Dave Smith quits as NRL CEO

Morkel said:
You know what? At the risk of ruining my chances of becoming the CEO of a national top-level sporting code, or if I do, not being well liked by the fans, I say BRAVO to Smith. If Nine want to rape the game, they can at least pay top dollar for the privilege. Did I read correctly that their price has gone from $90 million a year to $185 million a year? Good shit. The big winner ultimately might be whoever secured the online rights. If Fox can't stump up the cash that the NRL deserves, then imagine the boon for whatever prospective online rights holder if they get exclusive rights to those remaining 4 games. That there is one way to absolutely **** over any competitor.

Personally, as someone who can't afford to have Pay TV, having FTA league 4 nights a week is fucking awesome for me (not so much for my marriage). And like I said, blue-collar povs like me are the game's lifeblood. Thanks Banker Steve.
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It's all well and good that you can't afford Foxtel, but it doesn't matter. They were ALWAYS going to give live games to a FTA station. The issue is, by blocking out all those companies that wanted access, it means there was no competition at all.

What if 7 had prepared a bid of $300 Million a year and all games live, plus Fox could access it, plus Telstra could stream it?

He sold us, the fans, short.
 
Big Pete said:
Such as?
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I thought I covered that with the comments about my wife knowing more about league than him and failing to implement the most basic of business processes with the TV deal.
 
Nashy said:
It's all well and good that you can't afford Foxtel, but it doesn't matter. They were ALWAYS going to give live games to a FTA station. The issue is, by blocking out all those companies that wanted access, it means there was no competition at all.

What if 7 had prepared a bid of $300 Million a year and all games live, plus Fox could access it, plus Telstra could stream it?

He sold us, the fans, short.
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Was that ever likely? Regardless of the "he only ever spoke to nine and no one else", I find it hard to believe that any communication outside the NRL and nine was blocked. Negotiations may only have been held with nine but I seriously doubt there would have been no preliminary communication at all with the others.
 
Of course there was. But when it came to nutting it out, he blocked them. So yeah, he fucked us, and as B4L says, that's not good business practice.

And if the rumours are correct, it's the very reason that the **** bag has been fired. Sorry, decided to move on.
 
Nashy said:
Of course there was. But when it came to nutting it out, he blocked them. So yeah, he fucked us, and as B4L says, that's not good business practice.

And if the rumours are correct, it's the very reason that the **** bag has been fired. Sorry, decided to move on.
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If they were never going to make a competitive offer, why bother? Try to play one off the other only works if both are viable. Otherwise, if they call your bluff, you're sitting in the shower crying as you've either got nothing or you've lost all negotiating power and credibility. I can't see how a better product for the end user, at over twice the price, is a bad result.
 
Morkel said:
If they were never going to make a competitive offer, why bother? Try to play one off the other only works if both are viable. Otherwise, if they call your bluff, you're sitting in the shower crying as you've either got nothing or you've lost all negotiating power and credibility. I can't see how a better product for the end user, at over twice the price, is a bad result.
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Because it could have been better? I get that you're not in business, so your brain doesn't think business, but surely, even you can see that locking people out of a contract bidding process is counter productive?

They weren't given the opportunity to negotiate their terms, they were locked out, so there will be no way to tell. But given both 7 and 10 were interested, you can guarantee their bids would have been at the very least, worth looking at, and considering. Instead, he's made an impulse decision, which would have cost the game millions.

But hey, if you don't like to shop around for the best deal, that's on you. But when it affects hundreds of thousands of people, best you at least let them in the fucking door with an offer.
 
We don't really know what happened, but it was definitely very strange how it all happened, with other parties allegedly locked out of negotiations...

I partially agree with Morkel that some good decisions came out of it, and some control was given back to the NRL, although probably not as much as I would've liked. I am curious as to what is going to happen with the rest of the games, as I'm sure those are still on the market.

Smith deserves some credit for some of the achievements, but I don't think he ever quite understood the fabric of the game.

I do think that the next person needs to understand the game much better, but also should be able to keep a healthy distance from particular interests and be able to make sound financial decisions. Good luck to the IC in finding such a person.
 
Nashy said:
Because it could have been better? I get that you're not in business, so your brain doesn't think business, but surely, even you can see that locking people out of a contract bidding process is counter productive?

They weren't given the opportunity to negotiate their terms, they were locked out, so there will be no way to tell. But given both 7 and 10 were interested, you can guarantee their bids would have been at the very least, worth looking at, and considering. Instead, he's made an impulse decision, which would have cost the game millions.

But hey, if you don't like to shop around for the best deal, that's on you. But when it affects hundreds of thousands of people, best you at least let them in the fucking door with an offer.
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I understand business. Importantly, I certainly know what it's like from the other side - when it's clear from the beginning that it's not viable to compete with other bids. Whether Smith did the "I'm not telling you what the other guys are offering" so you've got nothing to go off and they expect you to go balls out to impress. Or "these guys are doing this", so you have a clear target to outdo. Sometimes it's best to just say "that's a great offer that we can't compete with, go for it". Especially if you know you're a pawn.
 
And regardless of what I know, you know who probably does know how to negotiate in hard dollars? An ex CEO of a bank. Unfortunately for him, he was probably blindsided by just how incestuous the Rugby League extended family is, and this guy is patting this guys back and his boss is in bed with the dude who owns this affiliate and he's going to use his connections to stab you in the back because he's used to getting his own way and doesn't take kindly to being bulldogged.

My guess is that Smith did too well and the old boys are trying to claw their power back.
 
Morkel said:
And regardless of what I know, you know who probably does know how to negotiate in hard dollars? An ex CEO of a bank. Unfortunately for him, he was probably blindsided by just how incestuous the Rugby League extended family is, and this guy is patting this guys back and his boss is in bed with the dude who owns this affiliate and he's going to use his connections to stab you in the back because he's used to getting his own way and doesn't take kindly to being bulldogged.

My guess is that Smith did too well and the old boys are trying to claw their power back.
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That's an assumption that the ex CEO of a bank knows what he is doing, and judging by the outcome (the fact that we are well short of the AFL deal despite having a superior TV product) suggests that there is more than a little evidence that he in fact didn't know what he was doing
 
broncos4life said:
That's an assumption that the ex CEO of a bank knows what he is doing, and judging by the outcome (the fact that we are well short of the AFL deal despite having a superior TV product) suggests that there is more than a little evidence that he in fact didn't know what he was doing
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Smith isn't the only one involved in negotiations ... the board, lead by Grant, play a significant part too.

I find it amusing that immediately after the deal was announced most people were lauding Smith saying how good the deal was, until the AFL deal was announced ... and if the reports are true the AFL only got that size deal from Foxtel in response to being excluded from the initial negotiations with the NRL, which Grant reportedly played a major role in.

from the media reports, it seems that Grant should take some of the responsibility instead of allowing it all to fall on Smith.
 
BRONCOS boss Paul White is a serious contender for the NRL chief executive role and his name will be pushed hard to the Commission.White, who is undergoing chemotherapy, held court at Brisbane headquarters on Wednesday when questioned about Dave Smith’s resignation, speaking authoritatively on several issues the NRL has struggled to address.

The Courier-Mail can reveal White is rated highly by influential NRL chairmen in Roosters supremo Nick Politis and Canterbury’s Ray Dib while Commission members believe he is a leading contender.
White was coy when asked about the NRL chief executive position but like the majority of NRL chiefs he would be interested in the job if approached.

The short-priced favourite to take over Smith is Penrith boss Warren Wilson who applied for the Broncos CEO position but lost out to White.

The Commission wants its next chief executive to be league savvy, opening the door for a current club boss.

One NRL club chairman said White was the only club chief capable of running the NRL’s day to day business.

White is facing several weeks of chemotherapy treatment to rid his brain of a tumour but his most recent consultation was “overwhelmingly positive”.

Speaking at the announcement of a new jersey sponsor in National Storage, White questioned the leadership of the NRL and said the top brass had failed to “own the agenda”.

While not singling out Smith for criticism, White said there was a lack of communication from senior NRL executives to their stakeholders, whom he believed should be treated as shareholders.
He slammed the idea of expansion, demanded a strategic plan for club funding and questioned the code’s commitment to grassroots.

White said he was disappointed Smith had left but believed there was a lack of front-foot leadership at Moore Park.

“The clubs want to be led, the game wants to be led,” White said.

“We have to own the agenda then we don’t have people speaking on behalf of the game. At the moment people don’t know. There are cross purposes depending on who is speaking.
“Dave did a great job in difficult circumstances but now is the time to end all posturing and our vision of who put air in the football and just understand our roles.

“We need to take three deep breaths and understand there are a lot of things still out standing in our game that should be major priorities.”

White said the broadcast rights deal should be high on the agenda but not rushed.
“The value of our game as a television product will not be diminished with the passage of time but rather enhanced,’’ he said.

“There has to be agreements with the clubs on a funding model and not on a one-year time line but a three to five-year time line.

“We all talk about grassroots but do we really know? There are football fields in the central west that don’t have grass.

“We talk about stakeholders but they are actually shareholders and they need all of us to understand that we haven’t forgotten them.”

The NRL wants a new chief before next season begins and have hired a recruitment firm to search the world for a candidate.
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http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/nrl/broncos-ceo-paul-white-says-that-the-nrl-needs-greater-leadership-following-dave-smiths-resignation/story-fnp0lyn6-1227577230075
 
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I like it..

Mainly because White wants more Sunday games.
 
broncos4life said:
That's an assumption that the ex CEO of a bank knows what he is doing, and judging by the outcome (the fact that we are well short of the AFL deal despite having a superior TV product) suggests that there is more than a little evidence that he in fact didn't know what he was doing
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You know what else pisses me off about this AFL deal comparison? No one has bothered to break it down as a comparison. The AFL deal is for a longer term, for more games, with the duration of each game being considerably longer. Break it down, and on a per-minute of broadcast basis, it's not as disparate as the media would have you believe.
 
The likes of Rothfield and Ritchie would go mental if any Queenslander, let alone a Broncos affiliated Queenslander got the job.
 
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