Why is the NRL going to eat the All Blacks alive?
10 Reasons league is ready to usurp rugby as NZ’s dominant code
1: Financial firepower
The NRL made a surplus of AS$58.2m ($63m) in 2023 – and made a surplus of A$62m in 2022, and A$42m in 2021.
New Zealand Rugby [NZR] lost $9.7m in 2023, $47m in 2022, and $34m in 2021.
The NRL’s total surplus for the last three years is A$162m; NZR has lost $90m.
2: Financial viability
3: Access to content and ability to grow audience
4: Strategic vision
5: Brand power
NRL’s annual report states that $362m was distributed to clubs, average attendances were 20,000, and all 17 clubs in the NRL made a surplus, with the average commercial revenue generated standing at $15.7m.
The Rabbitohs generated a total of A$23.5m ($25.6m) according to the Sydney Morning Herald, and just how strong a hold the NRL has in the Australian market was illustrated by the $23.5m of revenue the Dolphins collected in their first year in the competition.
The fact that a new club jointly topped the table of commercial income – taking $10.1m of sponsorship income alone – suggests there is an insatiable corporate appetite for the NRL in Australia.
It’s hard to make direct comparisons as Super Rugby clubs in New Zealand don’t receive or negotiate their own broadcast deal – but clubs can generate commercial revenue from sponsorships, gate revenues and any other streams.
But they all say it is hard to break even without hosting playoff games.
The Hurricanes, who didn’t host a playoff game, lost $1.4m in 2023, while the Melbourne Rebels went into administration.
6: Player payments
NRL teams have a salary cap of $11.25m. It is estimated that the highest-paid players receive around $1.3m a season, with the average $400,000 and the minimum $130,000.
The market is competitive and because club owners are able to make decisions about who to buy and what to pay, emerging talent can be offered big pay packets at a relatively young age.
Super Rugby clubs can pay players a maximum of $195,000 and a minimum of $75,000.
But these figures can be topped up by third parties, and those players who make the All Blacks will be topped by NZR.
The highest-paid players are therefore believed to have retainers of around $1m – comparable with the highest-paid players in the NRL – with mid-tier All Blacks likely to be on around $400,000 to $600,000 and younger players with limited test experience on about $300,000 to $500,000.
Rugby’s issue is that it operates on a hierarchical, pay-your-dues scale where players must make the All Blacks to open the door to big money.
7: Market forces
The NRL has afforded clubs leeway in the salary cap to recruit players from other codes, and most recently that has led to former Wallabies Carter Gordon and Mark Nawaqanitawase switching respectively to the Titans and Roosters.
But the narrative has been powerful and consistent, that many of New Zealand’s top rugby players are big fans of the NRL and attracted to it as a career option.
All Blacks vice-captain Jordie Barrett trained with the Melbourne Storm this year. Current All Black TJ Perenara was close to signing with the Roosters in 2021, and his teammate Caleb Clarke trained with the Rabbitohs in the summer of 2022
8: Participation rates
Rugby has lost its place as the preferred sport for New Zealand’s teenagers.
9: Connecting with the young
League is connecting with teenagers in a way rugby isn’t. And unlike rugby, it is managing to avoid fostering the same fears among parents about head injuries.
The NRL’s story is well told, and the sport is supremely well marketed through concepts that are authentic and appropriate for its fan base.
It was the NRL that came up with the super round, the indigenous round and all the other themed weekends.
Super Rugby is trying to take what works in league and unsuccessfully transpose it in union, and without having carved out its own identity, or built the same suite of media programmes to engage audiences and flood social media channels, it’s no wonder that New Zealand’s most promising schoolboy rugby players are just as likely to end up playing in the NRL as they are the All Blacks.
10: Embracing and empowering Pasifika
League changed its eligibility laws to enable players of dual heritage to represent another nation and instantly made Tonga and Samoa credible, international contenders.
Rugby‘s established heavyweights – New Zealand, Australia and France – on the other hand, continue to want to take the pick of Samoa, Tonga and Fiji’s best players for themselves and do little to help these nations grow as international entities on the world stage.
OPINION: Never in the last 30 years has league looked so strong and rugby so weak.
www.nzherald.co.nz
The only reason is wrong for me is the number 10. Obviously the writer doesn't know the new World Rugby laws for elegibility. Everything else makes sense
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