NRL boss Todd Greenberg claims the 2018 draw provides the game with an opportunity to arrest a decline in crowd numbers after head office finally took control of the schedule from broadcasters.

The biggest bugbears of the clubs – five-day turnarounds, skewed free-to-air distributions and Brisbane's monopoly of the Thursday and Friday night timeslots – have been, at least in part, addressed. As ever, there are anomalies, such as Penrith playing away to Melbourne for the third consecutive season without getting the premiers in their own backyard. However, the response from clubland has been overwhelmingly positive after the NRL nutted out a schedule without the influence of broadcasters.

Average crowds dipped below the 15,000 mark in 2017 for the first time in 13 years, down to 14,919. While the NSW government's investment in stadia infrastructure is expected to boost numbers in the long term, the schedule was the NRL's most immediate opportunity to address the issue.

"Every time we put a draw out we have a lens of trying to drive crowds in different ways," NRL CEO Todd Greenberg said.