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Australian Rugby / RA

kiap

Steve Williams (59)
I wonder if they didn't take to kindly to the research us mug punters were able to do into the historical finances during the Senate inquiry.

The fewer waves, the better.

I agree with you though, the finances are the least interesting bit of the old annual reports. They're historical documents which could and should be made easily available to anyone who wants a look. They should publish as many old ones as they have in the archive (I know there's digital versions into the 80s at least - they were on the clearing house for sport website)

Yep, this was a point I introduced.

Out of interest, you need to register now to the Clearing House for Sport.
 

barbarian

Phil Kearns (64)
Staff member
Righto. Let's go though some of these …
  • A $7.5 million tax concession from the ACT government goes to the benefit of a private property developer instead of ACT Brumbies Rugby.
It's all a misunderstanding and you're giving this a clean bill of health.

Well that's not RA for starters.

There are some murky dealings around that for sure, but I'm not sure it proves your point that this is like the banks.
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I like to watch

David Codey (61)
I disagree, because really there isn't much shit at all. The annual report thing is a case in point - it's not like they are hiding dirty laundry. They are old annual reports, which if anything are too bland.

There is no discernible reason to take these down, and it's secrecy for it's own sake.

I think comparisons to the banking sector are a bit unfair, as IMO there isn't anything nefarious going on within these organisations. No corruption or million dollar bonuses. Yes they might do things we don't agree with, but that's different to what the banks were doing. It makes the secrecy even harder to understand.
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I also don’t understand the need to take them down.
No one is going to go through the 2015 report(bearing in mind theses are concise reports) and find some glaring issue that will embarrass the joint in 2019
 

barbarian

Phil Kearns (64)
Staff member
That is the point I was trying to make earlier.


Does it look any tidier though? Surely you can have the latest few and then a link to the archive, where the remainder are stored. I'm not an IT guy, and that may well be the reason, but it seems weird to me.
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oztimmay

Geoff Shaw (53)
Staff member
They're in the process of migrating to a new site. Half of the stuff from the old site is currently impossible to link through to or missing.

I expect these will be back online at some point in the future.

Shitty migration plan. You tend to leave the old site running, while you review/update/migrate/bin content. Clearly using the Waratahs intern to do the work for them.
 

KOB1987

Rod McCall (65)
Does it look any tidier though? Surely you can have the latest few and then a link to the archive, where the remainder are stored. I'm not an IT guy, and that may well be the reason, but it seems weird to me.
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Was probably just told to get rid of anything older than x years while they migrate everything across, without giving too much thought about the financials etc. As BH says they’ll probably reappear on the new site.
 

RebelYell

Arch Winning (36)
Great solidarity here from the teams; your move, RA:
The prospect of Super Rugby moving from a 15-team competition to a 14 team model, with each franchise playing every other franchise once, is starting to alarm Australia’s provincial bosses as it becomes apparent it would mean only six home games every second season.

There is now a groundswell of support throughout Australia for the retention of the club most likely to be axed from Super Rugby, the Sunwolves of Japan. Not only does it seem illogical and shortsighted to cull the very country that will be hosting the Rugby World Cup this year and the Olympics — including sevens rugby — next year, but the sheer mathematics of a reduced Super Rugby competition are just starting to be calculated in Australia.
“That would be an issue, a massive issue,” said NSW Waratahs CEO Andrew Hore. “Remembering that in Queensland and NSW’s case, a significant proportion of our income goes back into community rugby, so that could have a profound effect throughout the game, unless that’s acknowledged.”
Melbourne Rebels boss Baden Stephenson said Rugby Australia needed to do everything they can to keep Japan in Super Rugby. “I understand that there are many competing priorities. However, RA needs to push for a competition structure that best suits Australian rugby and the sustainability of the Australian Super Rugby franchises. Potentially reducing to six home games isn’t going to cut it commercially or grow the game here in Melbourne.”
Brumbies chief executive Phil Thomson provided a succinct: “It would make our financial position even more difficult.”
The Queensland Reds new CEO David Hanham believes the Australian franchises could be imperilled if there was a cut to six home matches unless there was an uplift in revenue from the broadcast deal.
“Broadcast revenue plays the most significant role allowing the QRU to develop, grow and promote the sport,” he said. “Therefore, we need to get the balance right between broadcast revenues, fan engagement and localised contest.”
The inherent difficulty of SANZAAR selling a scaled-down Super Rugby to the broadcasters, even one welcomed in theory by the bulk of fans, is that there would be less content on sale —– 98 matches in the regular season as opposed to the 120 games that will be played this year and next. So even though the SANZAAR joint venture partners will enter the negotiations with high hopes, the fact is that they probably will need something else to sweeten the pie.
That is likely to be the proposed 12-team World League, the concept put forward by World Rugby deputy chairman Gus Pichot as a way of replacing “friendlies” with meaningful Tests.
NZ Rugby boss Steve Tew told his domestic media yesterday that keeping NZ players in Super Rugby was becoming harder and harder, as Japan and France steadily increased their offers. “We want to look after our fans, we want to look after our players, we want to look after our competitive advantages and we want to increase the revenue we’ve got,” Tew said. “And all countries come to the table with similar expectations.”
Australia will be represented in Los Angeles by Rugby Australia CEO, Raelene Castle.
To be fair, SANZAAR will not even decide what proposal to take to broadcasters until its meeting in March and it is understood that the 14-team model is one of several it has investigated.
Other models examined have been for a return to the 12 or even 10 team models of the past but, surprisingly, also for an expansion to 16 teams. Still, the 14 and 15-team competitions remain the clear favourites.
Ultimately, it is understood that RA will decide unilaterally what Australia’s position will be, although the reality is not likely to be so black and white. Castle would scarcely put so much work into achieving alignment between the states and the national body only to antagonise them by taking a decision that would leave them financially exposed.
Yet Hore believes that simply confining the discussion to how many teams should make up the competition from 2021 would merely be superficial.
“I have been very clear and open in my opinion that we have a governance issues in and around Super Rugby that is inhibiting us from fulfilling Super Rugby potential. That needs to be addressed,’’ he said.
WAYNE SMITH

SENIOR SPORT WRITER
After a long stint as rugby union editor, Wayne Smith joined The Australian's outstanding team of cricket writers in 2007. He first covered cricket in 1971, and is also an experienced swimming writer.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sp...s/news-story/fd47e3cef8cac204a338c5c6d7d3a39f
 

Rebels3

Jim Lenehan (48)
Article actually highlights some very good points.

Personally i think Super Rugby needs to be around 20 games per team, with the top tier of players rested for 4-5 of these rounds, its the only way i believe it can be commercially viable against all its competitors as well as offering the appropriate amount of content to engage the fans, media, etc. Contrary to a held belief with some that less is more, there is absolutely no correlation in world sport that this is true, in fact its quite the opposite (NRL, AFL, any football competition, basketball, even the NFL cooperation with college football brings 4-5 nights a week for around 20 weeks of non stop american football at prime time hours). Obviously the nature of rugby makes this difficult. Whats causing the issues is the traditional competitions in Currie Cup and NPC, plus our own new NRC version as these are seen as traditional strengths, maybe they are still strengths, maybe they aren't, i guess that's a whole other discussion.
 

hoggy

Trevor Allan (34)
Article actually highlights some very good points.

Personally i think Super Rugby needs to be around 20 games per team, with the top tier of players rested for 4-5 of these rounds, its the only way i believe it can be commercially viable against all its competitors as well as offering the appropriate amount of content to engage the fans, media, etc. Contrary to a held belief with some that less is more, there is absolutely no correlation in world sport that this is true, in fact its quite the opposite (NRL, AFL, any football competition, basketball, even the NFL cooperation with college football brings 4-5 nights a week for around 20 weeks of non stop american football at prime time hours). Obviously the nature of rugby makes this difficult. Whats causing the issues is the traditional competitions in Currie Cup and NPC, plus our own new NRC version as these are seen as traditional strengths, maybe they are still strengths, maybe they aren't, i guess that's a whole other discussion.

All good points, but I would argue that it is not the traditional competitions that are the issue, more the reliance on Test rugby to drive your revenue and the structural issues this creates.
The situation where the domestic game is halted for long periods during the season to accommodate Test rugby prevents the game from growing a proper fan base.

Hore makes the point about governance issues, fiddling around with team numbers doesn't address the root causes, you just end up as they have done for 10/15 years shoving a square peg in a round hole.

And a word of warning, if the RA shove all there eggs in this new world league chasing revenue, that will just ensure the domestic market remains compromised continuing the slow decline.
 

andrewM

Herbert Moran (7)
Now isn't this delicious? Not sure there will be too many sympathetic posts from Force supporters on this topic.
Love the Comment from the Rebels boss

"RA needs to push for a competition structure that best suits Australian rugby and the sustainability of the Australian Super Rugby franchises".

Seriously? if the RA did that the Rebels would have been cut at least three years ago. Complete BS statement.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
its getting to be a bloody joke, this is what happens when you spend twenty years ignoring your own domestic market. Lift the carpet and there is nothing there.
Now there gonna have to sell the whole fucking kitchen sink to keep the bloody thing afloat, so what happens after that.


What was ever the alternative? People act like we could have shaped the game entirely differently in spite of the best players being offered money to play Super Rugby and no other options on the table.

There has never been a viable option of having a domestic competition to rival the NRL or AFL and thinking it could have competed commercially.
 

hoggy

Trevor Allan (34)
What was ever the alternative? People act like we could have shaped the game entirely differently in spite of the best players being offered money to play Super Rugby and no other options on the table.

There has never been a viable option of having a domestic competition to rival the NRL or AFL and thinking it could have competed commercially.

What we haven't had is the leadership with any desire to look at those alternatives. As has been pointed out the top echelon of the code here has done very well since day one of professionalism.

It's ironic that all of a sudden it is now Australian rugby that is going to be decimated, yet will any of those so called governance issues be addressed that make Super rugby such a noncompetitive product in the market place, of course not, Tew's answer is lets sell the whole f____g kitchen sink, that way nothing will have to change. I mean hasn't pay TV worked out well so far.

So great lets sign up for another fantasy rugby comp and kick reality down the tracks for another couple of seasons. But IMHO opinion it will do nothing to stop the decline of the game here.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
If you throw away the methods of revenue generation I guarantee you speed up the decline of the game.

Maybe something different emerges from the ashes if it all collapses in the future but I don't think there's been any point over the time of professionalism where there was any reasonable opportunity to completely change the rugby landscape in Australia.

It would have been financial suicide. Basically you would have been going against the wishes of all your best players, said that the only possible way forward was with huge contributions of private equity and then hoped people stepped up to fill that void before everything collapsed completely. You then hope that those private owners somehow decide that they're going to help fund grassroots rugby.
 

hoggy

Trevor Allan (34)
Its a bit of a catch 22, but those private investors won't have to fund the grassroots, that will come from greater fan engagement and a less compromised financial structure.
 
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