WESTERN Australian Rugby League chairman David Hobbs says everything is in place for a WA team to return to the national competition in 2013 – including a major sponsorship deal worth up to $2 million – and all that’s needed is the go-ahead from the NRL.
WESTERN Australian Rugby League chairman David Hobbs says everything is in place for a WA team to return to the national competition in 2013 – including a major sponsorship deal worth up to $2 million – and all that’s needed is the go-ahead from the NRL.
The bid to re-establish a WA presence in the NRL was launched around 12 months ago, and despite strong competition from the eastern states, Mr Hobbs said the WA bid was gaining favour among NRL club hierarchies, and the league itself.
“(NRL chief executive) David Gallop has made a number of throwaway statements over the last 12 months saying if it is truly going to be a national game, it needs WA in the competition,” Mr Hobbs told WA Business News.
“The chief executives of the other clubs, the majority of them have voted that they’d like WA, for two reasons.
“One is it doesn’t erode the market they are already in, it doesn’t erode sponsorship, and two, it brings a completely new TV audience to the game.”
In 2009, rugby league-related programming accounted for 60 of the top 100 programs on pay-TV.
In WA, the bid to return to the NRL has already gained significant corporate support.
Mr Hobbs said a major sponsor was ready to sign a deal worth between $1.5 million and $2 million.
Sponsors already on board include Cash Converters, which was the original major sponsor of the Western Reds, Harvey Norman and German engineering firm SEW Eurodrive.
“We feel there is a good strong core of corporate support; we’ve got four or five strong sponsors that we’re negotiating with now,” Mr Hobbs said.
“Cash Converters is right in the mix to be the major sponsor and there has also been talk with what James Packer is doing with his casinos.
“Star City is a sponsor of the Rabbitohs in Sydney, while Crown Casino heavily sponsors the Melbourne Storm.
“We believe that Rugby League and casinos go hand-in-hand and we’d certainly like to have Burswood on board as a sponsor.”
The NRL is currently half-owned by News Limited, but it has announced it will leave eight independent commissioners to run the game from April 30. That group will work alongside Mr Gallop to make decisions on expansions and a new television rights contract for when the current deal expires in 2012.
“They’ve talked about (expansion) for 12 months and there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes,” Mr Hobbs said.
“The most disappointing thing for us would be to lose momentum now.
“We’ve spent $300,000 of our own money and we need support now from the state government so that when Mr Gallop and his new commission do announce that they are expanding, WA has a really good bid ready to go.”
At its peak in the mid-1990s, the Western Reds had 18,000 registered members.
Mr Hobbs said more than 380,000 Queenslanders and New South Welshmen had relocated to WA since 2000.
“It’s gotten stronger at both a junior development level and a club level over the last 10 years but what we need is another pathway for the guys coming through,” he said.
“Over 20 kids have gone from Perth back to the east coast over the last decade to play rugby league, so we need a career path for kids to stay here.”
