Re: Fight Club - Football TV Ratings Thread
Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:17 pm
It would be good if we could start the New Year with the AFL crew helping out we "simple" rugby league supporters as to what "Aussie rules" will allow to be counted on the league side of the ledger. Now we do understand the basic principle that if something makes league look better than AFL then it has to go. Problem is that the league ratings keep growing so more needs to be removed from the count and you AFL guys can be a bit inconsistent as to what and when gets ditched.
So:
1. Rugby league is only allowed to count the NRL club games. There can be no inclusion of SOO or Tests or any level of the game that AFL does not have. Even next year when the structure of League changes these will still be out because the AFL "insiders" know that that this not real.
2. With regards to the NRL it can only be The Australian based teams whose ratings get included so out go the NZ Warriors and their 12m viewers for the year. The NRL never had "official approval" from the AFL to go outside Australia and given there never will be a foreign AFL team they are out.
3. With regards to the NRL it is actually not just the foreign team and their ratings that are out but also all regional teams and there supporters/viewers. So out goes Cowboys,Raiders,Knights and Illawarra part of the Dragons. This is a really good one for the AFL as they dont have any regional teams and there are more than three times the number of regional people in NSW/ACT/QLD than in Vic/TAS/WA/SA. Also there are some weekends when the regionals and the Warriors play each other so whole games wont have their home team ratings included. A master stroke.
4. So the AFL will have 18 teams next year and the NRL will only be "allowed" to count 11 teams ratings with no representative games. AFL must be safe now.
A couple of points of concern though that should be qualified. Firstly Foxtel intends to buy Austar. Austar is based in NSW/QLD and gets very high NRL ratings. If they become part of Foxtel then all you will see is Foxtel ratings with Austar rolled in. NRL ratings will jump 50% so we need a rule on how this can be "stopped"
Secondly and I hate to mention it, but when it comes to the 5 city metro ratings, and I know these are sacrosanct from a AFL perspective, the NRL are only 15% behind over the year. Even if you add back just the SOO games and tests there goes that margin. Of course that wont be allowed. Problem is that the metro ratings just keep growing. What happens with the new TV deal or even the current one next year if more NRL games get shown live/delayed into the AFL states? Those numbers,even minor ones,added to the natural growth and the15% is gone. Actually isn't 15% a very small advantage for an all conquering sport? You probably need some "rules" that give a 30% margin just to look good.
Now there is always the possibility that in the new NRL TV deal more games could end up on FTA which will also increase ratings. So we need some "rules" on this asap otherwise we just argue after the event.
OK so we have the basic premise in that anything that makes the AFL look inferior to the NRL is out. We just want to be structured and agreed.
PS NRL guys we know that the Warriors and the regional teams are out of the TV ratings but the good news we get to keep their crowd and membership numbers because they lower the averages of both.
So:
1. Rugby league is only allowed to count the NRL club games. There can be no inclusion of SOO or Tests or any level of the game that AFL does not have. Even next year when the structure of League changes these will still be out because the AFL "insiders" know that that this not real.
2. With regards to the NRL it can only be The Australian based teams whose ratings get included so out go the NZ Warriors and their 12m viewers for the year. The NRL never had "official approval" from the AFL to go outside Australia and given there never will be a foreign AFL team they are out.
3. With regards to the NRL it is actually not just the foreign team and their ratings that are out but also all regional teams and there supporters/viewers. So out goes Cowboys,Raiders,Knights and Illawarra part of the Dragons. This is a really good one for the AFL as they dont have any regional teams and there are more than three times the number of regional people in NSW/ACT/QLD than in Vic/TAS/WA/SA. Also there are some weekends when the regionals and the Warriors play each other so whole games wont have their home team ratings included. A master stroke.
4. So the AFL will have 18 teams next year and the NRL will only be "allowed" to count 11 teams ratings with no representative games. AFL must be safe now.
A couple of points of concern though that should be qualified. Firstly Foxtel intends to buy Austar. Austar is based in NSW/QLD and gets very high NRL ratings. If they become part of Foxtel then all you will see is Foxtel ratings with Austar rolled in. NRL ratings will jump 50% so we need a rule on how this can be "stopped"
Secondly and I hate to mention it, but when it comes to the 5 city metro ratings, and I know these are sacrosanct from a AFL perspective, the NRL are only 15% behind over the year. Even if you add back just the SOO games and tests there goes that margin. Of course that wont be allowed. Problem is that the metro ratings just keep growing. What happens with the new TV deal or even the current one next year if more NRL games get shown live/delayed into the AFL states? Those numbers,even minor ones,added to the natural growth and the15% is gone. Actually isn't 15% a very small advantage for an all conquering sport? You probably need some "rules" that give a 30% margin just to look good.
Now there is always the possibility that in the new NRL TV deal more games could end up on FTA which will also increase ratings. So we need some "rules" on this asap otherwise we just argue after the event.
OK so we have the basic premise in that anything that makes the AFL look inferior to the NRL is out. We just want to be structured and agreed.
PS NRL guys we know that the Warriors and the regional teams are out of the TV ratings but the good news we get to keep their crowd and membership numbers because they lower the averages of both.