By STEVE MASCORD
SUPER League clubs could be about to benefit from a massive fire sale of NRL stars with 30 or more players to suddenly become available.
The problem has arisen because of an off-season promise by the Australian authorities to give clubs 130 per cent of the salary cap in grants. That’s right, the governing body has promised to pay all wages – plus another 30 per cent on top.
Imagine that in Super League.
Anyways, the NRL and the Rugby League Players Association are in subsequent talks about exactly what the cap should be. If that sounds arse-about, It’s because it is.
We still don’t know what the salary cap for 2018 will be.
Some clubs have reportedly budgeted to spend $10 million next year – and have even made commitments to that extent. The NRL, at the time of writing, has tabled an offer of around $8.84 million.
Realistically, each club may have to shed $500,000 worth of players; that’s $8 million worth of players flooding the market. Legally, those NRL clubs can be compelled to play much of those players’ wages if they have made binding commitments.
That means a more star-studded Super League next year with minimal effort from the clubs themselves, Red Hall or Salford Quays.
However, another projected alternative is that there is no salary cap at all in the NRL in 2018 because of the persistent delays in resolving the situation.
And that could mean A LOT of traffic in the other direction.
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ONE aspect of discussions regarding the international calendar for the next four years indicates to me the Rugby League International Federation just don’t ‘get it’ when it comes to our sport’s ‘New World’.
Put bluntly, having ‘rugby’ in our sport’s name allows us to legitimately, legally, steal rugby union’s IP. Given the injustices they have foisted upon us over the years, that seems completely legitimate to me, too.
So why would the RLIF want the United States to host a Federation Cup or Nines World Cup in 2023, the same year as a rugby union World Cup?
The whole benefit of having our World Cup in the United States two years later is so 30 million people think of rugby league as “rugby”. So we’re going to go in there two years earlier and reinforce that it’s not, up against a much bigger event which will be held in Europe or South Africa?
Why on earth would we undermine ourselves like that?
Indications are that the promoter of the 2025 World Cup, Jason Moore, raised the necessary funds to host the “global event” but didn’t want it in 2023 so we are at a stalemate.
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SOME random observations having been around for the British pre-season, the World Club Challenge and the start of Super League before returning to the NRL.
One, attendances are poor in Australia. The weather has been monsoon-like in Sydney, yes. But this doesn’t seem to be one of the NRL’s best epochs when it comes to working hard to attract crowds.
The 6pm Friday game is purely ambush marketing on the part of Fox Sports to steal away some of Nine’s audience for the later game. It doesn’t even pretend – or try – to be a live attraction.(continued below)
Two, the game is extremely attractive. Much of the wrestling has disappeared and the pendulum has swung so far back in the direction of attack that Canberra coach Ricky Stuart has begun complaining about how quick play-the-balls have become.
The old problem of individuals having to rise above the sameness of the play is largely gone – witness tries by Valentine Holmes, Nick Cotric and Josh Addo-Carr on the same day in round five.
Three, the game is so all pervasive in the media that I have got to a point I’ve never reached before – of having to deliberately tune much of it OUT.
There is nothing special about rugby league programmes in a place where there is a 24-hour rugby league station. You can never watch it all. So I actually find myself consuming less of it in an average wee than before.
There is nothing more mainstream than rugby league on the east coast of Australia.
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BONDI Beat’s spies tell me Papua New Guinea are feeling a bit unloved at the moment.
For the Pacific Tests on May 6.
As winners last year, the Kumuls thought they were playing Tonga in 2017. Now they’re playing odd-men-out Cook Islands.
PNG was even left off the first montage graphic promoting the event!.
LAST month I claimed that Bondi Beat was the longest-running rugby league column in the world.
Of course, I must defer to colleague Malcolm Andrews’ View From The Strand in League Express.
However, a whole bunch of rugby league publishing traditions have just gone the way of the dodo with the death of Rugby League Week magazine here in Australia.
This makes me sad for very practical reasons: it was worth a few hundred dollars a week to me. But I have read Rugby League Week since I was a lad and the fact it will not be at the newsagents this coming Thursday does feel a lot like a tragedy.
The death – or serious budget cuts eventually occasioning death – of magazines are part of a straightforward process. That is: the migration of everything (including this column) online, where readers expect it for free.
But what happens to IP once it is sold is another thing altogether and speaks to the increasing corporatisation of sport.
The NRL now owns Rugby League Week and all it’s intellectual property. Big corporations often buy things without the faintest idea of what they will do with those things. The League wanted the Immortal concept but doesn’t know what to do with the rest of its new toy.
To this end, popular columnist The Mole – colleague Tony Adams – has been reportedly locked out of his Twitter account after being assured he could keep it.
He has 120,000 followers.
Of course, as a subversive I would have changed the password myself years ago and copyrighted The Rugby League Mole for good measure.
But being subversive is why I’m poor.
One hopes RLW’s brand does return when the NRL’s media operations move in-house next year. In the meantime, there’s a (subversive) fanpage here:
https://www.facebook.com/RLWmagazine
Last month I also claimed that rugbyleaguehub.com would be my fulltime job. Easier said than done. Your fulltime job has to put food on the table and this site doesn’t so it is always a scramble for time.
But I keep trying
@BondiBeat
