Outgoing NRL CEO Dave Smith is "believed to have sidelined a financial expert" -- who helped deliver a record A$590M ($425M) broadcast deal for Cricket Australia -- in the early stages of the broadcast rights talks with the Nine Network and Fox Sports, according to Stuart Honeysett of NEWS LIMITED. Leading financial services company Credit Suisse CEO John Knox "had been recruited to advise Smith and NRL Head of Strategy Andrew Fraser on the negotiations before the pair elected to go it alone." Cricket Australia "had been tipped to get upwards" of A$400M ($288M) when it was "locked in talks over the next rights deal" but the recruitment of Credit Suisse helped deliver a A$590M "windfall from free-to-air networks Nine and Ten in 2013 -- a 118 percent increase on the previous contract." Smith negotiated separately a record A$925M ($667M) deal with Nine, "giving the free-to-air broadcaster four live games a week from Thursday to Sunday." Fox Sports was "frozen out of the talks and was furious at losing its best two timeslots -- Saturday and Monday nights." The departing NRL CEO’s "heavy-handed approach has now put in jeopardy the expectations that the code might be able to net" a record A$1.7B ($1.2B) for its next rights deal, "which is scheduled to kick in" after '17. Australian Rugby League Commission Chair John Grant "failed to answer a question that Smith had to be moved on for talks to resume with Fox Sports." Grant: "We've got the deal with Fox, we've also got international, radio and New Zealand rights to do as well and we've got two years to do that" (NEWS LIMITED, 10/22).
THROW THE BANK: In Sydney, Andrew Webster reported the ARLC "needs to throw the bank at Jim Doyle, drag him back to League Central and give him Smith's corner office." Forget about "paying a recruitment agency truckloads to embark on an expensive world wide search." The "best option is right under its nose." Doyle quit as COO in June last year to become CEO at the Warriors. He was angry when the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD "suggested at the time he had grown tired of working under Smith and a dysfunctional administration." But now the "position vacant" sign has gone up and it is "understood Doyle has support amongst some commissioners, some of whom were unhappy to see him leave last year." Club bosses spoken to in recent days said that they "would embrace him." One said, "He's one of us, but would the commission want someone who will tell them some hard facts" (SMH, 10/23)?
