The crowd at Friday night's match between the Roosters and the Bulldogs at Sydney Football Stadium could drop 20,000 on their previous meeting as a consequence of the stand-down of State of Origin stars, says the Roosters' chief executive, Brian Canavan.

When the teams met in round 4 at ANZ Stadium - the first outing of the Rooster Willie Mason against his old club - it attracted 36,000 and generated the highest TV ratings for an NRL match this year.

Based on an average NRL ticket price of $20, the stand-down will cost the Roosters $400,000, or the salary they pay one of the stars quarantined for the deciding Origin game on July 2.

When NRL club chief executives meet tomorrow to discuss the code's challenges, a hot topic is likely to be the economic cost to clubs of Origin versus its value as a driver of TV rights income.

The NRL chief executive, David Gallop, says it is impossible to quantify the value of the three stand-alone Wednesday night Origin matches in the code's overall TV rights income of $100 million a year. Nor does he say any study has been made of the cost to clubs of having their star players unavailable.

The Roosters calculate stand-down games since 2002 have already cost them 33,474 patrons, the biggest being a dip of 8965 in the attendance at a Souths game in round 11, 2006.

However, Gallop has ruled out Origin games being played on stand-alone weekends. "Wednesday night Origin games give us an opportunity to go live into our non-traditional states."

True, Origin games beamed live into Melbourne, Adelaide and delayed into Perth midweek do not have any competition from AFL and offer an opportunity to showcase the code's best talent.

The late Kerry Packer recognised the value of Origin football nearly 20 years ago, but he was more interested in the higher advertising rates he could charge for prime-time coverage than any desire to see the code expand to the frontier lands.

When Channel Ten went into receivership Packer bought the entire rugby league package from Ten, then sold back to it the club games, offloaded the test matches to Seven and retained Origin for Nine, where it has remained.

However, now, with NRL TV rights income unchanged for the next five years, clubs are counting the cost of Origin football.

The Melbourne Storm, who supplied 10 players plus their coach to the first two Origin games, lost both NRL games played during the stand-down period.

Should it cost the Storm the minor premiership it won last year, the club supplying the bulk of players to Origin football will lose the $100,000 prize for finishing the season in first place.

Injuries are also a factor.

"[Justin] Hodges blew his knee in an Origin game and we lost him for the season," Canavan said of the Queensland centre, now with the Broncos. You've also got to replace the Origin players with those who earn match fees."

The Storm's chief executive, Brian Waldron, expects the minimum direct cost of replacements will be $90,000 (10 players times $3000 times three games) but points to "the huge inflationary effect on the contracts of these young players".

Waldron explains: "Young blokes get exposed to Origin before their time; their managers seek additional money for them, and other clubs see them on show and bid up their price.

"Plus I got a letter from one of our sponsors questioning the value of the sponsorship when the best players aren't there."

But some clubs argue that Origin football increases income.

The chief executive at Wests Tigers, Steve Noyce, says: "We have not been disrupted historically. If we play an undermanned Broncos at home, our fans turn up because they believe we have a chance of winning. We have been able to hold our crowds during the Origin period. We're the other side of the coin."