If any rugby league fan is left feeling a little confused by the term anti-siphoning, I can only assure them they are not alone.
The anti-siphoning debate has been complicated time and again but hopefully the announcement this week of matches being ”de-listed” will ease some of the confusion.
There is one simple, unambiguous point for league fans to understand: we are committed to ensuring high-quality games are on free-to-air television every week.
It is a commitment we have always made and will continue to make because, with or without the government protection of an anti-siphoning regulation, our fans and our sponsors want that access and so do we.
It has never been anything more than a high-profile scare campaign to suggest otherwise.
We are unapologetic, however, in wanting to be able to recoup the full value of our television rights.
Rugby league drives significant revenue for both free-to-air and subscription broadcasters, delivering millions of viewers each year, and the sport needs to be rewarded for doing so.
There are any number of people who call for the game to generate more money for players, for grassroots development, for clubs, for marketing, for venues, for new teams, for challenging other codes and even for grand-final entertainment. Broadcasting rights are the major source of our revenue.
The introduction of subscription television has over the years increased the revenue we generate and, importantly, it was also the catalyst for ensuring that fans now have access to every game on television every week – something we have now come to accept as an important right for viewers.
Most people may not realise that the introduction of anti-siphoning legislation in the 1990s, however, ensured that free-to-air television had an automatic claim to all eight NRL matches, regardless of whether or not they were prepared to bid for those games.
It has meant that when we sit down to discuss broadcast agreements, free-to-air networks are in an important bargaining position that dictates not only what we can negotiate with them, but also what we can negotiate with others.
In essence, free-to-air is given the cards to eight games, even though it has only ever played three.
This week the federal government announced that the regulations would be relaxed, giving free-to-air automatic entitlement to three games (subject of course to a rights negotiation) and allowing the NRL to freely negotiate where it will offer the remaining five.
That is an important step. It is one that may even lead to improved national coverage through free-to-air multi-channels.
There needs to be further discussion about how the three games will be determined and we will enter that in the best of faith.
We want to ensure that high-quality matches are on free-to-air each week and that there is widespread access to all the best-performing teams.
We need to be able to accommodate in future negotiations the option of a full season schedule if that is the best thing for the game and we need to be able to meet any changing viewing patterns of our fans.
Through it all we need to ensure league audiences have access to high-quality matches each week on free-to-air and this week’s changes will not affect that commitment.