In my often stated opinion, the NFL is the best run pro sports league in the world. It isn't without it's issues I'll admit, but it leaves the way the Super League is run languishing way in the distance.
I'm not a token Red Hall basher. I think the people that run the sport genuinely care about the game, at all levels, and want it to progress. They have made and continue to make mistakes though. And they aren't always helped by the clubs, which aren't always particularly well run either and don't always look out for the interests of the game as a whole, sadly.
A big part of the problems and difficulties to me comes from the organisation that fronts our professional game also fronts our international side and our community game. I understand there will be degrees of separation, but the RFL sits at the top of it all and I'm certain nothing significant would go through without their stamp of approval. In my opinion, a whole game approach can be achieved successfully without hands on RFL involvement in all aspects.
The other big part of the problem to me, looking in from the periphery, is that clubs generally compete with each other first and support each other second.
I have an idea, of sorts, on how to address these feelings and concerns I have. Separate the professional game and the amateur game more decisively. Have the RFL run the wider community game, control the Challenge Cup still and oversee the international game in the UK, but take Super League and the Championship/League 1 out of their hands, to be run by the clubs. All the clubs.
I'm not suggesting the RFL wouldn't still have a seat at that table, they just wouldn't preside over it.
I feel that if you make the owners/executives of the clubs equally responsible for the professional game then they will work harder together to increase the size of the pie, rather than compete with each other or against the RFL for just a larger slice of the pie currently being served.
You would and should insist as part of the charter of this newly reinforced professional arm of the game that a certain proportion of the pie gets handed over to the RFL for their work in the community game. Similarly, revenues from the Cup final and internationals can be shared equitably from the other direction. You would also insist clubs have an in built responsibility for giving up a certain amount of their full time resources to local community initiatives.
Crucially though, the clubs would all get to play a part in moving the professional game forward, without wider political forces influencing decision making.
They would still, in some capacity, answer to the RFL and the wider interests of the sport. But, importantly, the RFL would also answer to the professional arm of the game in how it manages and allocates the resources handed to it.
In the NFL, focusing the progress of the professional sport on the team owners brought about great progress. The merger with the AFL, the rise to the top of America's sporting agenda, the increasing international expansion, progressive rules for interviewing minority candidates for key roles, successive collective bargaining agreements with players. All have been helped by the management structure of the league, largely able to make its own calls without having to spread itself so thinly to cover all aspects of the sport from grass roots up.
It's time the clubs ran the professional game and the RFL answered to them.
That's my opinion anyway. Well, my opinion today, at least. No doubt it'll swing the other way and back again regularly. Nothing is ever settled for long in rugby league after all.
Thanks for reading.
Mark
SLP
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