The deal has been done and the budget is now set, so where does Rugby League go from here? For well over a decade Rugby League in Australia was just trying to survive. It wasn’t that the game wasn’t growing, it simply come down to the fact that clubs at first were spending way beyond…
The Australian Rugby League Commission has today announced that the broadcasting rights for Rugby League in Australia have been retained by Channel 9 and Fox Sports Australia. The deal will run over five years and is worth $1.025 billion dollars. $100 million dollars of that is advertising on Channel 9 and Fox Sports. This deal…
Yesterday the RFL announced that it would be ending its naming rights deal with Stobart that saw them give away one of their biggest assets for stickers on trucks. It is interesting to look at the reaction to the news and the way some people have tried to defend the deal or revise their previous…
The Western Australia Rugby League has announced that the name they will use for their National Rugby League expansion team will be the West Coast Pirates. Previously the Western Australia Rugby League had used the name Western Reds, Perth Reds, then WA Reds, but obviously they decided to go in a different direction for their…
You are a unique and delicate flower. There is no one else quite like you. You are special. So very, very special. You are a Rugby League fan living in the “heartlands”. The game is belongs to you. Who cares about anywhere else, you come first and that is the way that it should always…
Recently Warrington Wolves coach Tony Smith told the media that the game administrators needed to look at ways to create more buzz around the sport and compared it, strangely, to Darts. Yes, Darts. He also talked about the need to make decisions that would probably upset some of the big power brokers in the game,…
The ARL Independent Commission was set up with the goal of being able to stand above self interests and agenda’s and do what is in the best interests of the overall game. In the past, Rugby League administrations have been political beasts. They have had to answer to clubs, who are always out to look…
It is a series in which every single game rates as highly on TV as the Grand Final. I would argue that State Of Origin is the most identifiable product that the game has Australia wide. Recent speculation suggest that any television station that wants to broadcast the three game State Of Origin series will…
It was over 12 months ago that Christchurch was rocked by a series of powerful earthquakes that flattened buildings, destroyed infrastructure and claimed many, many lives. It was heartbreaking to watch. Our Kiwi brothers and sisters got up that morning, and it was like any other day. They went to work not realizing that some…
The Independent Commission has been in place for just a few days and yet we are already seeing a lot of interesting development happen in regards to the next round of expansion for the National Rugby League competition. Already there is talk that Perth may be the venue for the end of season test match…
For well over a decade News Limited was part of the business. A 50% owner of the NRL, heavily involved in broadcasting rights, they had their fingers in all the pies and made hundreds of millions of dollars out of the game. Now, they are no longer at the table when it comes to the…
It took a long time but they finally got it done. The old ARL has been dissolved, News Limited has left the building and now the Independent Commission is finally in charge under the name of the Australian Rugby League Commission. The handover occurred yesterday at Moore Park in Sydney where the new HQ for…
Today on Twitter I mentioned once again that I believe the Cronulla Sharks should relocate to Brisbane. I point to the way they have struggled over their entire history financially and the way they are squeezed into a small area of Sydney with no room to grown. In Brisbane they would be one of just…
Imagine that you own a Newspaper based in London. London is the biggest media market in the country, and the vast majority of your newspapers sales are in the greater London region. The good people of London are like any other people anywhere else in the world. They want to be informed about what is…
If you follow me on Twitter, you will know that this is something that I have brought up a few times and I am not happy about. As of today, the Penrith Panthers do not have a captain, CEO or a major sponsor. Earlier this week The Daily Telegraph looks at the latter in an…
I’ve been saying for some time that Rugby League in Great Britain, and Super League in particular needs fixing. In 1996 Rugby League in Great Britain was given a whole lot of money to help try and form an elite club competition that would provide broadcasters with a nice amount of content they could show…
Canberra, Newcastle, Brisbane, Townsville, New Zealand, Melbourne and the Gold Coast. These are the names of teams that have come into what we these days call the NRL over the course of my lifetime. The presence of these teams have been nothing short of vital to the survival of the club I support in Sydney,…
In a stunning turn of events, the Wrexham Crusaders have withdrawn their license application to the Rugby Football League, meaning they will drop down a division to the Co-Op Championship next season. This decision means that the team that was heavily favored to be axed from the competition next season, the Wakefield Wildcats, have earned…
Starting a new football team, and expansion team, is all about good will. You have to convince the governing body of the sport that they really need you in the competition. That the area you are going into has room for growth, and their presence will will be a welcome addition to the established competition…
They are looking to enter the NRL and provide Brisbane with a second NRL team, but the expected announcement today that they want to name that team the “Brisbane Bombers” is ignorant and short sighted. It will never be allowed to happen, and rightfully so. There is an AFL team called the Essendon Bombers. That’s…
The NRL’s next broadcasting deal will see a huge leap in the amount of money the game makes. By at least 2015, we will have an 18 team competition (With the addition of Perth and most likely a second Brisbane team). The deal after that, which will run between 2018 and 2023, will see further…
The Widnes Vikings will participate in Super League again from 2012 and as you can imagine, their fans are ecstatic about the prospect of being in the top flights again. Recently we have seen players, commentators and fans pushing for Super League to raise revenues and the salary cap. Just about everyone within British Rugby…
In the wake of Kyle Eastmonds announced defection to Rugby Union at the end of the Super League season there have been a number of very interesting reactions. Calls to raise the Super League salary cap, to pay Super League players more money, to form a players unions, central contracts, expansion, contraction…..everyone has an opinion!…
If your city was flooded for a week, you’d probably go a little bat shit crazy too. Thats the only way I can rationalize what has been happening in the Brisbane Rugby League scene recently with all sorts of things happening that make no sense at all. The randomness, the bitter feuds, the weird stories,…
When I was four years old, the Cronulla Sharks were my favorite team. The reason was because I liked the Sharks logo, it was cool. In fact my first every footy jersey is a tiny little Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks jersey. When I went to primary school a year or so later, my favorite players was a…
There is a bit happening ins Super League right now, some things are interesting while others are just batshit crazy! I’m always interesting in hearing, not so much the news about who won and lost, but the news that effects the competition itself. We’ve had a fair bit of that lately! After a tough year…
A Christmas, don’t you just love this time of year? Its stinking hot, beach weather, thunderstorms rolls out of the west from over the Blue Mountains, you put up a Christmas tree and decorate your house. You go into debt buying presents, you send cards to people. I have to say my favorite part is…
It is always fantastic news when we see the game expanding, and you all know I’m all for spreading the word and getting new areas into the games higher levels. This ones got me asking some questions though…. The BBC is reporting that a South Wales consortium have made a bid to enter a Bridgend-based team…
The Cronulla Sharks made a very tough decision when they decided to move half of their home games to Gosford. The Cronulla Sharks, more than any other team in the NRL, are a club thats very much grounded in its local area. They call its “The Shire”, and for many years the area turned up…
The Cronulla Sharks announced a few weeks ago that they would play one game a year for the next three years in Adelaide. The move was seen as a move by the NRL to get a small foothold in Adelaide ahead of possible expansion and a chance for the Sharks to make some much needed…