By DAVID HAYWARD
AS THE player transfer windows for the NBA and domestic football leagues across Europe come to a close over the next two weeks, it is an important reminder of what rugby league continues to miss out on.
After persisting for two decades with what is considered by most rational pundits to be the worst player transfer system amongst professional sporting leagues throughout the world, it is time the NRL embraces some simple and effective concepts that will avoid ongoing reputational damage.
A benefit from persisting with their dysfunctional and anarchic system for so long is that the NRL has been able observe and test how bad its system can be, while learning what systems work best for other reputable sporting leagues.
The NRL is in a unique and strong position in that it has elements that embody US sporting leagues such as the salary cap and no promotion and relegation but also has athletes who can be lured to competing sporting codes in the vain of football players having the freedom to play professionally in almost every nation on the planet. As such, the NRL should be embracing the best and most suitable components of US sports and domestic football leagues. These include a salary cap with transparent player salaries and player transfer windows occurring mid- and post-season.
This mid-season player transfer window brings much hope and interest to fans who eagerly monitor what their club may be doing to kick-start their stalling season or make a move for the final piece of the puzzle to become champions at season’s end.
Even the official post-season player transfer window is extremely popular with fans. It was reported in June last year that social media engagement was around 50 per cent higher in the weeks following the NBA finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers as fans obsessed themselves with free agency rumours and dealings. In the NRL, farcically, the wheeling and dealings for next season have mostly already been done months before the grand final, unnecessarily interrupting the season proper.
Now that the RLPA is satisfied with a salary cap that compares to a percentage of revenue of their benchmark brethren in US sporting leagues, it is time the NRL enforces a similar level of transparency and structure that they adopt. However, this probably isn’t enforceable until the next CBA as it is unlikely to have been included in the one negotiated last year. That potential hiccup aside, if implemented it is an extremely effective and popular fan engagement tool in US sports for fans to completely understand how their team is spending money on players. It also can be an effective policing monitor of the salary cap, which the NRL has not been to enforce for decades without one club bending the rules behind their back.
The aspect of US sporting leagues that would not work well for the NRL is a player draft system for rookies. Drafts only work well in sports that have an environment with no competitive threat for players to opt to ply their trade in another country, or switch codes, which is why it works well for US sports. Terry Hill did rugby league a favour and avoided much long term pain and headaches for the league by challenging the farcical “External and Internal Draft” system in 1991, leading the system to its demise.
It is difficult to find a logical explanation as to why the NRL doesn’t simply embrace these basic concepts that work so successfully for domestic sporting leagues across the world. This is because there isn’t one.
The argument used to go that it wasn’t fair on players to organise a relocation between October and March (five months) if they were to change clubs at the end of the season. This despite the fact 11 of the 16 NRL clubs are within 350km of each other and other professional athletes have to move thousands of kilometres or to other countries within days and seem to manage fine. This argument also fails to hold water now given in recent seasons players have been able to successfully move to an interstate club mid-season.
The latest supporters of the current status quo such has Paul Kent insist, in spite of every professional sporting league in the world successfully implementing transparent salary cap figures and mid- and post-season player transfer windows, that it will not work for the NRL. He argued vehemently on Triple M last season that player transfer windows will not work because rugby league clubs, players and agents will still break the rules anyway and make deals outside the window and the NRL won’t be able to police it. If that is the case, why have a 10m rule, a forward pass rule or a grapple tackle rule because players will just break the rules anyway and referees will turn a blind eye? Oh that’s right…
But that is not the point. The important thing, as in life, is that at least one rule is needed so that most people follow them and some order is established, otherwise it would just be anarchy, which is pretty much what the current NRL system is.
Rugby league should not fear player transfer windows, if rules are broken, they run the risk of being punished and the media will get a juicy story to write about it. If a deal is made outside the window, they also run the risk of it not being registered or one party changing its mind in the weeks or months in between. In the end the majority will toe the line, much like the salary cap. It will also avoid the farcical case of players continuing to play for one club while they have signed for another. The damage this causes in terms of the game’s reputation to casual fans is grossly underrated.
There is nothing but upside for the NRL and its fans if it embraces a transparent salary cap and player transfer window that occur mid season (June) and post season (October). Hopefully this time next year rugby league fans will not have to envy what the NBA and football leagues get to experience.
