Where to for Super Rugby?

[RedsHappy]

2 relevant legal variables here are bound to be: (a) what is the bare minimum RA has to deliver to retain Foxtel’s broadcasting $s for the rest of the season and, closely related, (b) can Foxtel contractually get out of paying RA if no Super and RC games are on?

These variables will have a big impact upon what type of pro rugby - if any - gets played in Aust for the rest of the year.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

2 relevant legal variables here are bound to be: (a) what is the bare minimum RA has to deliver to retain Foxtel’s broadcasting $s for the rest of the season and, closely related, (b) can Foxtel contractually get out of paying RA if no Super and RC games are on?

These variables will have a big impact upon what type of pro rugby - if any - gets played in Aust for the rest of the year.

The speaks partly to my reasoning for using the NRC as a means of delivering a professional competition that would provide content while maintaining little need to travel externally of our borders. RA should be talking to Forrest's group about this as the ban will effect his competition as much as it will Super Rugby. So an alternative using something already in place should be planned for when we are able to see some return to normal. Be it 2, 4 or even 6 months down the line (or potentially longer).

 

[dru]

The biggest questions of all are: when will a viable, mass-manufacturable, vaccine arrive and ditto a safe anti-viral drug to significantly reduce the negative effects for those that acquire the virus.

Everything else is just holding back the volume of cases until these two points of arrival.

They have been trying to develop a vaccine for the common cold for decades without success. The common cold is a corona virus.

Even if wildly successful it would take 4 months to develop a vaccine (we are likely 1 month into that duration) and another 12 to 18 months is required for testing and proving. Maybe they can develop a vaccine earlier than the winter season 2022 but they have to be pushing things.

Also https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/its...pear-in-the-summer-like-the-flu-who-says.html

No doubt the scientists and medicos are working 24/7 with plenty of funding. And techniques and knowledge is far superior today than when they first started work on the common cold. Let's hope it is enough.

 

[formerflanker]

One minor issue for any amalgam of games/teams/competitions to see out the season;
Scott Morrison has announced the government will advise against the gathering of more than 500 people from Monday.
The Prime Minister said the guidelines would apply to non-essential, organised gatherings of 500 people or more, and would not include public transport, airports or universities.

So any games would rely on TV coverage only.

 

[RugbyReg]

Club Rugby will be king!

what makes you think there will be club rugby?

 

[RedsHappy]

They have been trying to develop a vaccine for the common cold for decades without success. The common cold is a corona virus.

Even if wildly successful it would take 4 months to develop a vaccine (we are likely 1 month into that duration) and another 12 to 18 months is required for testing and proving. Maybe they can develop a vaccine earlier than the winter season 2022 but they have to be pushing things.


Also https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/its...pear-in-the-summer-like-the-flu-who-says.html

No doubt the scientists and medicos are working 24/7 with plenty of funding. And techniques and knowledge is far superior today than when they first started work on the common cold. Let's hope it is enough.

Animal trials are already advanced and underway for Covid-19 vaccines, human trials will start in weeks. Around 20-30 labs worldwide aiming to be the first to produce a viable vaccine, there’s very little doubt one will be developed and current best estimates for mass availability are 12-18 months out.

China is having quite good early results with a number of anti-viral drugs for those who’ve acquired the drug, Favilavir being one.

 

[RedsHappy]

what makes you think there will be club rugby?

Certainly RR the State RUs will now be under massive cost pressures.

If I was the QRU as one action I’d be pleading with Members not to request a part-refund of their season passes - actions like this will be needed for sure to preserve a minimum viable rugby playing base in 2020.

 

[Penguin]

what makes you think there will be club rugby?

Half a dozen beers.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Well. last try wins so reds are 2020 champions right?

And if tahs win today that means they would be champions.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

The speaks partly to my reasoning for using the NRC as a means of delivering a professional competition that would provide content while maintaining little need to travel externally of our borders. RA should be talking to Forrest's group about this as the ban will effect his competition as much as it will Super Rugby. So an alternative using something already in place should be planned for when we are able to see some return to normal. Be it 2, 4 or even 6 months down the line (or potentially longer).

If down to Forrest’s team I reckon plan b could be enacted quickly but less confident about RA but happy to be proved wrong - for my mind RA needs to be on front foot ie play domestic games behind closed doors if this helps the finances ie meeting fox commitments

 

[RedsHappy]

If Super Rugby top 8 was frozen today, even if Brums lost today they’d be the sole Aust team in it.

 

[RedsHappy]

If down to Forrest’s team I reckon plan b could be enacted quickly but less confident about RA but happy to be proved wrong - for my mind RA needs to be on front foot ie play domestic games behind closed doors if this helps the finances ie meeting fox commitments

There’ll be the usual howls of derision when I say this, but, given the latest financial outlook for Aust rugby in 2020, approaching Twiggy as Chair of RA and to have him financially save the code here is not now a piece of fantasy.

Scenarios could well emerge whereby there are few other viable options (though I do expect that the Fed Govt may enact a loan scheme of some kind for our sports bodies to stave off potential insolvency).

 

[Adam84]

I think calm is needed in this whole period, the ramifications will be significant and a lot more needs to be worked through first about what the implications are, not just for rugby Australia but for all sporting codes. Not even the AFL have the reserves to cover the seasons liabilities are if match day income and broadcast income is turned off.

 

[Penguin]

I think calm is needed in this whole period, the ramifications will be significant and a lot more needs to be worked through first about what the implications are, not just for rugby Australia but for all sporting codes. Not even the AFL have the reserves to cover the seasons liabilities are if match day income and broadcast income is turned off.

Exactly. This is bigger than any bloody game. Every sport. Every industry. Every individual is in the same leaky boat right now. The myopic hand wringing by some in this thread is unbelievably shortsighted and selfish.

 

[RedsHappy]

Exactly. This is bigger than any bloody game. Every sport. Every industry. Every individual is in the same leaky boat right now. The myopic hand wringing by some in this thread is unbelievably shortsighted and selfish.

Well, be that as it may, nonetheless this is a rugby site and it’s perfectly sensible and logical that some of us here are commenting on what the latest COVID-19 status in Aust might mean for this particular code’s immediate viability and economic fate going forward.

Doesn’t for one moment mean we don’t care about the holistic, global situation; it’s just that there are many other other good and sensible places to be thinking and commenting about that as well.

Moreover, there are huge numbers of people and businesses of all shapes and sizes employed directly or indirectly within Australian sports as a whole. As we consider the fate of rugby it’s also worth considering employment impacts within and around rugby as a whole.

 

[Adam84]

I just think clam is needed, there’s so much more to be worked through and needed to be understood about the social and economic impacts, right now we’re pissing into the wind trying to predict how this plays out. Rugby and sports, whilst signficant employers, sit pretty low down on the priority list at the moment.

NRL is talking $200million compensation, the govt isn’t be in a position financially or politically to commit to any compensation pack like that right now.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

They have been trying to develop a vaccine for the common cold for decades without success. The common cold is a corona virus.

Even if wildly successful it would take 4 months to develop a vaccine (we are likely 1 month into that duration) and another 12 to 18 months is required for testing and proving. Maybe they can develop a vaccine earlier than the winter season 2022 but they have to be pushing things.

Also https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/its...pear-in-the-summer-like-the-flu-who-says.html

No doubt the scientists and medicos are working 24/7 with plenty of funding. And techniques and knowledge is far superior today than when they first started work on the common cold. Let's hope it is enough.

There's actually two Canadian groups one a University (U of Saskatchewan) and another company based in Ottawa City claiming to have vaccines ready for trials now.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

If down to Forrest’s team I reckon plan b could be enacted quickly but less confident about RA but happy to be proved wrong - for my mind RA needs to be on front foot ie play domestic games behind closed doors if this helps the finances ie meeting fox commitments

What we can assume is that the NZ isolation protocols effectively rule out the China Lions from competing unless Forrest is prepared to take the hit and accommodate them somewhere here. All the while playing games in empty stadiums. I would hope both groups would be able to at least prviately achnowledge that there may be a need to work out their differences in order to achieve some kind of resolution that will satisfy both when things are at a point where we see normal ops begin to emerge. For us that could be either a 6 team NRC featuring all of our teams plus Fiji or even our Super Rugby franchises playing in a straight round robin with the GRR teams later in the year leading into the November window assuming that happens. Oddly enough, we are probably the only major football code able to do just this.

 

[Adam84]

Discussions of a domestic comp to replace super rugby during this period make the assumptions that the teams will still be able to travel domestically, that no players will be be infected and/or suspected of infection and that the players and clubs are willing to accept the risk. The way things have escalated the past few weeks internationally,I think those are highly unlikely assumptions.

NRLs investigation into hosting all teams at one resort and playing at one ground are about the only real means where they’ll be able to achieve the necessary isolation and quarantine pre-cautions. Remaining based in their home locations and flying around the country leaves them pretty exposed to risk.

 

[Garry Owens]

Speaking of Rugby League.......did Peter V"landys just say (in early positioning on bailout bucks) :

" An Australia without NRL is not Australia"

Wow