NRL chief executives want a review of the way matches are scheduled in the hope that clubs may be able to get a more even share of afternoon and night games.
Officials from the Sydney clubs involved in the ‘‘right game, right venue’’ strategy that has bigger matches played at ANZ Stadium, Alllianz Stadium and the SCG raised the issue at the most recent CEOs conference and there are now plans for a working committee to hold discussions with the broadcasters about changes that may benefit all parties.
Under the existing scheduling arrangement, Channel Nine chooses the first two matches for Friday night and Fox Sports selects a game for Saturday night and Monday night before Nine picks the fifth match for its Sunday afternoon coverage.
As a result, it is virtually impossible for a blockbuster match such as the upcoming South Sydney-Canterbury clash to be played on a Sunday afternoon.
However, most clubs prefer to play on Sunday afternoon and Fairfax Media reported on Tuesday that the Bulldogs would lose $300,000 in gate receipts and merchandise by hosting the match against Souths next Thursday night as they will be lucky to get a crowd in excess of 20,000 at ANZ Stadium.
St George Illawarra chief executive Peter Doust said the clubs wanted to work with the broadcasters to help them maximise the value of the $1 billion television deal, while also satisfying their sponsors, members and fans in order to build crowds.
‘‘We think that we should all have a bit of a round table on all of this stuff and see what touch points there are for the broadcasters and what touch points there are for the clubs, what touch points there are for sponsors and for members and supporters and see where that fits at this point in time,’’ Doust said.
‘‘For instance, some would say the fixed schedule has not worked as best as it may have for all the stakeholders. I don’t know that we have got enough research or enough information to draw a conclusion on that but we would like to discuss it.
‘‘It is a very complex equation trying to predict what are the big games, where they should be played and when within the constraints of the broadcast contract so we need to understand each other’s perspectives on this. We wanted to put forward as clubs a positive commitment to improve the outcomes for everybody and understand what they are.’’
While some fans complain that Canterbury, Parramatta, Souths and Brisbane regularly playing Friday night matches, those clubs would like to play more day games on a Sunday or Saturday.
In contrast, the likes of Cronulla, Penrith, Melbourne, Canberra, Newcastle, Gold Coast, North Queensland and the Warriors rarely feature in a Friday night.
With only half of the NRL clubs receiving such exposure, there are concerns the others will never be able to grow in popularity to warrant free-to-air coverage on Friday night.
‘‘There is a mitigation of risk by the broadcasters in picking the bigger brands and bigger clubs in terms of consistency over time,’’ Doust said. ‘‘They don’t get an opportunity to improve their disposition somewhat.
‘‘In saying that the top number of clubs, whichever way you want to cut it, can’t play each other every week so there has to be some consideration from all perspectives here, and that is what we decided we should open the door to and talk in a positive way about identifying these touch points and improving the value equation if we can.’’
With the current television deal expiring in 2017, Doust said the time was right to begin looking at ways to increase value for broadcasters.
‘‘We wanted to understand where the NRL was after this first period of the new broadcast arrangements and we wanted to make sure we were doing as much as we could to support the broadcaster’s objectives,’’ he said.
