NRL
- Thu NRL – Dogs v Cowboys – 8,122 at ANZ Stadium
- Thu NRL FTA –
#NRL#NRLBulldogsCowboys Nine/9Gem 701k: Metro 424k (Syd 209k Bri 191k) Regional 277k - Thu STV
#NRL#FoxLeague#NRLBulldogsCowboys National: 202k Metro 143k (Syd 81k Mel 12k Bri 40k Ade 6k Per 5k)#MattyJohns 112k - Thu Footy Show – Syd 87,000 Bris 55,000
- Thu N NRL crowd average is up 7% on last season from 13,941 to 14,899, with 8 Thu N matches played in both seasons to Thu N, R10.
- no. of matches with crowds under 10k – Six. Four games less than the same time last year. (Thu N R10 had 9,647 @ Kogarah in 2016)
- Restless NRL clubs have floated the idea of mirroring an AFL-style “soft” salary cap that would see minor breaches of a notional figure for player payments next season go unpunished.
AFL
- Thu Footy Show – Melb 221,000 Adel 49,000 Per 50,000
- The AFL will finally reveal to the 18 clubs next week the prosperous and complex new pay agreement with its players, which will see salary caps increase by close to a total of $40 million this year. The deal will see the competition open up its books to the players’ union every three years as part of the new revenue sharing agreement, which will see 28 per cent of the game’s unbudgeted income – potentially tens of millions of dollars – given to the players via their retirement funds. Under the new deal, the salary cap will reach $13.6 million by 2022 with the player payments to increase a further 1.2 per cent next year, 1.3 per cent in 2019 followed by 2 per cent increases in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.
- WA Sports Minister Mick Murray is playing hardball with the West Australian Football Commission in talks about the new Perth stadium, signalling the State Government could pull a funding offer. In comments that reveal the State’s frustration with the WAFC over the stadium negotiations, Mr Murray said there was “no guarantee” a multimillion-dollar proposal would stay on the table.
A-league
- Canberra is in danger of becoming a professional soccer black hole after Capital Football failed to strike a deal to extend a partnership with the Central Coast Mariners. The Mariners played two games at Canberra Stadium last season, but attracted just 5497 and 5072 to the fixtures and the Central Coast made a financial loss on the second game.
Super Rugby
- Australia will inform today’s SANZAAR executive meeting in Tokyo that it is proceeding full steam ahead with plans to cut one of its five Super Rugby teams. While the battle to eliminate either the Western Force or the Melbourne Rebels has been under way for more than a month, there had been thoughts that the Australian Rugby Union might be obliged to tell its SANZAAR partners that the process was so tied up in lawsuits, both real and threatened, that it was impossible to continue down that path.
General
- Roy Morgan Research today releases the latest Readership results for Australian newspapers for the 12 months to March 2017, showing cross-platform audience is steady overall thanks to the continuing transition of print readers to digital platforms. View the full results here.
