NRL salary cap lifted by $100,000

[grievous]

Will it hurt rugby with more defections?

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

For that piddling amount, I doubt it.

 

[Richo]

If the proposed lower cap comes in for the Aussie teams, it might have some small impact at the fringes, I suppose.

 

[spikhaza]

don't forget a 100k rise means what how big is a rugby league squad. I'm going to say 25, that seems near enough, 100000/25=4000 per squad member. granted, they pay people different amount but in the scheme of things i don't think it means much.

 

[Brumbies Guy]

The main impact would be a flow on effect with more poaching of our promising schoolboys.

 

[Swat]

It's not like they've bothered sticking to the cap anyway

 

[TOCC]

Wait till the broadcast agreement is renegotiated and the salary cap is raised in excess of $1 million, then get worried

 

[wamberal]

There is a story in both the Terrorgraph and the Hurled spruiking a very large increase in the cap. If the mungoes have a lot more money to splash around, it will certainly have an effect on our game, at both the schoolboys and the elite level. They could afford to cherry pick players like Cooper (although he is probably going to switch regardless).

 

[TOCC]

Oh well, no point speculating, let's just wait and see

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

It's an awfully speculative figure the 1.4 billion. The article states that they had 77 of the top 100 events last year, which is great but as I had explained to me by a tutor who has an idea as to how this is calculated it really isn't that bigger a bargaining chip. It's about peneration and advertising opportunities. The reason the AFL reached 1.25 billion because it has a presence in every major market (well they will from next season) but the biggest determining factor is that their broadcast and hence advertising capability is longer with a 3-3.5 hour broadcast.

Regardless of the outcome we have investigate means to create greater equity in our game leading into 2015. I think the Olympics could be leveraged to attempt to get Super Rugby broadcast in more territories. The positive thing is Super Rugby had a very good season and if that continues the next deal will bring greater value.

 

[wamberal]

There was also some speculation that, if Fox Sports do not offer enough for their share of the rights, the NRL should call their bluff, and let the rights go to the highest FTA bidder (s). The expectation is, of course, that so many subscribers would cancel their contracts that Fox Sports would quickly be brought to heel.

I suspect that this tactic would never actually see the light of day - after all, what happens if the drop-off rate is minimal? While there are obviously people who claim that they only watch Foxtel because of the NRL, in fact there are a lot of other hours in the day, and the week, in which Foxtel provides something reasonable to watch. Inertia would see a lot of NRL fans stick to Foxtel, IMHO, and some of them might even (gasp) watch more rugby. Now wouldn't that be a delicious irony.

 

[mark_s]

Whether true or not, the discussion about why league is worth less than AFL due to the more natural ad breaks in AFL plus the longer duration of each claim is quite interesting and seems to make some sort of sense. How many viewers begrudge the station for cutting to an ad after a goal (which happens 10-20 per match, plus there is the various quarterly breaks). Most people think the game is more continuous than league or union despite these mandated breaks. Brings me to rugby, I think we are in a worse position than league if this same principle applies mainly due to the number of resets for scrums.

As for the extra $100k on the NRL salary cap – I don’t see it making much difference. The top NRL stars will already be looking to squeeze as much as they can into their own pockets (and fair enough to them as well).

 

[wamberal]

This extra $100K is very much an interim measure, the cap could go up by 50% if all their little mungo dreams come true. But, even if they just get a reasonable increase in the tv money, the salary cap will go up by a mill or so, I would reckon.

 

[Ash]

The $1.4bn is the very bullish hope number that the NRL think they'd get if they bent over backwards for the TV deal. Even NRL commentators don't think $1.4bn is possible, as the NRL isn't a national game like the AFL nearly is and doesn't have any real penetration into the WA, SA, Tas, etc markets. Also, this figure included stuff like pauses in play so they can play an ad - the same way that the AFL do after a goal (if you go to an AFL game, you can actually see them turning on a light telling the umpire that the TV ad has ended and to restart play). Most NRL commentators don't think that the new independent commission will agree to such broadcaster friendly terms.

 

[grievous]

There was also some speculation that, if Fox Sports do not offer enough for their share of the rights, the NRL should call their bluff, and let the rights go to the highest FTA bidder (s). The expectation is, of course, that so many subscribers would cancel their contracts that Fox Sports would quickly be brought to heel.

I suspect that this tactic would never actually see the light of day - after all, what happens if the drop-off rate is minimal? While there are obviously people who claim that they only watch Foxtel because of the NRL, in fact there are a lot of other hours in the day, and the week, in which Foxtel provides something reasonable to watch. Inertia would see a lot of NRL fans stick to Foxtel, IMHO, and some of them might even (gasp) watch more rugby. Now wouldn't that be a delicious irony.

HourS in the day=unemployed=rugby league fan=market+dole=Foxtel subscription