The National Rugby League "has employed a team of analysts for the past 12 months to work out the dollar value of the game’s separate assets, including the Telstra Premiership and State of Origin, in order to drive a better bargain for the next broadcast rights deal," according to Stuart Honeysett of THE AUSTRALIAN.
NRL CEO Dave Smith confirmed that "he had phoned executives at rights holders the Nine Network, Fox Sports and Telstra to give formal notification he wanted to start talks in the next few weeks." Smith: "My obligation is to make sure the fans have got a game like ours to watch for the next 10, 20, 30 years so it’s not surprising really that I would be thinking about the future and it’s a very, very big part of that future. I’ll continue to talk and see where we get to." The NRL "has its own team of analysts who have been determining the value of the game’s assets over the past year."
It is understood that Smith "will be armed with their information when he meets TV executives in the coming weeks to ensure the game is not short-changed." Smith: "I think the most important thing is to understand the value of the asset that you’ve got and we do. We’ve done a lot of work over the last 12 months to really understand what the value of our rights are." Smith "wants to free the league from having to support clubs financially." The NRL props up Wests Tigers, Gold Coast, Newcastle and St. George Illawarra. Only two clubs -- South Sydney and Brisbane -- "recorded a profit." Smith: "I would expect that the next deal will continue to close that gap and the clubs will be stronger and healthier and it will be great if they were in a position where they were profitable and they were able to reinvest into their core markets as well" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 4/28).
