Behind every NRL, AFL, Super Rugby and A-League team there’s an army of support staff. Photo: Tim Gavel.
In the early days of the Raiders you could count staff members on two hands and the club was operating out of the Queanbeyan Leagues Club.
The gym was located in the squash courts and the coaches were positioned in offices through the club.
The players had jobs and trained at night at Seiffert Oval. As a journalist, if you wanted to interview a player, you did it at the player’s place of work.
Then along came professionalism and television money, and with more money in the game, the spending on resources went into overdrive.
Players no longer needed jobs because of the higher salaries. They trained through the day and had nights to themselves.
The real growth, though, emerged in football departments and support staff. It emulated an arms race. If one club had a specialist coach or analyst, you could be sure it was soon replicated at every other club.
This not only applied to the Raiders, it’s at every football club in every code, whether it be NRL, AFL, Super Rugby or the A-League.
Having said that, the Raiders are regarded as middle range when it comes to spending on their operations and it’s nothing when compared to the size of the football departments in the AFL.
Another aspect has been the ballooning payments to players. Every time more money comes into sport, players demand an increase in payment. The salary cap in the NRL was scheduled to be $9.9 million next season, of which $9.5 million would be spent on 30 players at each club.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent cutbacks have exposed the true nature of spending in professional sport in Australia.
Do you think we would be having this discussion had the pandemic not forced the shutdown of sport? I seriously doubt it. The focus instead would have been on the playing field.
The shutdown has caused this introspection, and it may be the wakeup call that some sports needed.
Among rugby league supporters, the real issue is the spending at NRL headquarters and the revelation if costs $493,000 a week to run the competition and State of Origin series.
That figure – practically a rounding error off half-a-million a week – doesn’t include payments to players, clubs and the development of the code.
In the NRL, a few targets for savings have emerged, including costs associated with ‘the bunker’, which is reported to cost $2 million a year.
When sport does resume, there will be a focus on keeping costs down. The COVID-19 shutdown, if nothing else, has provided impetus for all sport to take a look at their spending. The current model has proven to be unsustainable.
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Perhaps the tv could show something other than wall to wall football!
This the main reason the pressure is on to restart the season(s) too early.
$500k a day according to this https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/the-nrl-was-spending-500-000-a-day-that-s-about-to-be-cut-in-half-20200328-p54eu8.html
It's not only football with seriously screwed up values. What about all the offshore online gambling organisations taking gamblers money from football?
There have been multiple cases of sporting stars (especially footballers of various codes) world wide breaking isolation rules.
It seems to confirm the perception that many footballers believe they are too important to have to follow the rules that the rest of us do.
Sports stars, like most celebrities should be recognised as poor role models, not good ones.
The NRL has set yet another new low standard in mis-management. It ranks right up there with spitting in the faces of nurses or hoarding medical supplies to sell on e-bay.
What a joke to hold press conferences, media interviews claiming that ‘medical advice says we can do it’ when you haven’t even checked in with the government medical experts or ministers and everyone else is locked down for Easter.
Our Olympians had trained, mostly unheard of, for the past four years. They are all ‘yes, health comes first – we can wait, we can work around this’
But NRL…. Waaah! who cares about this stupid pandemic – what about us??’
Shows how much they care about the sport
They did not like the pay cut even at the sake of the sport going under
NickGligoric a good read
I am appalled that the NRL would even consider asking to start playing again. What a slap in the face for the rest of us who are not enjoying staying at home but understand why it’s happening. How could NSW and Victoria fine ordinary people and allow football to flout the ‘rules’.
No wonder football want to continue their season so they don't need to repay season tickets. Everyone m just take a pay cut like everyone else. Their addiction are not fans problems
Well said Tim Gavel.
They are over paid and greedy
Trish Casey do you haha any idea the pay rates? Not all of them are on 100,000 a year
People are betting more so now families have a shortage of money because a family member is betting their money away
Trish Casey betting on what ?? 😂 there is nothing to bet on
A very true and timely comment. Ballerinas, singers and musicians practice for hours and hours through their lives. To date, no one thinks to pay them the ludicrous sums of money paid to a footballer. The Pandemic may will even out the appreciation for both sports and the arts in equal measure.
Perhaps it is time for us to review the amount we pay to our sportspeople into the future.
On top of all this the ACT government pays an AFL club millions of dollars to play games in Canberra. This is probably not uncommon – maybe Tasmania also pays heaps for AFL matches too? From what Tim writes, it appears that tax payers are subsidising these clubs so they can pay for excessive staffing levels and player wages. This ‘arms race’ is addictive. Time for a reset?
They should be working Monday to Friday like the old days .
What rubbish. Its a business having difficulties just like a lot of other businesses. They will go back to spending what they need to as soon as possible or they will be smashed by someone else who does.
John Hynes or spending more than they are allowed to like Carlton did 😃
MB Miyagi or throw matches for bookies like India has done
Wow. Look at all the battleaxes in the comments saying the players are paid too much 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Totally agree...!