Top Super League CEO says ‘all clubs’ want NRL deal as ‘blocker’ discussed
Warrington Wolves CEO Karl Fitzpatrick.
Warrington Wolves CEO Karl Fitzpatrick has insisted that ‘all Super League clubs’ want a deal with the NRL – before stressing the terms have to be right for everyone involved.
Super League clubs will this week meet to discuss the finer detail of the NRL’s offer to invest in the competition. That is worth around £7million per year over a five-year period, and will see the NRL ultimately take a 50 per cent stake in the league by the end of the five-year period.
There are mixed messages from both sides of the world. Super League clubs are likely to reject the offer, or at least negotiate it in a bid to get more money out of the NRL – as well as their valued expertise.
But Fitzpatrick has knocked back any notion that some clubs do not want an NRL relationship.
‘All clubs’ want NRL deal to happen
Speaking on The Bye Round podcast with James Graham, Fitzpatrick insisted that he believed every Super League club wanted a deal of some sort.
“All the clubs, to my understanding, want this partnership,” he said. “I think partnership is probably the right word here, with the NRL. But it’s got to be the right terms for both parties.”
Fitzpatrick would then explain why he felt not only the NRL’s money would be important – but also its expertise.
“The sporting landscape in the UK is very different to Australia,” he said. “It’s very, very challenging. The biggest sporting event in the world, is the, let’s say, is the World Cup. Well, it is the World Cup. The biggest league, the biggest soccer league in the world is the Premier League.
“We sit 50 miles in between Manchester and Liverpool; Man United, Man City, Liverpool, some giant Premier League clubs.
Super League has ‘green shoots’
Fitzpatrick also bullishly insisted that he felt there were plenty of things for Super League to be optimistic about too and with the NRL’s help, the game could hit brand new heights.
He said: “So we need resource, we need investment to help accelerate the growth because, yes, it’s really a challenging spot, but there’s some green shoots. You look at The Ashes, we had some really good numbers for The Ashes.
“Then we go on to the World Club Challenge, we had a 20,000 sellout at Hull. Then we move on to Magic, we had over 80,000 at Everton, we went to Vegas, we’ve got Dublin announced. All the social media metrics are up, the attendances are up, but it’s still challenging.
“It’s like going to a shootout with a potato peeler. We need that investment from the NRL to allow us to accelerate that growth because it is a fight, and it is challenging. So the central revenues, for example, so we turn over £8.3 million, and we get £1.3 million from the center, 15 percent.
“Our salary cap is baseline £2.1 million. With the dispensation such as marquee, homegrown allowance, clubs are probably spending around about £2.6 to £2.8 million.
“As I say, we only get 1.3 million. So we would like investment to accelerate that growth, but also expertise as well. But they’re going to need local knowledge and local support.
“When I met Andrew (Abdo) when he was over for The Ashes, he spoke about that. They’re going to need some local support and local knowledge to help realise that growth. But we’re going to need some resource to do it. I think this represents an incredible opportunity for Super League and the NRL due to the growth in the market.
“Are there things we could do better? 100 per cent, and that’s where the expertise of the NRL comes in.”
