Branding: Why don’t the National Rugby League get it?

  NRL Premiership Logo 
  Originally uploaded by morganf2096

In the aftermath of the National Rugby League’s throwing its teddy out of the cot, due to Sonny Bill Williams.

I’d like to have my five pennies worth.

Firstly, I want to give Channel 9’s Footy Show the ‘Dumbest Statement of the Year Award’ for this: “We don’t want to be like the English Premier League”

WHAT!!! You guys don’t want the National Rugby League (NRL) to be a billion dollar a year business? You don’t want NRL clubs to be recognised and evoke passion, all around the world? You don’t want NRL players to be the best paid sports people? You don’t want NRL clubs to have the best facilities? You don’t want NRL grounds full?

LISTEN…the people at the NRL may not know it, but the NRL is a brand, each club is a brand and each player is a brand. These brands are owned in the minds of the people, not the NRL.

These brands are built on a series of assets that are linked to the brand names and symbols, adding or subtracting to the value of that brand.

In the case of the NRL, its major assets are its clubs, its players, its facilities and its supporters.

Loss making clubs + under paid players + shit grounds + low attendance = National Rugby League

Or in marketing terms…a crap brand.

The best quote I’ve heard on the state of rugby league was from the former New South Wales Premier Nick Griener, he said: “The problem with Rugby League is it’s the only business I know, where they (NRL Clubs) plan to make a loss at the end of the year.”

Why don’t the National Rugby League get it? Sonny Bill Williams was your best asset.

The Players bring people through the turnstile. If you don’t believe me, take a look at what happened this year when David Beckham turned out for the LA Galaxy, in Sydney. A massive 80,000 people turned out to watch one man.

Lately the pocket pundits have had a field day in the press, telling us how they would fix the problem by merging clubs, reducing or increasing the number of teams, increasing the salary cap, changing the games rules, but my favourite had to be a player agent who wanted 3 twenty minute periods, like the AFL. What a load of crap.

In the business era of the twenty first century, a sporting organisation like the NRL and its clubs, must search and recruit the best sporting administrators money can buy, administrators that will focus on building strong club brands.

With all due respect to the current NRL administration, we need a Tiger Woods, David Beckham’s or a Sonny Bill Williams’ of the business world to run the NRL and its clubs.

Our game currently is full of ex-players, accountants, lawyers and small time business people without the skills orthe ability to run a piss-up in a brewery. They are dragging the game down…with all due respect.

Take the Newcastle Knights for an example:

Big crowds + big support base (1/2 million) + big star players = big financial loss (every year)

During the Sydney Olympics, the Australian organising committee searched far and wide, high and low to find right people to run the best Olympics ever. Why can’t the NRL?

David Beckham to run the NRL?

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