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The National Rugby League (NRL) is the top League of professional Rugby League Football clubs in Australasia . The NRL competition (sometimes referred to as the '''Telstra Premiership''' for sponsorship purposes) is contested by 16 clubs, 15 based in Australia and one club based in New Zealand , and is the region's elite rugby league championship. The premiership also boasts the world's highest attendance figures for any Rugby club competition of either code List Of Attendance Figures At Domestic Professional Sports Leagues and is generally regarded as the most competitive. The NRL was formed in the aftermath of the , Bulldogs , Melbourne Storm , Newcastle Knights , Penrith Panthers , Sydney Roosters and Wests Tigers . Of these, current premiers Brisbane Broncos are the only team to have won the NRL premiership on more than one occasion, having claimed victory in 1998 , 2000 , and 2006 . Each year the NRL champions play a game against the premiers of the European Super League competition in the World Club Challenge . HISTORY Origins For more details on this topic, see History Of The National Rugby League The 2006 . Further expansion of the league followed in 2006 . These new teams proved to be successful, both financially and in popularity, and paved the way towards a push for a truly national competition. This was undertaken in 1995 with control of the premiership passing to the Australian Rugby League (ARL), who invited four more teams from outside NSW to participate. Establishment Professional rugby league was shaken to its very foundations in the mid-1990s with the advent of the 2006 . and many teams found themselves in financial difficulty. The ARL undertook moves to invite the traditional clubs that had moved to the Super League competition back into a re-unified competition. Following a period of negotiation with News Corporation, on September 23 , 1997 the ARL announced that it was forming a new company to conduct the competition in 1998. On October 7 Rupert Murdoch announced that he was confident that there would be a single competition in 1998 and in the following months the National Rugby League, jointly owned by the ARL and News Limited, was formed. It was announced that the inaugural National Rugby League (NRL) season of 1998 would have 20 teams competing, 19 remaining Super League and ARL teams plus the Melbourne Storm , who were created by Super League for their 1998 season. Clubs on both sides of the war were shut down. Super League decided to close the Hunter Mariners and the financially ruined Western Reds , who were $10 million in debt at the end of 1997, while the ARL decided to close down the South Queensland Crushers , who were also in severe financial trouble. Additionally, at the end of 1998 the NRL decided to close down former Super League club, the Adelaide Rams and former ARL club, the Gold Coast Chargers , despite the Gold Coast franchise being one of the few clubs to make a profit during the Super League war. STRUCTURE A Partnership Executive Committee administers the agreement between the 2006 . The National Rugby League markets the premiership on behalf of the clubs as well as organising the draw and finals matches. When the draw is finalised, teams are responsible for controlling and organsing their assigned home games. Clubs each have their own organisational structure but are also bound to the National Rugby League by a common set of rules in club agreements. NRL History ''National Rugby League'' Retrieved on 14 January 2006 . COMPETITION FORMAT AND SPONSORSHIP Competition With rugby league being a winter sport in Australia (although it is started in Autumn), the NRL premiership season usually begins in early March following a brief series of trial matches. Games are then played every weekend (plus Monday night football) until the end of September. There are currently sixteen clubs in the National Rugby League. Teams are divided into two equal pools of eight at the completion of each season, with each pool of equal strength based on that season's results. During the course of the regular season (which lasts until August ) each club plays a total of two games against each team in the opposite pool, once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents for a total of 16 games for each club. Teams play six of those seven others in their own group just once during the season, and play the remaining club twice. In total, each team plays 24 games in the 25-week regular season and a total of 192 games in a National Rugby League season. Teams receive two points for a win and one point for a draw. No points are awarded for a loss. All teams at some point in the season are scheduled to have a "bye", in which they don't play a game that week but receive two competition points. Teams are ranked by total points, then points difference and then points percentage. At the end of each season, the club with the most points is declared Minor Premiers . Qualification for finals series and Newcastle Knights playing at Canberra Stadium in 2005.]] The eight highest placed teams at the end of the regular season have the opportunity to compete in the finals series, which is contested using the McIntyre System . This system has been used for every National Rugby League season with the exception of the first, in 1998.1. The system consists of a number of knockout and sudden-death games over four weeks between the top eight teams in August and September until there are only two teams remaining. These two teams then play in the Grand Final, on the first Sunday of October. In the first week, the top four seeds play at their respective home grounds. In week two, matches are played within the home city of the two lower seeded winning teams from week one. In week three, teams will play within the home regions of the two seeded winning teams from week one. In 1998 the Grand Final was held at Sydney Football Stadium . Since 1999 the Grand Final has been contested at Telstra Stadium , the primary athletics venue during the 2000 Olympic Games held in Sydney.2 In June 2006, the NRL announced that the National Rugby League Grand Final will continue to be held at Sydney's Telstra Stadium until at least 2012, when it will be considered to be moved interstate if certain circumstances arose.3 Sponsorship Since 2001, the National Rugby League has been sponsored by Telstra. In the years beforehand, the premiership was simply known as the "National Rugby League". The list below details who the sponsors have been and what they called the competition:4
The Telstra Premiership has maintained three competition logos throughout its current tenure as major sponsor. The first, lasting only through the 2001 regular season, was their company logo with an elongated circle enclosing the word ''Premiership''. From the Finals series of 2001 through to the end of 2006 the logo was based around the shape of a football with the words Telstra Premiership on respective lines along the bottom, culminating with a small football similar to the one in the official NRL logo. The primary colours were that of the company - blue and orange. The company has worked with the NRL for a new logo in 2007 as part of a new sponsorship deal, and as such the logo is much similar to the original National Rugby League emblem. Other notable sponsorships include Coca-Cola Amatil for ball sponsorship, Carlton Draught for Friday Night Football sponsorship, Bunderberg Rum for Monday Night Football sponsorship and TAB sportsbet as official betting agency of the NRL. COMPETITION RULES AND REPRESENTATIVE SEASON Salary cap See Also: Salary cap The National Rugby League adopted a salary cap based on the Australian Football League model in the early 1990s. In the NRL, clubs found to have breached the salary cap rules usually incur a fine. For example, six clubs were fined for minor infractions in 2003. These infractions are usually technical in nature and can sometimes be affected by third-party factors such as loss of sponsorship revenue affecting an allowance. During the 2007 season the NRL has investigated other ways of creating a fair and more beneficial cap for players and clubs. However in mid-2002, the Bulldogs were found guilty of serious and systematic breaches. In addition to a more substantial fine, they were stripped of their competition points accumulated to that date, and hence denied a place in the finals. As the club had been leading the competition table prior to the penalty's imposition, this was a shattering outcome for the club and its fans. In the 2006 pre-season the New Zealand Warriors revealed that their former management had rorted the salary cap in the 2004 and 2005 seasons. As a punishment the club was stripped of four competition points for 2006 and fined $430,000. They also must play the 2007 season under a reduced salary cap. Representative season As well as playing for their club in the National Rugby League premiership season, players are sometimes entitled to play in a number of representative competitions that are conducted by the Australian Rugby League at the same time. These competitions include the one-off ANZAC Test s, World Cup competitions, Tri-Nations series, State Of Origin series and the New South Wales City Vs Country Origin series. In order for a player to qualify for a representative team in these competitions, they must firstly be eligible to be chosen for the side, based on a process of qualification (which involves the standard of play at club level). MEDIA COVERAGE and the Bulldogs ]]The National Rugby League premiership has ultimately been revolutionised by television, with there being a large shift away from daytime games to nightime games over recent years to better suit the contracted television networks Channel 9 and Foxtel . From 2001 onwards, the Grand Final has been held during the evening of a Sunday night. In 2007, Channel 9 started televising two Friday games in Queensland and New South Wales. Foxtel televises the Monday night match live to pay TV subscribers With the admission of the Gold Coast Titans to the Premiership In 2007 , the number of weekly games has risen from seven to eight. Free To Air broadcaster Channel 9 will broadcast a live game on Friday night in addition to a delayed match that has been featured for some years. A delayed Sunday match will also continue to be shown on the network. The News Limited -begun Foxtel network which broadcast its first Rugby League matches during the 1997 Super League season has broadcast the remaining National Rugby League matches since the competition's inception in 1998. In 2007, the hugely popular Monday Night Football was added to Foxtel's rugby league coverage. Sky Sports and Setanta Sports provide coverage to overseas locales, reairing the domestic coverage on both a live and delayed basis. PLAYERS Each club in the National Rugby League has a "top squad" of twenty-five players, which are signed under the Salary Cap (as described above). By and large, the players who play in National Rugby League matches are sourced from these "top squad"s. Occasionally during a season, however, the need may arise for a club to use players outside these 25, and in this case players are usually sourced from the club's junior ranks (such as the relevant Premier League or Queensland Cup squad). Most of the players in the National Rugby League are of Australia n origin, although there are increasing numbers of both New Zealand and Pacific Island -born players being selected by clubs. In recent years, Polynesian players have made up 75 per cent of junior representative teams in New South Wales.5 European -born players in the National Rugby League amount to very few, particularly when compared to the significant number of Australasian-born players appearing in the European Super League . However the few European players who have appeared in the National Rugby League (such as Adrian Morley and Brian Carney ) have noted that the National Rugby League provides a higher standard of rugby league than is played in Europe. The players voted to be the best in each position at the end of the season are honoured at the Dally M Awards , with the player of the year awarded the Dally M Medal . The man of the match in the Grand Final is awarded the Clive Churchill Medal . NATIONAL RUGBY LEAGUE CLUBS , Sydney and New Zealand as of 2006]] Current National Rugby League members The following sixteen clubs are competing in the National Rugby League during the 2007 season. Former National Rugby League members A total of twenty-three clubs have played in the National Rugby League between 1998 and 2006. For a list of all clubs past and present see National Rugby League Teams . Eleven clubs have been members of the National Rugby league for every season (9) since its inception. This group includes Brisbane, Bulldogs, Canberra, Cronulla, Melbourne, New Zealand, Newcastle, North Queensland, Parramatta, Penrith and Sydney. STATISTICS The Brisbane Broncos have won the most premierships since the creation of the National Rugby League ( 1998 , 2000 and 2006 ) and are the only team to have won the NRL championship more than once. The Bulldogs hold the record for the most consecutive wins, having won 17 matches in a row between 31 March , 2002 and 3 August , 2002 .7 The Parramatta Eels set the records for the highest score and margin of victory in a 74–4 victory over the Cronulla Sharks on 23 August , 2003 .8 The most victories achieved within a season is 21, held by the Melbourne Storm in 2007.9 Since the first National Rugby League season in 1998, a total of six players have topped the scorers list in a season. However, the only player to have won the title more than once is Hazem El Masri , the overall top scorer in the National Rugby League's history, having claimed the title in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006. Hazem El Masri was leading the top scoring table in 2005 until sidelined through injury. His tally of 342 points in 200410 remains the most points scored by an individual in a season. Nigel Vagana 's 154 tries scored across all nine seasons of the National Rugby League11 makes him the most prolific try scorer in the competition's history. Nathan Blacklock holds the record for the most tries in a season, with 27 scored in 200112 for his team, the St. George Illawarra Dragons . Three players hold the record for the most points scored in a game; Hazem El Masri, Andrew Johns and Matt Geyer with 34 apiece.13 Only three players have scored five tries in a game; Francis Meli , Jamie Lyon and Nigel Vagana .14 It should be noted, however, that the official records of the NRL do not differentiate between the various top level competitions. For more information on official records, see this page List Of NSWRL/ARL/SL/NRL Records SEE ALSO
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