Rugby And League MERGER.

[The Red Baron]

Were you sent here by the Devil?

No good sir, he's on the level.

 

[Micheal]

I had toyed with this idea in my head a year or two back.

Imagine it’s 2021 and RA sells itself to the NRL for $1.

The NRL considers its choices. It could completely shut down the game, but even it would admit that the revenue associated with the international Union game is enticing.

So, it’d probably look to get Super Rugby in Australia operating to be cost-neutral, and then look to maximise Wallabies revenue.

It’d be aware that a number of league players would improve the Wallabies immensely, but they’d need a few years to get up to speed.

They’d speak to the top 10-20 stars in the NRL and say “hey, you can move to Super Rugby for the 2022 season, with an eye for the 2023 RWC and the BIL series in 2025”.

The movement of a number of these players would cause interest in Super Rugby to sky rocket. All of a sudden our teams are competitive. We win the RWC and the BIL series and secure enormous windfall profits.

The year is now 2025 and the now joint NRL and RA board is in awe of the success of Union in Australia (and internationally) when properly managed and resourced.

“Canterbury Bulldogs? Who gives a fuck mate? Our eyes on the 2027 World Cup and that’s it”.

Fin.

 

[qwerty51]

The threat to both codes will come from concussion and heavily reduced playing numbers are parents no longer want their kids playing. I have no doubt both will look to merge and form new rules that almost entirely reduces the collision as we know it.

It'll happen but not any time soon.

 

[liquor box]

The threat to both codes will come from concussion and heavily reduced playing numbers are parents no longer want their kids playing. I have no doubt both will look to merge and form new rules that almost entirely reduces the collision as we know it.

It'll happen but not any time soon.

Parents will still let their kids play, the old "it never hurt me when I was a kid" excuse will be used.

 

[Pfitzy]

Your man really nails the Lehman's collapse analogy with canes losing $691.25 big ones

$691,255 is half the value of an average Sydney house. Fuck all, in fact.

"When the financial situation of England’s clubs was published on the parliamentary website, it was even worse than many had imagined. All were in debt. Exeter had the least debt at $25.6 million. The next lowest was Northampton at $52.2 million and from there the figures climbed to the now extinct Wasps at $221.2 million."

Yikes!

 

[Pfitzy]

Parents will still let their kids play, the old "it never hurt me when I was a kid" excuse will be used.

A Subbies club here in Sydney - well-resourced and successful - is having trouble filling its Colts U21 squad because the youths don't want to get injured before their Euro holidays in June/July.

They will be the parents with zero fucks to give.

 

[Pfitzy]

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

From that article:

"... According to the draft statement, its professional rugby arm alone lost $691,255.

... Yet curiously and wonderfully, community rugby, sustained by all the magnificent volunteers, made a profit of $811,526, "

Not unfamiliar territory. Subbies in Sydney - amateur/community - is one of the few unions in NSW in the black.

 

[Pfitzy]

I've talked to Kiwis here who don't believe anything is wrong back home while the ABs and NZ SRP (Super Rugby Pacific) sides keep winning.

Schools comps shrinking due to player warehousing, the threat of league and other sports, and apathy if a kid doesn't "make it" in the pathway by the time they're 19.
Demographic changes leading to the erosion of club rugby, and the unsustainable nature of the lower levels of the game as we continue pretending it is all OK.

Those were heinous enough crimes in Australia, where we didn't have much to start with, but in NZ the change will be more catastrophic as we all forge onward toward the CTE cliff that will threaten the very existence of contact sport.

And the longer the NRL and AFL pretend law suits are just boogeymen under the bed of children, the worse it will be for them.

So a merger isn't a long-term strategy.

Rugby Australia needs to get all the stakeholders in the room, boil it down to core values and needs, and rebuild the game.

 

[kiap]

$691,255 is half the value of an average Sydney house. Fuck all, in fact.

I think you tripped into the sark chasm

Join with me

If that's half, the full value is more than ...

 

[Dismal Pillock]

Schools comps shrinking due to player warehousing, the threat of league and other sports, and apathy if a kid doesn't "make it" in the pathway by the time they're 19.
Demographic changes leading to the erosion of club rugby, and the unsustainable nature of the lower levels of the game as we continue pretending it is all OK.

Those were heinous enough crimes in Australia, where we didn't have much to start with, but in NZ the change will be more catastrophic as we all forge onward toward the CTE cliff that will threaten the very existence of contact sport.

And the longer the NRL and AFL pretend law suits are just boogeymen under the bed of children, the worse it will be for them.

I am enjoying the dismal forlorn hopeless downbeat tone of these posts Pfitzy.

TL/DR I hope everything goes very, very badly for everyone everywhere including me.

 

[Pfitzy]

I am enjoying the dismal forlorn hopeless downbeat tone of these posts Pfitzy.

TL/DR I hope everything goes very, very badly for everyone everywhere including me.

I offer hope. It involves me getting to chair the meeting of stakeholders, and telling them all how desperately wrong they are.