Picture perfect: The A-League grand final packed out Adelaide Oval. Credit:Getty Images

Just look at rugby league, a sport now gorging itself on the best broadcast deal in its history. How do you reconcile all the wealth that has flowed into the NRL over the past decade with the near collapse of the sport beneath the bright, shiny, surface?

If you don't believe me, look at what ex-Knights forward Tony Butterfield had to say in a prescient recent column in the Newcastle Herald: "For those interested in the situation, my point is this: at the non-NRL level, the game is approaching a tipping point, beyond which recovery will be difficult. At this point in time it might have just enough scale, influence and community connection to retrieve the situation. But only with the right plan, leadership and will to change for the better."

More evidence of how big TV deals don't guarantee anything? There's no better example than rugby union, which sold its soul when it turned professional, and now has to fund indisputably the craziest concept in world sport - a competition that requires a 200 centimetre tall lineout jumper to cram into economy class seats and fly from Buenos Aires, to Cape Town, to Sydney, to Auckland, to Singapore, to Tokyo and many points in between. Super Rugby now absorbs the vast majority of the Australian Rugby Union's wealth, while the game below is in full-blown crisis mode.

Don't believe me? This is what ex-Wallaby Brett Papworth had to say when the ABC pulled out of covering club rugby this year: "It's a massive hit for the game. There's no doubt about it. I don't necessarily believe that the ARU care too much. They only seem to care about people who take a bunch of money out of the game. That's all they care about ... there's no investment in the game anywhere. They just keep throwing money at the top of the tree. It would be nice to see some direction and investment in the game other than to those at the top of the tree, but it doesn't seem to happen."