Business of Sport: NRL’s ‘unholy row’ with its players could cost it big time

Sione Katoa of the Sharks scores a try during the round 19 NRL match between Wests Tigers and Cronulla Sharks. (Image: Getty)

Trevor McKewen

Fri, 07 Jul 2023

They’re often pitched as protagonists but in modern professional sport, players’ unions and the sporting bodies their members are contracted to are linked at the hip. Players' associations became a fact of life in United States sports during the 1950s; Australia’s two big winter football codes followed in the 70s and then Australian cricket in 1997. Two years later, we had the birth of the New Zealand Rugby Players Association (NZRPA). For all the criticism NZ Rugby (NZR) and the NZRPA cop, it can’t be...

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