Where to for Super Rugby?

[Braveheart81]

I’m with you on this BH, otoh you seemed to suggest SANZAAR performance was acceptable as in the NH they were having trouble too. We should focus on our own mess.

No, I think some of the decisions SANZAAR have made have been terrible. Their rapid expansion then contraction has been a complete balls up.

My underlying point is that I don't think anyone out of Australia, NZ and SA can go it alone and be successful and they need cooperation. That is never going to be a perfect beast. SA is the closest but only because they have another option of who to partner with (the north. So far that has been far from a success).

All the countries make their money from test rugby. The pro competition under that is a loss leader. It's how you have a domestic professional player pool at hopefully a high enough standard to help you succeed internationally. It will always be set up to run close to the bone financially. If you let people spend what they want, some teams can afford to spend more, most of the extra spending goes to players and teams send themselves broke. They could very easily shift more of the overall revenue achieved through broadcast deals from test rugby to Super Rugby but all that would do is push wages up. It wouldn't make it any more sustainable.

It is absolutely clear that Super Rugby needs to change because the competition is stale and I'm not at all convinced that returning to a 14 team round robin will change that.

Do I think Australia could create a viable competition on our own to fill the space? Absolutely not.

Do I think we need to cooperate with at least NZ provincially and the SANZAAR nations on a test basis? Absolutely yes.

 

[dru]

BH, personally I think we have already reached the point that SANZAAR for Super doesn’t work for Aus. An inevitable trend to fail.

SANZAAR is fine at international level and this happens to be where the National unions (or at least Aus) make a good chunk of their standing funding. That’s good.

It’s the pro comp that is the issue. I’d be happy to continue partnership based on Trans Tasman - if NZ would start understanding that a successful comp needs certain qualities, one being a spreading of available quality players. The currently proposed solution, especially in Aus is shrink to greatness. Which doesn’t suit. The alternative is permitting player movement (see how Twiggy is approaching things).

As NZ won’t countenance the later, and we can’t countenance the former, and given that Super has already failed (for Aus at least) - it is not that we necessarily wish to choose a domestic based comp.

We are left with no obvious alternative.

 

[hoggy]

SA/NZ/Aus make the majority of the income from Test rugby. But in some ways this is a poisoned chalice, in regards to Australia it does this at the expense of the domestic game.

Moving forward the only real area of growth available to the game here is domestically regardless of competition from other codes.

Test revenues are pretty much maxed out, we play 15 tests a year (way to much), so where do we go from here. Already half the season is dedicated to Test rugby, which severely compromises the level below this to prosper.

My point is relying on Test revenue as your prime income is fraught with danger, sooner or later as is happening you end up being compromised due to financial pressures.

You can't expect the domestic game to prosper or grow when it is constantly being compromised by Test rugby, and then complain that it is not making any money.

 

[Quick Hands]

My underlying point is that I don't think anyone out of Australia, NZ and SA can go it alone and be successful and they need cooperation. That is never going to be a perfect beast. SA is the closest but only because they have another option of who to partner with (the north. So far that has been far from a success).

It's not necessarily a binary position. It would be possible for each nation to run a domestic league and still co-operate. Such co-operation might even include a champions league style tournament rotated between SA, NZ and Aus.

All the countries make their money from test rugby. The pro competition under that is a loss leader. It's how you have a domestic professional player pool at hopefully a high enough standard to help you succeed internationally. It will always be set up to run close to the bone financially. If you let people spend what they want, some teams can afford to spend more, most of the extra spending goes to players and teams send themselves broke. They could very easily shift more of the overall revenue achieved through broadcast deals from test rugby to Super Rugby but all that would do is push wages up. It wouldn't make it any more sustainable.

I found this part of your post interesting because I've always understood that one of the bases upon which you opposed an Australian professional competition was that it would lose money. However, you seem to be saying here that it's perfectly normal for the "pro competition under (test rugby) to be a loss leader." I understand that you support the super rugby concept under the auspices of SANZAAR and it's a perfectly valid point of view, in fact I also once had that view but have formed the view that it has had its day. I hope I haven't misrepresented you here and I apologise in advance if I have.

It is absolutely clear that Super Rugby needs to change because the competition is stale and I'm not at all convinced that returning to a 14 team round robin will change that.

Upon this point we agree.

The main problem which super rugby faces is its very nature. Time zones, travel, inequal spread of teams and talent, lack of appeal to casual supporters and growing unpopularity are all interelated. They can't be solved with teams from 3 continents playing each other on a weekly basis. Tinkering with finals formats and conference/round robin models are cosmetic at best and fail to address the real issues.

For Australia, the biggest issue is that super rugby doesn't appeal to the Australian sporting public in sufficient numbers. The financials are a problem, but worse for us is that it's turning rugby people off as well as failing to attract new followers for the game. It's borderline invisible to the vast majority of sports-minded Australians. Most sports followers can tell you what's going on in NRL and AFL because it's in front of them all the time - even people who aren't close followers of either game. Rugby needs the exposure to the greater sporting public far more than we ever had - noting that we can't hope to compete with either of those codes, but we can do better than we are doing now. No matter what sport you look at, major or minor, the single common feature that Australian sporting competitions have is that they are made up of Australian teams (sometimes with one NZ team). This gives supporters the chance to watch their team regularly and also allows casual follows to go to games.

The way to attract interest to a sporting competition is by weekly exposure to the players at training, at games and at media events - very difficult when they are in South Africa for two weeks. Our competitors don't have this issue.

Do I think Australia could create a viable competition on our own to fill the space? Absolutely not.

On this we are in 100% disagreement and I suspect that neither will be able to convince the other.

.

Do I think we need to cooperate with at least NZ provincially and the SANZAAR nations on a test basis? Absolutely yes.

Again, we agree on this but as I noted earlier cooperation doesn't have to mean super rugby as we have it now. There are ways to actually enhance cooperation without super rugby.

Playing regular test rugby against South Africa and NZ has never been questioned. Although, I'd advocate three match series rather than the TRC model. I do this for many of the reasons stated above - what we always see with a Lions tour for example is that interest in rugby goes up because it's always in the news and interest grows week by week. But we've also seen the same with recent tours to Australia by England and Ireland. I think that at least worth discussion in co-operation with our current partners - we all need each other. But I don't want to start that discussion on this thread as it will lead to confusion.

 

[Braveheart81]

I found this part of your post interesting because I've always understood that one of the bases upon which you opposed an Australian professional competition was that it would lose money. However, you seem to be saying here that it's perfectly normal for the "pro competition under (test rugby) to be a loss leader." I understand that you support the super rugby concept under the auspices of SANZAAR and it's a perfectly valid point of view, in fact I also once had that view but have formed the view that it has had its day. I hope I haven't misrepresented you here and I apologise in advance if I have.

I think any competition has to have the ability to generate significant TV revenue internationally.

I don't think an Australian only professional competition with enough teams to make it a watchable competition (at least 8 and probably 10) would be able to achieve a reasonable standard without losing absolute bucketloads of cash. We would need 5x Twiggy Forrests funding significant losses for a long time to make it possible.

When looking at Super Rugby financials, you also need to consider things like the Waratahs pay $1m or so a year to NSWRU to help fund the grassroots game. That is a cost to them and part of the agreement with NSWRU for the licence but it's essentially not a cost of running a Super Rugby team.

I used the term loss leader differently to its ordinary meaning. Ordinarily this would imply that you lose money on Super Rugby to attract customers to then spend money on other things that are more profitable (test rugby). I am using it in the sense that Super Rugby essentially provides the pool of professional players for each country so you can succeed at test rugby which is where the revenue is generated.

The financial position of Super Rugby is somewhat arbitrarily controlled by the governing bodies because they decide how much of the overall broadcast agreement relates to Super Rugby and how much to disperse to each team to pay their players. There is a very real effort to ensure that wages stay under control at this level. Just about every major sport does it.

Upon this point we agree.

The main problem which super rugby faces is its very nature. Time zones, travel, inequal spread of teams and talent, lack of appeal to casual supporters and growing unpopularity are all interelated. They can't be solved with teams from 3 continents playing each other on a weekly basis. Tinkering with finals formats and conference/round robin models are cosmetic at best and fail to address the real issues.

You've misunderstood me here. I am not suggesting that the path forward for Super Rugby is to tinker with the existing format again and that somewhere there is a successful formula. My change would be a Trans-Tasman comp with a Fijian team and potentially a Japanese team if they got back on board with that.

For Australia, the biggest issue is that super rugby doesn't appeal to the Australian sporting public in sufficient numbers. The financials are a problem, but worse for us is that it's turning rugby people off as well as failing to attract new followers for the game. It's borderline invisible to the vast majority of sports-minded Australians. Most sports followers can tell you what's going on in NRL and AFL because it's in front of them all the time - even people who aren't close followers of either game. Rugby needs the exposure to the greater sporting public far more than we ever had - noting that we can't hope to compete with either of those codes, but we can do better than we are doing now. No matter what sport you look at, major or minor, the single common feature that Australian sporting competitions have is that they are made up of Australian teams (sometimes with one NZ team). This gives supporters the chance to watch their team regularly and also allows casual follows to go to games.

The way to attract interest to a sporting competition is by weekly exposure to the players at training, at games and at media events - very difficult when they are in South Africa for two weeks. Our competitors don't have this issue.

I think the crux of the problem is that rugby doesn't appeal to the Australian sporting public in sufficient numbers. I think we need the international element of rugby to generate revenue (through broadcast etc.) and wouldn't be able to achieve that with a solely domestic comp because the standard would not be high enough.

Anyway, the whole thing is complex and depressing because there are no easy answers and no clear path forward. I am absolutely convinced that our best path forward can't be achieved without strong cooperation from NZ and I'm not sure that will come as soon as we want it.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Ambition for professional domestic league competition would have to be very long term ambition based on success of oz fan interest in rugby but no way is there sufficient interest at this point to support our own domestic league.

I like the idea of oz super rugby sides with force and perhaps Fiji and Samoa playing in a nrc Comp that follows super rugby and rapid rugby competitions short term.

 

[Braveheart81]

Ambition for professional domestic league competition would have to be very long term ambition based on success of oz fan interest in rugby but no way is there sufficient interest at this point to support our own domestic league.

That's kind of my underlying point. You would need private team owners with deep pockets who were willing to fund it for the long term to venture down that path.

If player salaries dropped too much that you couldn't attract any decent professional talent it would never develop far enough.

 

[Quick Hands]

Anyway, the whole thing is complex and depressing because there are no easy answers and no clear path forward. I am absolutely convinced that our best path forward can't be achieved without strong cooperation from NZ and I'm not sure that will come as soon as we want it.

I haven't quoted the whole post to save space. We probably aren't as far apart as either of us might think. I certainly agree that it complex and depressing.

A Trans-Tasman model essentially address most, if not all, issues but alas the NZRU seem implacably opposed and as long as they hold that position then we have to settle for the least worst option.

I think it's a domestic league with the Pacific Islands added because I think that it won't be significantly worse financially than Super Rugby, but has the advantage of giving rugby in Australia an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience - both to rugby fans who have been lost and potential new supporters.

 

[half]

If we assume the following:
· The NRL has expansion plans and the three areas under most consideration are Perth, second Brisbane, third Wellington, to this increasing activity in Oceania national / test matches.
· Basketball, growing its base and teams.
· Netball similar.
· Cricket expanding deeper into February / March
· Soccer, expansion to 16 teams plus a second division.
· AFLX & AFL women’s, greatly expanded.
· E-games growth

All of the above is expected to happen within say 6 years.

Hypothetically then, assume we don’t have a National Domestic Competition within say four years. How can rugby survive, even if we say by international matches, we will struggle for juniors with this level of competition for players?

If I could nominate one single aspect of rugby incompetence that most alarms me. It is the lack of understanding of how the sports market in Australia is changing and reacting to expected change.

Best example I have of this is the AFL, in business for say 110 years and no women’s competition. The Matilda’s start to draw attention and get a following. The AFL accessed the risk and brought players to counter this into the future and set up their own women’s competition.

I get so frustrated that we never seem to look to the front always looking to the past, adding to this is any major change must have no risk and expected results guaranteed.

 

[Braveheart81]

What's the point of expanding into areas where we have a limited following and don't have the funds to do it?

The NRL and AFL have the warchest that they can invest in new areas where there isn't much of a following.

Soccer is expanding but is it just going to eat itself? They are struggling in general and the teams that want to join the A League want a slice of the pie that is going to be cut more ways.

Netball has done some smart things tacking on the side of AFL clubs in some areas. They don't face the wage issue we do though. Their competition represents the best opportunity for all their players and they aren't in competition with global wages which is the biggest issue we have.

I just don't see how any of this is particularly relevant to our situation.

If I could nominate one single aspect of rugby incompetence that most alarms me. It is the lack of understanding of how the sports market in Australia is changing and reacting to expected change.

Best example I have of this is the AFL, in business for say 110 years and no women’s competition. The Matilda’s start to draw attention and get a following. The AFL accessed the risk and brought players to counter this into the future and set up their own women’s competition.

Rugby had well paid professional women through 7s before any other sport in Australia. They set the benchmark.

The domestic women's 7s series has expanded in the last couple of years and we have now had two years of Super W. I think rugby has been pretty good in this area.

 

[dru]

Rugby had well paid professional women through 7s before any other sport in Australia. They set the benchmark.

The domestic women's 7s series has expanded in the last couple of years and we have now had two years of Super W. I think rugby has been pretty good in this area.

Certainly did. but did we really leverage off it or let others catch the initiative?

 

[Braveheart81]

Certainly did. but did we really leverage off it or let others catch the initiative?

Women's and girls participation is increasing massively so I'd say yes.

No other sport has managed to turn it into a significant revenue stream and I don't think that capability is there yet so I don't think we have missed anything there.

 

[dru]

Women's and girls participation is increasing massively so I'd say yes.

No other sport has managed to turn it into a significant revenue stream and I don't think that capability is there yet so I don't think we have missed anything there.

Did I say leveraging off this could only be shown through cash?

For what it’s worth there WAS imo some leveraging which resulted in grass roots 7s and girl involvement increasing. I’m just unconvinced we made anything like what we could have from an utter gift.

And it seems to me there was little connection to woman’s XVs which was left floundering even with the input from certain commercial supporters.

Opportunity not lost but definitely not close to maximised.

 

[Braveheart81]

Did I say leveraging off this could only be shown through cash?

Well that's why I addressed participation which is where I think we have leveraged well off it.

"

• In 2018, 63,443 females played Rugby to make up 23% of the total playing population. This included a 57% increase in Club 7s participation and a 50% increase in Club XVs participation. Female Rugby participation has now more-than doubled over the past three years."

If that's an opportunity lost then surely you're setting the bar at a point where it will never be reached and everything will be a failure. What's the point?

 

[dru]

BH, I dont have time to dig into the Annual Reports you are quoting, but going from recollection consider where the “increase” is casual introduction-style days. And then look to how many continue to play regular rugby in season. Those introductions were important.

But was there closure and how much girl rugby has seen a sustained increase?

It’s there, but my perception is we did not sheet home a massive opportunity.

 

[Quick Hands]

I think it's fair to say that they could have made much more of the women's success.

IIRC, I think that at the time I pointed out that in womens sport the athletes weren't committed to a particular code as such but would go to the sport which gave them the opportunity. I also recollect that I advocated a women's NRC to be played as curtain raisers to men's NRC games. I still believe that that was an opportunity missed for rugby to gain some profile in the broader community. As it stands the only thing which makes Super Rugby look like a good product is the NRC which is surely to be put out of its misery by the broadcasters.

 

[half]

BH

Deep down in my soul I am not angry anymore at Rugby management, I have passed anger, pity and sadness is closer to how I feel. Pity for those many folk who hold the faith and somehow believe existing systems and structures can solve whats in front of us. Sad because I have seen so much waste and poor decision making to the extent IMO we need outside capital and help but we refuse to admit it.

But to your post I have replied as best I can, not looking to enter any slinging matches I just think we see the world so differently

What's the point of expanding into areas where we have a limited following and don't have the funds to do it?

The NRL and AFL have the warchest that they can invest in new areas where there isn't much of a following.


.

So we give up or just maybe invite private capital to do it for us.

Soccer is expanding but is it just going to eat itself? They are struggling in general and the teams that want to join the A League want a slice of the pie that is going to be cut more ways.

All those business people must be wrong, Ch 10 in deep negotiation to broadcast more A-League next year they want two games. Hinges on whether they can get the Socceroo's & Matilda's matches.

Even if this weren't the case they are at least trying .

I just don't see how any of this is particularly relevant to our situation.

So what other codes are doing in the sporting market will have no effect on rugby.

Rugby had well paid professional women through 7s before any other sport in Australia. They set the benchmark.

The domestic women's 7s series has expanded in the last couple of years and we have now had two years of Super W. I think rugby has been pretty good in this area.

Like wow, all I did was say how the AFL reacted to the rise of the Matilda's and you claim rugby to be setting the benchmark in womens sport in Australia.

Me somehow thinks the Matilda's & Opals are the pace setters and for many years of women's sport, and you could also add surfing, golf and tennis as well.

 

[Braveheart81]

Like wow, all I did was say how the AFL reacted to the rise of the Matilda's and you claim rugby to be setting the benchmark in womens sport in Australia.

Me somehow thinks the Matilda's & Opals are the pace setters and for many years of women's sport, and you could also add surfing, golf and tennis as well.

Women's 7s was the benchmark in terms of a decently paid professional sporting career for women in team sport in Australia.

Basketball has had decent earnings potential for women for a number of years but not in Australia.

My comment was about professional opportunities. They are clearly very limited in Women's 7s because it is one team and I don't see that changing for quite some time.

If we're talking about success then of course our Women's 7s weren't the benchmark. That would have been the Hockeyroos. As far as I understand they still don't really get paid.

 

[half]

BH

My original post was about how rugby officials, management paid little attention to what other sports were doing. This was after listing many things other sports purpose to do. Further if we don't react we will end up in some deep poo.

I also highlighted that other sports react, and as an example I said AFL reacted to the rise of the Matilda’s by creating after about 120 years a women’s league for the first time.

So I was not talking about women’s sport but about sports management and used the AFL women’s competition as an example.

Somehow you jumped to the stance that rugby is the benchmark for women’s sport. I replied that the Opals & Matilda’s have been the pace setter for women’s sport in Australia.

You seem to want to argue this point and in doing so are shifting the goal posts.

However the gist and thrust of the original post is being lost on a side issue.

The post was about rugby leaders not reacting and planning for what other codes are doing and as I see it all the other codes are reacting.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

So saturday night and no local domestic pro super rugby team to watch in prime time with tahs playing lions at 11pm which is way past my tv viewing time. Yep super rugby really is not fan friendly competition that allows you to engage week to week.