"This gives us the opportunity to grow the game again," Burraston said. "Our crowds are growing, our memberships are growing, our TV ratings are growing and this gives us the opportunity to get more money into the game.
"Everything that's earned will be turned back into the game" through grassroots development, marketing or creating new income streams, or to the clubs and the players through the salary cap and grants, he said.
What's the change that gives each club an immediate increase of $500k pa and where we have the opportunity to "grow the game again" and where "everything that's earned will be turned back into the game" again? Getting rid of the scourge of News Ltd. THAT is why this is the biggest improvement since the inception of the game. The independent commission is secondary and may well be a smokescreen.Â
Seems the only problem is that we're effectively selling out our right to competitive TV rights deals until after 2027, and giving News Ltd a further multimillion-dollar payout (via their Storm subsidiary). These payouts may total hundreds of millions of dollars over and above what they have already stripped out of the game through their hostile takeover.