Peter V'landys has never been shy about finding ways to manufacture content, and his latest idea follows a familiar pattern to dangle money in front of clubs and watch them realise they can't say no.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the NRL boss is open to offering a $500,000 salary cap discount to clubs that win whatever post-season competitions the game ends up staging around grand final week.
It's a clever piece of engineering; it's also a solution looking for a problem the game doesn't have.
V'landys wants more rugby league during grand final week; it makes sense given it creates more content for broadcasters, more reasons to stay tuned in the build-up to having the premiership decided.
The NRL boss floated a third-place play-off, a consolation match for the two clubs that fall at the preliminary final hurdle.
On its face, it's an easy sell, with two quality teams, a bonus fixture and minimal wear on the calendar.
In practice, it's a dead rubber with money as a prize and loses character development trying to make a grand final appearance and win.
Now, teams could construct rosters that are only good enough to get salary cap benefits.
Phil Gould had a similar but different idea, with all the teams outside the top eight playing in a knockout competition, with the cap discount as the incentive.
The Bulldogs GM backs his own format more than V'landys, which could be just an ego thing, or what it really says is that the people floating these ideas can't agree on what problem they're trying to solve.
Both versions start from the premise that the fix for "not enough content" is another fixture and justify that it would be a meaningful game for the players.
Strangely, for a competitive sport that has a salary cap auditor judging the market for all players for all teams involved, now they're saying they want to spend more money, and we'll give salary cap relief.
The $500,000 discount isn't any type of gesture, even with its benefits.
The concept isn't being taken seriously now, and it won't be taken seriously until one club finds a way to make it worthwhile and recruits a marquee talent, just like the establishment of PNG Chiefs, with fans and people within th game already starting to dislike them because of the rules the NRL liked and implemented and what they've managed to do.
Again, no club took the Chiefs seriously until Jarome Luai declined his player options and maximised loopholes the game created for contract negotiations.
Since then, who they're capable of landing and how much they're paying for them on the salary cap sheets has led to an crisis they created and that no club can competitively match.
Even the Perth Bears are struggling to recruit and now face much more difficulty in competing on the market, with the Chiefs leading the race because of tax-free money.
The season has a finish line, and a third-place play-off tells fans that finishing third matters when it doesn't.
What are we, trying to mix the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup into the NRL?
A knockout for non-finalists tells fans that missing the finals is basically fine, as long as there's cash prizes waiting.
Either way, the NRL ends up manufacturing stakes it can't organically create.
The game has different problems it could be solving and why is the NRL of all sports always looking to bring up ideas in aspects of the sport that have no issue?
Now, the NRL are trialling a kick-off rule change, trying to be like the NFL but with a spin, the six-again margin getting larger and the penalty count getting smaller with the ranges of the field they call each one.
The NRL is a serious sport, the numbers don't lie, but in a world where V'landys is thinking of a global round that specifically takes teams to countries with a high rugby union demographic and at the same time thinks a third place play-off would be beneficial for the game, the league is struggling to address what really matters and what should be prioritised and instead change rules and customs of the game that don't need to be changed.
Blowout scores are happening because of the rule changes, the sabotage is self created and while the NRL making more money is great for everybody, there's a difference between money making ideas and trying to be a sport just for the money.
What nobody has done in Australian sports until V'landys with the $5.3 billion TV rights deal is historic and game changing for more than just rugby league itself, now it's created small amount of room to change and take swings on unnecessary aspects of the sport.
Between pathways, refereeing and talent across what will be 19 teams by 2029 assuming it's another New Zealand-based team joining the competition, there are issues beyond weird 'fixes' NRLHQ are trying to fix or creative aspects that want to add to this great sport.
What should be asked by the NRL is why the game needs to buy its own excitement in the first place.
Players salaries aren't publicised or official like the total salary cap amount teams use because of TV rights and the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the player's association, so what's the point of a discount for a team?
With that being the case, if a game needs that much cash to get players and fans to care, it's not worth playing.
