Me or the TV?

So Channel 9 boss David Gyngell decides to give some advice to the NRL. Apparently the Greatest Game of All needs more commercial breaks, more stoppages during play to run more advertisements, therefore becoming a more TV friendly product and thus attracting more advertising dollars.

Article here.

Irony? Anyone?

As we finally come to the end of almost 15 years of media ownership of Rugby League and with TV rights to the NRL up for sale in what should be a heated competition, we see one of the front runners announce that in his humble opinion, we should slow down our game and have more commercials. Have we not had enough of being told by media executives how this sport should be run?

Have we not had the game stalled in 1st gear because every decision about the sport has been a reactive one? Or one that was designed to sell newspapers and increase pay TV subscriptions? As Roy Masters recently wrote, this is what the Super League War essentially was, a battle between two cable network broadcasters for ownership of the most powerful TV product in Australia, Rugby League.

Maybe I'm just a jaded fan, but....

David Gyngell, I respect your opinion and you may have a point regarding 15 second commercials during scrum breaks and other pauses during play, but this particular opinion smells like self serving excrement. Having said that, it’s what you are paid to do so really the onus here is on, again, the administrators of Rugby League or as it is now known: The Independent Commission.

If they are to be truly independent, their first step must be to ignore the opinions and sound bites of possible tenders who will say anything. This new governing body of Rugby League will be surrounded by glorified peddlers in the coming months so to arm themselves for the onslaught - here is some advice.

1. Think of the game itself, not of newspapers and pay TV, it will be a breath of fresh air. This means that perhaps we should treat Gyngell's comments as you should the ramblings of a door to door insurance salesman.

2. The people are the shareholders. There is no way any crowd should be less than 15,000 to any game. Do not slow down the game for TV and more to the point, do not listen to the media when it comes to running the game. We fans love the flow of Rugby League and this is what differentiates our sport from any other. That and the collisions. We have the better product with fewer stoppages than Union and stronger athletes than any other code.

3. We do not need 15 seconds of ads to top up the bank account. Marketed wisely, the State of Origin series could be our version of the 'Superbowl' when any commercial spot during the match would be prime real estate. Let's think bigger than reminding people about betting odds for 10 seconds during the footy.

4. Improve the product. Find a resolution to the one thing that slows rugby league down to the point where we are losing 10 seconds every ruck - the Wrestle. It is horrible to watch blokes twisting and turning and holding and squeezing during every set of six. There must be a way to limit the amount of time any tackle should take whilst the ball carrier is not immediately on the ground. Perhaps enforce a 3 second rule. Cap the time from point of contact to when defenders must release to no more than 3 seconds. How many referees do you need to count to 3? This is the one issue (regarding speed of the game) that brings us back to the field.

So, if the above is not a good place to start when thinking about how to market the game better to all our key stakeholders, then a worse place to start would be listening to a television executive. We've tried that and the only winners were Channel 9 and News Limited. The losers from this ownership design seem to be the clubs themselves who simply cannot make a profit without people coming through the gates. True that the next TV contract could bring a windfall for the clubs, so selling the game as a prime time spectacle for advertising is important but not more important than the product itself. We already have a billion dollar product. Slowing it down for another ad break will only ruin it for the fans.