NRL Season Schedule Proposal

An article in Monday's SMH by Brad Walter highlighted an interesting problem the NRL currently has around scheduling - State of Origin is very successful commercially, but it's success is now detracting from the NRL competition that should be the foundation of professional rugby league in Australia.

There is no doubt that:

• The NRL season takes a back seat to State of Origin for about eight weeks, with crowds in both stadiums and lounge rooms declining significantly over this period
• Players are 'burnt out' from having to back up from these rep games for their clubs as little as two days later, even with the introduction of byes
• The byes and representative selections have an uneven impact on clubs, in direct opposition to other NRL measures like the salary cap that promote a level-playing field

Now having something like State of Origin be too successful is a pretty good problem to have, but it is still something the NRL needs to manage carefully.

I don't think State of Origin is bulletproof - it's success still relies upon a lot of goodwill from other stakeholders. The last thing the NRL wants is for clubs, coaches and supporters to decide it's no longer worth supporting, in the same way the majority have with City-Country Origin and most international rugby league fixtures. This would be a gradual process, but it wouldn't take much to start - a few players pressured into withdrawing 'injured' by their club here, a heightened negativity from coaches about the impacts of the rep season in the media there. This would be enough to begin an erosion of the appeal of Origin amongst supporters, most who would choose club over state if pushed (at least in New South Wales). Fans voting with their feet and remote controls would lead to a decline in the commercial value of State of Origin that would be very difficult to reverse.

The linked article provides a proposal to address this issue. It's not too dissimilar to a section I was drafting for an article about "optimising the NRL season". My intention was that a section on scheduling would be part of a broader article also looking at many other issues around rule interpretations, video refs, the salary cap and other topics. The scope was probably too ambitious, and it never advanced much further than some dot points.

And now the SMH has stolen my thunder, so let me get in second with my alternative proposal for the NRL season schedule.

My only rule in devising what I think should happen was that it has to be somewhat feasible. Therefore State of Origin stays in the middle of the season on Wednesday nights, because it is too commercially risky to move from that position. Similarly while every diehard wants half a dozen games on a Sunday arvo like the good old days, it would be too damaging to broadcast rights value to reduce the number of live matches each weekend. There also can't be significant changes to the overall volume of rugby league played.

So here's what I think should happen…


Pre-Season (February)

I wouldn't change much with the pre-season. As much as I loved a pre-season knockout, especially that time the Illawarra Steelers won, I recognise that the aim of pre-season should be for teams to get ready for the proper season, not necessarily win things. So I'd let teams negotiate their own pre-season schedules of games that don't really matter. These could range from Mickey Mouse fixtures against country teams, taking a bucket of cash to play another NRL club in ridiculous places like Dubai, participating in a challenge series against UK sides, or nothing at all.

I would keep the Auckland Nines or a similar weekend carnival event as a season launch in the middle of February, because it's a fun and commercially lucrative way to publicise the arrival of the season


NRL Premiership (March - April, May - June, July- August)

The NRL season is currently 26 rounds, with teams playing 24 matches and having two byes. There is no obvious pattern to the draw. Timing of byes is different for each team, introducing significant scheduling bias. They also leave some rounds with just four matches, while others over recent seasons have five, six or seven. Playing before Origin (without star players) or immediately after (with star players fatigued) also fairness issues. Each club plays 9 of 15 opponents twice, but the scheduling of these is all over the place - sometimes two matches against the same club are done in the first third of the season, other times both matches occur in the last third of the season.

The main aims of my proposed draw would be to improve fairness and simplify for fans.

My proposal is 22 rounds of a full eight games, with the timeslots for games identical every week to provide broadcasters and viewers a consistent television product. There would no byes, but the ANZAC Test weekend would remain as a bye for all but the 34 best players, and there would also be a four week break for State of Origin involving some alternative games where players could be rotated (more on this later). I would also have a week between the end of the season and finals where only two teams play (more on this later too).

Each team would play seven teams twice. The SMH article suggested 'Sydney' and 'Not Sydney' conferences to determine who plays twice. I absolutely hate this. Conferences exist in American sports as a hangover from a time where travelling vast distances was time-consuming and expensive. These geographic and cost barriers are now marginal factors for any professional sports league, and having the likes of New Zealand, North Queensland and Melbourne in the same group wouldn't address those issues anyway. Conferences also create parity issues - for example the NBA currently has 12 or 13 West conference teams that are better than anyone outside the top five in the East. Yet each conference has eight teams make the playoffs. My proposal is trying to remove bias, not add new dimensions of bias.

Another thing - there are currently nine 'Sydney' and seven 'Not Sydney' teams, unless the Dragons are considered regional because of the Wollongong half of the joint venture. But if they are, that would mean they don't even play any historic Sydney rivals twice in the regular season!

I would suggest the teams you play twice are determined by performance in the previous regular season, so that the teams finishing in an odd position (1st, 3rd, ..., 15th) play twice, and do those in an even position (2nd, 4th, ... 16th) do the same. These teams ideally would play rounds 1-7, then again rounds 16-22, although I can appreciate you might want to schedule some one-off matches at specific times - for example, starting the season with a blockbuster between two teams that won't play again in the regular season, However, every side should play once - no repeat matches until Round 16.

The 22 rounds would fit into three blocks:

• Rounds 1-7 played from early March up to the week before the ANZAC Day Test.
• Rounds 8-15 played from the week following the ANZAC Day Test to the middle of June
• Rounds 16-22 played from mid-July to the end of August

My proposal does have 16 less matches across the season, although every single match would involve full strength teams, so there is an argument the overall commercial value of the season is greater. But I do have an idea to replace these games for commercial reasons anyway.


Mid-Season Break (June - July)

My proposal for a mid-season break has three purposes - to preserve the commercial value of State of Origin without detracting from the NRL season, to provide some extra matches for broadcast rights, and also enable clubs an opportunity to provide their players rest. It needs a better name for marketing purposes.

The break would be four weeks after round 15, when every club has played each other once.

State of Origin teams would be named at the start of week one, with the usual 9-10 day training camp for each state leading into the first match, on the Wednesday night in the second week. The second and third games would be the next two Wednesdays. This is technically less time in camp for these matches, but players retained from earlier games would never leave Origin camp, so the reduction in preparation time shouldn't matter. If anything, teams will be even better drilled and cohesive as by the third game as they have spent three-and-a-half weeks continuously training together.

After the last game, there would be another weekend off before players had to play for their club again. This would allow 9-12 days rest following the Origin series.

For the weekends, I would establish a mid-season cup competition. To ensure these matches are commercially appealing, there would need to be significant prize money. Clubs would also have to play, for example, eight or their top 25 squad each match to maintain the integrity of the competition. This would still provide scope to rest and rotate tired players, and also allow for teams with heavy Origin representation and/or high injury lists to stay in the rules.

This competition would have teams split into four pools of four teams randomly. They would play a round-robin over the first three weekends. I would suggest five matches each of these weekends would be played in either regional areas like Bathurst, Coffs Harbour and Mackay, expansion areas like Perth, Darwin and Wellington, or at retro/boutique grounds like Belmore and North Sydney Oval. Then the other three matches each weekend would be played as triple headers on Saturday - successive weeks at the Football Stadium, Lang Park, and Homebush.

The fourth weekend would be semi-finals, so 12 teams would have a bye while the remaining four are happy to be competing for significant prize money as a trade-off against having a rest. The final would be played between round 22 and the start of the finals.

My idea replaces 16 NRL games with 27 Cup games, which without being an expert, seems like something you could sell to broadcast partners. The competition would also have other benefits. It could be used to experiment with any rule change or interpretation proposal, rather than introducing them directly into the main competition. It also provides clubs and their fans another area for success if they are having a poor season. Promising players may be looked at in competitive matches without jeopardising competition points.

I think the mid-season period could also be used for countries other than Australia to play internationals, with all NRL contracted players selected to be released for international duty. It could also be used as a formal mid-season player transfer window.

Representative Weekend (April)

This would be a weekend for the ANZAC Test only. It would follow Round 7, with the match being played on ANZAC Day if it falls on a weekend, or the closest Friday night to ANZAC Day.

I like the idea in principle of City-Country Origin, but the sad reality is that the game has no value. It is therefore scrapped under my proposal. Country rugby league promotion would be better served by the mid-season competition scheduling matches in regional centres.

NRL Finals Series (September - October)

There would be a bye week prior to the finals, with the only scheduled game being the Cup competition final. Otherwise, no changes - the finals would be the current eight teams system. I personally prefer the McIntyre system, as mathematically it is the best format, but conceptually it has been proven to be difficult for fans to understand. The Grand Final is scheduled for the long weekend at the start of October as usual.


Case Study on Workload

Player A is a star in a star team. He plays every match for his club up to a commanding grand final win. Player A plays for international and state representative games.

In the current NRL, he plays:

• Auckland Nines (count as 1 match for this case study)
• 21 to 24 premiership games, depending on scheduling
• Four finals
• One Test
• Three Origins

If available for a 22nd, 23rd, and 24th in the arbitrary season draw, Player A must play two games in a week.

TOTAL: 30-33 matches

In my proposal, he plays:

• Auckland Nines
• 22 premiership games
• Four finals
• One Test
• Three Origins
• Mid-season cup final (earlier matches clash with Origin)

Player A never plays more than one game per week.

TOTAL: 32 matches

Final Verdict

Under my proposal, the NRL season is not damaged by State of Origin scheduling, players are required to play a similar number of matches but without the requirement to play two matches in any week, and the draw has less bias and is less complicated.