggest for me, the conference system. Quite frankly the dumbest idea there is, even more than PNG. Peter V'Landys idiolizes American sports. Started with the GF being used as a Super Bowl type ordeal where different cities get the GF every year. Then going to Vegas, now he wants conferences. The reason the four big leagues; NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL, have conferences is due to the amount of teams they have and amount of games they play either too many or not enough to warrant a typical ladder you see in other sports. Though there are still issues involved with conferences. One of the main ones is around playoffs. Now in NRL they wont have divisions like American sports do. But more likely it will be top 5 from each conference.

Now let's say there are two 10 team conferences;

Conference A:

Parramatta

Penrith

St. George Illawarra

Manly

Souths 

Sydney

Wests

Canterbury

Cronulla

Newcastle

Conference B

Melbourne

Brisbane

North Queensland

Gold Coast

Dolphins

Perth 

PNG

Warriors

Canberra

20th team TBC

Ok so a Sydney conference and a rest of conference (I know Newcastle aren't Sydney). Let's say one year in conference A, the top 5 are Roosters, Souths, Dogs, Manly and Penrith. Parra finish 6th. In conference B top 5 is Melbourne, Warriors, Brisbane, Perth and NQ. NQ could make the top 5 with 10 wins due to their conference being poor, while Parramatta finished with 12 wins and misses out due to their conference being strong. Is that fair? The system we have now is simple, the more you win the more likely you are in finals. If you win more games than the other you play finals. 

Plus the complaints of "Why do we get Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra to compete against in our conference?" Cause you are competing against them only. One person said to me "You can still do a top 8 of the top teams from both conferences who ever has the most wins. If that is the case just do a regular ladder as that is exactly what that scenario relates to. Added to that is if you are playing every team once, what is the point of a conference system? In say NFL, teams play majority of their games against teams in their conference. They play the three teams in their division twice each, only 4 of their 17 games are against the other conference teams. That adds reason as the teams in your conference you want to beat in order to get a better spot in the playoffs and a better record in conference.

For NRL, since they are playing once each, it doesn't do anything. It sounds cool, futuristic and different but redundant at the same time. If they made it you play 22 games, the 3 extra games you play 3 teams in your conference twice, then ok there is some meaning. With this idea, you give the chance for weaker teams to make it to semi's even easier. Also, if you are doing a conference system you have to set it as a conference finals. You cannot then bring the top 10 together and have it like the system we have now as they are not techincally the top 10 as another team in another conference could have a better record as stated before. Therefore with conference finals, it would be the winner of Conference A v winner of Conference B in GF. Issue with that is firstly limiting the GF's the game can have. In this case, there will be no Dogs v Eels GF or Rabbits v Roosters GF. Also, most times, you will not have the best two teams in the comp in the GF. Some might argue that is the case now, well when it is free for all and a club like Canberra lose week 1 and can verse any of the other 7 the following week the best teams are going to get through. Now yes sometimes a team can fluke their way to a GF, but with a chance of cutting the best teams from one conference, say the best 3 teams overall all year are in the same conference, the other conference are going to have less superior teams in the GF. There will be more fluke teams in the GF than most.

The game is flying, the game is fine why tamper with it. 20 teams i feel is too much, the idea of no byes is great but you need them even if only once to keep players somewhat fresh to finish the year. Until 2028 when byes return due to 19 teams. Now with selling it to TV, i know what V'Landys will do. He is a smart man and knows what the issues could be. His big draw card would be the streaming services such as Netlix and Amazon Prime who have expressed some interest in getting some of the rights to NRL. Issue is if they go for that the product is scattered, when it is scattered here, there and everywhere fans will drop off, particularly casual fans who cannot be bothered changing to different streaming services or paying for them just to watch NRL. I doubt a streaming platform like Netflix will take the NRL at full freight for rights. I know some will say well they do that now with channel 9 and Fox. Difference is Fox has every game anyway. Fans can put it on Fox league and don't have to change the channel. 

Now i did hear a few months back of the idea of 22 games per team. Play each other once, then have three games for rivalries. Say Parra for example will play Dogs, Penrith and Wests twice in a year. Games go to 220 games a year, which is more than what it is now. You wont get as much coin as hoped but it is a comprimised idea of shortening the season for players and offering more of a product for TV. You can even extend the product by two weeks by having two bye rounds. Cut the rounds in half, 10 teams get one bye and only 5 games played and swap it around again. That if offered i would swallow a litte bit easier. Plus it also helps the issue of home/away as each team will have 11 home and away games each. 

As many don't like to hear it or accept it, the NRL is in the entertainment business. It is entertainment, we sit to watch it every week, pay money to watch live as a form of entertainment. Many complain it shouldn't be, well that is the business. Players complain TV runs the game, while the money generated from TV pays their large wages. 

Finally a side note, is there actually a guarentee these extra 3 clubs will work into the future? What if they fold after 10 or so years, like PNG when the government funding is gone, you go into a conference system and one team is gone. once you go into a conference system you cannot go back.

Leave the game alone, hopefully the words from Wayne Bennett and Blake Solley will avoid this stupid idea in the future. I know Nick Politis is who brought up the conference idea. Just hope it doesn't happen.

There is no perfect system, what we have now is possibly the best way to go about it. If the NRL were to have 19 rounds they should have had it to start with. Some fans get fatigued by 27 rounds, i personally do not but not everyone is like me that is fair. It is the example of how oyu wont get it right for everyone. But this is why Abdo needs to go and V'Landys needs his reins pulled in a little. This is a sign of trying to be to clever and different. Revolutionizing a game that doesn't need it.