Yet basically every other sport in the world did the same thing, despite that, unless Vlandys did it, no one else in league management could have?
There was a lot of bickering and posturing between the various state governments and federal government when covid started so I have no doubt a lot of behind the scenes lobbying and greasing of the wheels was required to get the comp moving forward.
This is in a country where international and domestic movements were cut to a crawl... WA put up a wall that has only just dropped and Qld wanted zero part of NSW coming across their border.
I think AFL took the financial hit and just brought everyone into bubbles straight off the bat, because they could afford to do it that way... and they were also behind the 8-ball and had to pivot at breakneck speed to keep pace with the NRL's decision.
NRL were negotiating with Qld, NSW and Vic governments... and then also had to deal with NZ and Aust governments.
Also had to deal with legal ramifications associated with existing tv rights deals, sponsorships, existing agreements with the RLPA and licensed teams... and I'd imagine at some point liquidated damages would've been threatened at the NRL at some point... or multiple points.
In the grand scheme of things NRL is a pissant sporting competition globally... European Football Leagues and American Sports are 100's of times bigger and they were still behind the NRL.
Could other NRL admins have been able to do it?? maybe... could they get it done as quickly as Vlando?? maybe not.
He has a lot of connections politically... I think he pretty well would've had NSW govt in his pocket straight off the bat so as a minimum he could just get all the teams to NSW as a worst case scenario.
Without those kinds of connections, and AFL happy to sit on their hands and watch the NRL bleed to death, it would've been quite a large hill to climb... An alternative admin probably gets something up and running eventually, but it might've been more like an exhibition comp with 10 rounds... or only NSW teams competing.
Super Rugby didn't get through it very well and instead had to turn itself into an exhibition comp with just the Aust teams... their tv rights deal had no interest without the Kiwis and South Africans and now their comp is hidden behind a paywall and is on life support