THE BREAKDOWN: Has Football Finally Cracked America, The Story Behind Golf’s Hidden Superpower, & NRL’s $5.3bn Deal (E29)

30:11Very impressive, Charlie. How do you want a better thing? Fox paid a reported$485 million for the entire tournament's rights. Now, if you're doing it at 250, right, let's say you get 250 million. If you say they did sell a few of those slots for half a million plus plus, you can get close to they have repaid the money that they spent on acquiring the rights just by monetizing the hydration breaks. It's a quite incredible commercial model they built around that. It is. It seems to me that in a totally needless way, FIFA is obsessed by money. And I know they justify it by saying this goes into developing the game worldwide.

30:48But a balance has to be achieved ultimately to be healthy between the future developments of the game and the future credibility of the game, frankly. Like, you know, it's one thing saying, oh, well, we're going to make a lot of money to try and get more people to play. But if the product you're putting in front of them is, to use Wayne Rooney's word, crap, right? Because what we're saying is young people have short attention spans. Oh, I know what we're going to do. They've got short attention spans. So let's now try and make the games even longer. Yeah. Right? It's a really bad idea, right? Oh, well, we're going to make more money so we can then try and persuade more young people to get involved.

31:22Why don't you just get the product right in the first place? Then you achieve that goal anyway. Anyhow, moving on. Either way, the point I would make is I, whatever it meant, I still enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Apart from the final. Yeah, the final was a pity, wasn't it? Unfortunately, in football, there's nothing you can do about that when two team styles just don't match up. Yeah. But do you know what? It was made slightly better by the fact that we'd had a really enticing Sunday if you had been watching any of the Open. The golf. So we're on to golf. Because I think we should probably take this on.

31:55We are on to golf. Right, we're on to golf. Charlie, I've got a question for you. Yeah. Who runs world football? FIFA. who runs world tennis good question seven seven seven people would lay claim to it well sorry seven seven bodies what athletics well athletics well athletics yeah cricket icc yeah golf oh good one well pga no not the pga so the usga runs golf in america and mexico the entire of the rest of the world of golf is run by a private members club inst andrews called the rna and the rna is short for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. Okay. And what I decided to do is have a look.

32:55I went down a rabbit hole here, right? He's just a person to contact. He's been very excited about this. This is great. I hope that's nice to have a bit of acting. This is absolutely great, right? Which is that basically a bunch of elderly Scotsmen who made their money in the oil industry sit in a clubhouse drinking claret in St. Andrews and they run world golf. They run world golf. This massive global sport is run under the auspices of a bunch of crusty old Scotsmen in a palatial clubhouse drinking club claret at cost in Scotland. And what an extraordinary organization it is. Let's have a look at the Open first.

33:34Let's break down the Open, which I guess you might have had a look at as well. So they sold 300 ,000 tickets, having had 1.2 million applicants through the ballot. Right. So 300 ,000 is just the maximum that they can get onto the course during those four days. Right. A lot of people. Record. Yeah. A record. At the open, the amount of attendees is largely governed by the topography of the course, which is how many people can you realistically get onto that patch of land. And also the support of the surrounding infrastructure. And all of that, the roads in, pedestrian walkways, every golf course is different in terms of its access and all that kind of thing.

34:16Well, yeah, because it's been an interesting question around next year when it's at St. Andrews. Because really, I mean, the local town, 17 ,000 people, you have over 300 ,000 people to send. What is the infrastructure capable of looking after? I've done a St. Andrews Open in a tent before. Interestingly, I think it's been the RNA's excuse as to why Trump Turnberry remains off the open roster was the ability of the local infrastructure. And it's far from the only one either. So if you think that the open happens very regularly at St. George's Sandwich in Kent, right next to it is another open championship course, Royal Sinkport's Deal, which is arguably the better course.

34:54You can argue it either way. Certainly quality-wise would absolutely be on the open rotor. But the topography of Deal means you couldn't get a tented village there. and if you can't get a tented village there, then you can't make enough money out of it from the RNA's perspective. Right, so 300 ,000 tickets. Now, it's quite hard to work out how much money the Open makes. Yeah, I was struggling. Did you find it difficult? Yeah, I found it really difficult, but it's because the RNA. They're very strategic, aren't they? The RNA, you know, this is an organization I've become absolutely fascinated with because we've covered in recent weeks at times in the case of FIFA, the ICC, the ECB, etc.

35:33And certainly the sport of horse racing. Various sports which are either not run in an optimal way or are overly cynical or sclerotic as horse racing is, etc. And here we come across a massive global sport that is run exceptionally well, but in a very old school opaque way, right? So the more you try and look into it, the harder it gets. So first of all, you have to try and work out, right, what is the RNA's turnover, which is? Pretty much the revenue generated by the Open. 80 % to 90 % of the RNA's turnover by repute, this is by rumor, is the Open. So based on that, the number, I don't know about you, you'd net out maybe for the revenue for the Open around 150 million pounds.

36:20That's what I worked out. And I was thinking back to the conversations we had around the Masters. It was about the same. Now, they leave a huge amount of money, as we've discussed, on the table. But it's still a lot of money for the four-day tournament to be generating. Interestingly, just having a look at the distribution of some of that, I don't know if you had a look, the prize money, so the pot's£13.3 million. We've been having discussions with very high-level athletes crying about the women's prize pot. This is tennis. Right, so we've been covering in recent weeks that the top tennis players are claiming that their prize money should be 22 % of the revenue of a tournament, right?

36:57So if that were applied to the Open with revenues of 150 million, It's less than 10%. Right? Prize money should be about 40 million quid, right? Instead of which, it's 13 million quid. Whereas at the other majors, it's 16.5 to 17 million. So the Open is the major with the lowest amount of prize money. So Ryan Fox won, who won, Kiwi, great. amazing result. It was a great tournament. Like an underdog underdog coming in. 2.3 million pounds for his win. So, you know, a great, a great payday. Better than the kick in the teeth, by the way. Better than the kick in the teeth. but given the grandeur of the tournament, given the turnover of the tournament, given everything, that in modern terms is a relatively low prize.

37:39Now, Mark Darbin, who's the chief executive of the RNA, when tasked with the fact that prize money isn't all that big, simply goes, we look at prize money as part of a broader package. end discussion end discussion right the broader package being well you know we try and make it quite a nice tournament for the players to come to put on decent courtesy cards and all that stuff and you know we like to you know we like to make a bit of money and we like to put some of that back into sport now we'll come on to that later on Charlie do you know what's slightly different in this compared to tennis you know just flipping it is the opportunities and the prize pools outside of the majors in golf keep at a very high level and that comes down to the the developments in the PGA's product, you know, when they have basically increased most of their tournaments up to over$4 million in prize money for the winners, there's a much more, should we say, season round opportunity to make significant amounts of money.

38:31So therefore you can probably have the prestige of the Open trouncing the need to have a huge prize pool here because it's not one of your four main revenue generating opportunities. I'm not saying as a top player, but as a field. But if that's the case, doesn't that rather validate Stan Wawrinka's criticism of Arena Sabalenka and co saying, look, don't go and beat up on the majors. They actually pay a lot of prize money. We need to get the ATP and the WTA tours sorted out, right? Which is a totally different point. Anyhow, let's not go down that rabbit hole. Let's get back into the open. Let's get back into the RNA.

39:03Right. So what is the RNA? The RNA, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews was founded in 1754 that's 272 years ago and it got its royal charter in 1834 from William the fourth they started holding the the open um in I think it was about 1860 and then the it was the fourth open in in 1863 so I'm guessing 1859 must have been the first one 154th wasn't it yeah but don't stop for wartime yes exactly so that complicates it so the first one to offer prize money in 1863 and the prize money was 10 quid 10 quid in those days was actually a lot of money in 1863 um so and it wasn't a big field so this was really really worth winning at this point it's obviously the only and the biggest tournament in the world and you know things gradually progressed and by 1946 um you know it was about a thousand quid and so on and so forth um and it's progressed up until this day when, as you say, that the prize money now is a very respectable, but not necessarily exciting, 13 million quid.

40:12So you've got a tournament that turns over 150 million quid and churns out, let's keep the numbers around about 15 million of that to the participants. And then you've got the cost of putting on the event, et cetera, et cetera. But then you've got a profit. And that profit is reputed to be around about 30 million pounds a year of net profit. okay so my imagination of that is oh that's brilliant that's going to go back into developing the game well in part um at the discretion of these 14 crusty scotsmen um sat in their clubhouse their palatial clubhouse must be the most famous clubhouse in the world you see it when the open's being played at atst andrews you see this massive building at the end of the 18th that's the rna club have you played it um i have not played the old course i've played two of the other courses because there are many courses there so the bottom line is the rna the ron and ancient is um codifying the the rules of the game of golf in 1897 which you know is the first time when golf becomes properly organized as a sport so it's towards the end of the 19th century so 130 odd years ago and on it goes through the 20th century the usga its equivalent its brother organization which has by that point been set up in america starts to oversee american golf and the rna and the usga develop a very close symbiotic relationship where eventually they decide well we're just going to govern the world of golf together who says we say we're going to we're going to run it together right the usga being a much more typical type of governing body it's not a private members club it is a governing body the rna still being this rather shadowy private members club which has grown sort of has grown up the game of golf and has been there been there all all along now the bit when it gets really interesting to me is when meritocracy and i'm putting in inverted commas came along in the 1990s and this was the moment at which the jockey club which oversaw horse racing sold the pass.

42:17Oh, God, people aren't going to like it. The fact that we're a private members club and we look after racing. Oh, God, what should we do? I'm not quite sure we should. Oh, I'll tell you what. Let's set up a whole bunch of committees and let's remove ourselves entirely from the whole thing and let's see if these committees can do a good job. Total disaster. Absolute disaster. It would have been far better off if the jockey club had carried on running it all along, as we've discussed on previous programs. Yeah. The RNA were made of sterner stuff. And what I love about this organization is they have worked out how to keep hold of absolutely everything, whilst always doing just enough to keep the prying noses of the meritocrats or the meritocrats, sort of, you know, the left-wing people at bay.

43:01So, you know, we're moving with the times and then gently behind their hand going, that's what I love about these guys. So what they do, they spun something off in 2004, I think it was. So the private members club carried on being called the Ronan Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. And then they spun off this thing called the RNA, which is what the club had always been colloquially known as, the RNA Trust. And the idea was, well, you see, as a private members club, we're handing over control of golf, the game of golf, to the RNA Trust, this external organization. The truth is that the RNA Trust is entirely controlled by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St.

43:42Andrews, and all the directors of the RNA Trust are in fact members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. The CEO of the RNA Trust, Mark Darbin, who's an experienced sports executive, is also the club secretary of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. Can you explain what that means? What's the impact of that? What's the significance of that? Well, the significance is that the RNA Trust is basically a front organisation for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. right so that all of this these vast commercial revenues get dragged into this thing called the rna trust which sounds very charitable doesn't it sounds just entirely philanthropic sounds like an organization which is a totally at arm's length got nothing to do with these um people sipping claret in the clubhouse no it turns out the rna trust is entirely everything to do with the people sipping claret in the clubhouse and in fact the chief executive is their club secretary right and they're operating out the same buildings and and all this type of stuff right so on they go and uh They make this money every year from the open.

44:39Do they go and splash it on showy diversity schemes? A little bit, not much, about as little as they can get away with. Mostly what they do is they invest it in liquid assets. They've got 200 million pounds of liquid assets in the bank account, mixture of cash and shares, right? 200 million. 200 million, yeah. Yeah, 200 million quid sat there. Now, they chuck out a bit every year to a few worthy courses in golf, you know, for the development of golf and help people from less advantaged backgrounds. A bit here and there. They chuck a bit here and there. But nothing like the All England Tennis Club, who basically give all of their profits from Wimbledon, get passed straight to the LTA for the development of tennis within Great Britain.

45:25The RNA don't do that. It's a bit here and it's a bit there. Right. They've got some aspiration to say, well, over the course of a very long period of time, we hope to, over that entire period, disperse$150,$200 million, maybe. OK. But that is a very over protracted, protracted period of time. And there are critics in the undergrowth of the golf world saying even on that, they're a little bit behind where they should be. Do I blame them for this? No, not really. As far as I'm concerned, they're an exceptionally well-run organization who are involved in doing lots of different things. Now, when I say that they oversee the world of golf, they are in charge of the rule book with the USGA.

46:04There's a joint committee between the two of them, which just says this is the rule book. And they aren't answerable to anyone other than themselves, quite rightly, because it's not meant to be ruled by committee committee. This is just a JV, effectively, between the RNA and the USGA. But that also means that they are determining technology regulation, right? So that's things like the technology surrounding the golf ball and golf clubs. And they're currently been reviewing and are expected to significantly restrict ball technology to make sure that players can't hit the ball further and further and further because that brings a lot of the traditional courses, makes them effectively moribund, which then means that loads more courses have to be built, which is not a great idea.

46:46It's not particularly sustainable. It's not particularly environmentally friendly, and it's just not particularly economic. It's just expensive and a stupid thing to do. why would you do that? You've already got great golf courses. Why let the golf ball manufacturers keep on? But that's a huge part of golf, as you highlighted, well, as we highlight in sport, as well as the heritage part of it. You can't just go and create a load of new courses and expect everyone to be super pumped to go and tear it up, right? Absolutely right. Absolutely right. So you've got this bit, which they are in charge, and that involves basically also taking on some massive corporates who are the golf equipment manufacturers who want to constantly be producing new equipment and their sales pitch to people like you and me who play golf is, this ball is going to go further.

47:28This golf club is going to hit it further. And we're going, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the RNA is going, oh, I don't think it's a very good idea. Probably is that requires you to hit it straight, which is generally this. Totally separate point. So that is one part of the RNA trust is the RNA is called RNA rules limited, right? That is the part of the RNA that determines the rule book, the rules of golf. then they have rna championship limited that puts on the open and various other events they also do the amateur the boys amateur the boys home internationals they've got the senior amateur the seniors open the walker cup which is the rider cup for amateur golfers the curtis cup which is the rider cup for amateur female golfers the rna has all these things that it puts on as well and then they've got a third um subsidiary called rna group services limited um not sure about that one uh exactly what that does so they've got these three subsidiaries right that all report into the rna trust board whilst running the game of golf and the open with an iron rod doing it super super well really efficiently and being a pretty dynamic organization in many ways so are we saying we like them as a business absolutely yes yeah definitely yes this is the type of organization that is fit to run a sport okay right you're not talking about loads of functionaries running around it's a very tight organization 50 odd employees they also did another thing which just shows their their great commercial acumen so i don't know have you heard of a golf course called king's barns i haven't no right it's one of the top golf clubs in one top golf course in the world ranked in the top 10 in this country so it's a king's barns king's barns it's a new it's where they play the dunhill links championship along withst andrews so they played at both um so it's just nearst andrews it's a new links right so it was newly laid out it was being built in the 1990s on a very ambitious scale.

49:19Other than Trump Turnberry, it's the most expensive golf course to pay on in this country. The green fee for normal mortals like you and me is about 600 quid a round. Fancy it? Half the price of Turnberry, so yeah. So whilst these entrepreneurs were building this new golf course near St. Andrews, they ran out of money. The RNA dipped into their reserves and said, I tell you what, chaps, here's a million quid to finish it off in return for which we'll have 2 ,000 T times a year in perpetuity. 2 ,000? Yeah, 2 ,000 a year. Now, if you think about green fees being worth 600 quid a pot, that turned out to be a very, very shrewd investment.

50:02Okay. So if you then got all this money going to the RNA Trust, it's piling up in cash, it's piling up in stocks and shares, and then the Royal and Ancient Club itself is taking a dividend back out into the club itself, which then keeps the subscriptions admirably low for members. So what a wonderful organization. And I doff my cap to them. I want to put a challenge though. Yeah. Because while that is all great and they clearly do a good job, golf outside of the US, the business of golf outside of the US, is not thriving. European tour, DP World Tour, should we say, the Challenger Tour. We know that there have been some financial issues for those organizations over the last just decade, let's say, right?

50:44and therefore is there an element of this where there could be some involvement there should be some relationship between the rna and golf in all of the jurisdictions that they govern to help support and develop and grow the game to try and match and compete with the domestic or the u.s product should we say that is so strong and so powerful so what you're effectively saying is why isn't the European tour effectively in closer cahoots with the RNA? Yeah. Is that the question? If you've got 200 million in reserves, right? Yeah. And you are governing the game. In this part of the world. In this part of the world.

51:20Yeah. Well, in fact, all the world outside of America. Yeah. To me, it seems like there should be a little bit of that cash going into the region that you are governing, while the US financially has just taken in one and a half billion in money that hasn't even been touched yet from an investment perspective and is most likely going to become the front and center of golf again once you know the live experiment finally falls over for good so yeah i mean that was okay so i i quoted earlier on mark darbin the chief executive of the rna with his views on the relatively modest prize money that the open championship pays which was pretty dismissive, right?

52:02Yeah, it is what it is, like it or lump it. It's part of a broader package, whatever it might be. I think that speaks to the fact that the RNA's vision of itself is not to be a day-to-day, sleeves-rolled-up, commercial participant in the world of golf. Their role is to oversee the general growth of the game in terms of participation, in terms of keeping the technology on the straight and narrow in terms of working with the US and making sure that everything happens hand in glove, etc. And if commercial bodies like LIV or the European tour want to go and blow their brains up by offering prize money, which they can't really afford, I suspect that the members of the RNA go, well, it's not really for us to get involved in that.

52:44Now, were it to happen the other way around and were, for instance, the European tour to come to the RNA and say, look, you know, we've probably not covered ourselves in glory in the last 20 years. We've ended up in a slightly awkward position here could could we consider some sort of commercial partnership well that might be a slightly different conversation might be a slightly different conversation but i think that the rna would say to them look you know you're gonna have to cut your cloth you're gonna have to act in a because if there's one thing that the rna does consistently is acts shrewdly commercially consistently in in a long term type of way so throwing vast amounts of prize money around in the short run to try to achieve something which is not necessarily supported by audience growth.

53:25I can't see that being something they're going to get involved in. I guess the development, really the most important part of that question, is does a stronger European tool benefit the RNA? Or does it benefit the RNA's broader aims to do with the development of golf? Exactly. It's arguable, isn't it? I wouldn't say it's an obvious straight read through. Therefore, you know, it's the charitable endeavor, the kind of thing they sit in the clubhouse going, lads, we probably should do this, rather than we should do this because it's going to make 200, 250, let's say. I think the charge that can be made against them, much more than not subsidizing the European tour, which they could do, by the way, from their annual reserves.

54:07They're making a profit from the open of 20 to 30 million a year. How much does the US PGA tour subsidize the European tours to tune of? 20 or 30 million a year. It's exactly that. You could absolutely do that. But instinctively, it just doesn't feel like the kind of thing the RNA want to get involved in. I think one charge, I was sort of diving around a little bit in the undergrowth of the internet, looking at some, you know, specialist golf sites on Substack and that kind of thing. And there was a little bit of chippiness about, well, you know, the RNA does give a bit of their money to various golf development programs, but, you know, not enough.

54:43Yeah, they could do more was the charge. But I don't think anyone's really, I mean, you're not even arguing that you've basically gone through the whole thing saying they've always done just enough right now you could increase each of those endeavors by 15 20 but then you wouldn't have the financial benefit that the rna currently has so could they do more i mean i don't think there's any doubt about that where i was as the masters could do more as well exactly as look could anyone do more yes i think i think the slight differences between the masters committee and and the rna is that the masters is just a private club, whereas the RNA is the governor of World Golf.

55:23So there is definitely a broader responsibility there than there is with the Masters. But anyhow, look, I just thought it was a fascinating organization to see how the whole thing has, you know, moved forward and ended up in this particular position. And to sort of, as I said, just be quietly admiring of an organization which has managed to evolve just enough all the time whilst being ruthlessly commercial all the time, whilst keeping its core essence of what it actually is and not losing that. You don't hear in a world now where everyone scrutinizes everything and is always trying to pick people up on things they're not doing.

56:01You don't hear anything about the RNA, which showcases your point, doesn't it, really? In a world now where we hear challenges to pay and diversity and inclusion, et cetera, you don't hear this about the RNA. So, yeah, really interesting. Look at a business and great to do it just after the open. Yeah. So thank you for that. Should we take a look at the amazing news in rugby league, particularly the NRL media deal? Talking about organizations that are commercially successful, Chas. Wow. The NRL, just for people who haven't followed previous shows on this particular topic before, the NRL is Australia's organizing body for professional rugby league.

56:40Yeah. Yeah. So it's called National Rugby League. Yep. NRL. Rugby League has always been a massive sport in Australia. Historically, it's been just a little bit behind Aussie rules in terms of overall popularity, but well ahead of Rugby Union, always has been, with cricket being the number one. Obviously, cricket's the national sport in Australia. But Rugby League has now caught up with Aussie rules in many regards. And this new TV deal, which Charlie's about to relate, is just the latest sign of its immense commercial clout. Yeah. I mean, it's the biggest deal. So they've just signed the biggest deal in Australian sporting history.

57:18It's a$5.3 billion media rights agreement for the NRL for the next seven years. Which I think works out about$750 million a year. Yeah. That's Aussie dollars. So the equivalent of that is about£400 million a season. right 400 million pounds a season now you can tell me charlie and if you don't i'll tell you what our super league which is the rugby league professional competition here what their annual tv deal is 21.5 million from this current sky sports deal a year so you've got 20 million a year for the tv deal here and you've got 400 million for the tv deal in australia i mean i don't know about well i do know because i think i when we were taking a look at this just message the gap there between two leading sporting institutions in the sport of rugby league being that big can you recover from this do you need to recover from this does this just make one so powerful that the other now just cannot compete there have been a lot of discussion points around the rugby league world of the nrl investing in the super league it's gone a bit beyond that charlie so super league in this country have tabled a proposal to the nrl which of it's being termed a partnership but let's not pretend that this partnership would be a partnership of equals yeah right and frankly nor should it nor should it be um you know commercially that would be absolutely bonkers when you've got one which is 20 times bigger than the other one right but effectively what super league in this country is asking for is please please please give us a helping hand here because our tv deal seems to be going down over time and our commercials are going down to the point now where the kind of total wage bills that we're looking at in in British rugby league about two million quid a year um now I'm not saying that professional rugby league super league players in this country are exactly pleading poverty but it is getting to the point where if any of them do have the opportunity to go to Australia they would be absolutely crazy not to take that opportunity well let's put it into context again it basically means that you're likely to get and they haven't fully disclosed but let's say you're likely to be getting 25 to 35 million dollars from this deal per club yeah per year yeah right so more than the entire broadcast deal in this country per club we know what the finances are generally used for in sport if you can go and get the best talent and the best players from the other league and bring them here because that's the marketplace for it and as well we've talked about this before right the the sport in australia as you said is huge here it's a band of the country people have got very upset with us talking about rugby and say rugby union rugby league you know not specifying you have an amazing audience in the uk it isn't a well-spread one it's not a diverse one it's a very specific group of fans who have been following you talked about generational fandom who have been following these clubs and the stories behind it which we've discussed on previous shows is fantastic numerous attempts haven't there to sort of get a proper london team going you've got the broncos um who have been tried with many times over the last 20 years and there's been more investment coming into broncos exactly look what i want to get back onto this proposed deal, no one quite knows what's in this proposal.

1:00:18I looked around everywhere and I spoke to various people and, you know, the Rugby Football League in this country is keeping its cards pretty close to its chest in terms of what that deal looks like, what the proposed deal looks like. They've been careful to say we're not proposing a takeover. We're not saying that the NRL should take us over. The CEO of the NRL has been very clear on that. But that's public communications. But that is a PR point because if you then look into what the underlying likelihoods are. For the last, whatever it is, 20 or 30 years, rugby league in this country has been being played in the summer months, right?

1:00:53It used to be a winter game. It was put into the summer months so it didn't have to compete straight against football. But of course, the thing is, is that in Australia, rugby league gets played in their winter, which is our summer months. So if you're going to start proposing a partnership between the two, our rugby league would have to go back to our winter months, right? To make sense out of that. You wouldn't want to have, or the NRL would not want to have, be in partnership with organizations effectively scheduling rugby matches at the same time as their own rugby matches. Yeah. I think you'd have to be thinking about, you know, what investment the NRL could be making into rugby league in this country, given that they've got a lot of money and what they would get in return for that.

1:01:39You know, what would be there? Why would they do it? Why would they bother getting out of bed to do it? Now, they've said quite clearly in the statement, the chief executive of the NRL, he has said, I don't want to simply take all the best players from Britain. Otherwise, what product would we be left with in Britain? Right. So the challenge then comes, OK, so what's the transfer of money going to be like to enable rugby league players to be able to be paid more money in this country? But also, could we end up in a situation where some stars start playing in a bit of both? Right. So if you think about, I'm just thinking laterally here, in cricket we're seeing the same franchise owners starting to own franchises in the IPL, now in R100, in America, in various other cricket jurisdictions, the same people.

1:02:32I wonder if that's kind of where this might end up going where you might see the same groups owning a franchise in Australia and in this country and you might start to see some of the superstar players being able to play at least part of the season in both to try and sort of boost sort of interest in it. It's all speculation, no one quite knows but the bottom line is that when the NRL is scooping TV deals like that they can kind of do whatever they want and it's just to be hoped from the prospect of rugby league in this country that what they want is in a way to grow the game worldwide because otherwise it is kind of just an Australian game.

1:03:12If it doesn't flourish in England which is the second biggest jurisdiction for rugby league then you are losing it as a global game. Yeah and you want to have that right. We've talked about this with India and cricket. India could monopolise cricket. They need to have a few teams competing with them on at least an international test level to maintain a lot of that interest. If you do this in rugby league they need to have just about enough of competition where they get a bit of variety but not enough to eat into the success of their own product. The challenge I would have is a conversation we have regularly.

1:03:44What's the value for the NRL to prop up if we want to create this partnership with the Super League? Charlie I just want to ask you a question right which is if I'm running the NRL and I've just maxed out my Australian audience and I'm getting the TV deals that reflect the fact that I've maxed out my Australian audience. And I'm thinking, where in the world are there more eyeballs that can watch my product, the NRL? Well, you'd start with Britain, wouldn't you? Being the second biggest rugby league geography. And therefore, it is potentially an expansion moment for the NRL itself. Now, they might very well regard British rugby league as being effectively undercapitalised, right?

1:04:26which is the rugby league itself and the clubs in the rugby league are so poor that they just don't have the money to do the stuff that needs to be done to really push the sport forward. Now, you and I might very well push back and say, okay, it's a pretty competitive landscape. You've got rugby union, you've got football, you've got cricket, you've got all sorts of different other sports, and rugby league's only in one particular part of the country. But the NRL might say, we believe in our sport. We believe that our sport is the absolute top, top, top premium spectator offering. it's just in this country it's not being promoted in the right way so they might just view this as a big expansion opportunity maybe we've talked about the challenge of club rugby and rugby union and their issues with developing consistent and continual fandom that turns up every single week to some degree while in competition with so many other things that happen now if you add another thing to that in this country and you go as I said you know your audience in rugby league you know you've got that core that's not in question the question would be can we build it can we develop it because why would Sky pay more money for a deal right now when they can pretty much predict how many people they're going to get based on the rugby league very much so if you're the nrl looking at it you'd say right we're going to put massive money behind getting this right in london we want two franchises in london right we want to put lots of money behind them because that's a keeper you know even in terms of there are so many people who are originally from the northwest who are living in london right So we're going to have to really get the marketing going to get them into the stadiums to watch this.

1:05:55I just think it's going to be fascinating and sort of watch this space. It's interesting. On today's show, we've discussed, in a way, three triumphs. So often, we end up discussing stuff that's gone wrong. And here, we're discussing stuff that's gone right, talking about the ECB's creation and effective sort of actualization of the 100 as a concept and the value accretion that's happened as a result of that. then you've got the masterful governance of golf by the rather than ancient golf club ofst andrews um with all that that has meant over the last 100 200 300 years and then you've got the nrl and them having mastered their own home market and made vast amounts of money from that and now thinking okay could we potentially do something super league which really starts to globalize the sport in a more ambitious way so i'll be fascinated to read in the next two to three weeks what that deal actually looks like because it's bound to come out there was a lot of mood music around the NRL is going to want to complete their media rights deal before they agree anything with the Super League.

1:06:53It almost seemed like a bit tempting fate to say, okay, we haven't signed the contract yet, but now let's start talking about how to spend it. Now they know they have it, and now they've got the Super League proposal in front of them, whatever that looks like. I'm guessing in the next two to three weeks, we'll find out what it is. I agree. Fair play to them. Well done, everyone involved. If you want the other side of rugby, we're about to go and chat about the nation's championships and everything that's going on in Rugby Union. So if you want to come and have that chat, come and join us on Substack.

1:07:19And if not, we will see you next week. Thank you, Charlie. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks so much for tuning into another week. Straight to it, I'd love to know how you feel about the World Cup. Take the disappointment in the end on the pitch out of it. Was it an enjoyable spectacle? Do you want to see more of the same? What worries you moving forward? Let us know your thoughts. There is so much there to cover. Come and join us on Substack for a rugby union chat now and we'll be looking at the nation's championship and the state of English rugby. But if not, we'll see you next week. This show has a number of ambitions.

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