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Australian Rugby / RA

RugbyReg

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
Reg, can you expand on this. I remember back in the day it was 25% of player generated revenue went to players and then that shifted to 30%. When did it become 95%?


Hey mate, sorry for the late response. Went back to Tony Dempsey's book.

It was more specifically the TV money from Fox. I did a review of the book for this website and this was a couple of paragraphs:

The battle between the players and the ARU back in 1995 was whether the players would receive 100% of the News Corp investment into the game, or 95%. They actually kicked up a stink when at one stage it was mooted that they only get 90% of the $13million ($14.5m the second year, $15.5m the third year etc).

Remember that at this time, it was just the players (represented by Dempsey and Tim Kava majorly) up against the still amateur ARU (no JON yet). The ARU were the ones under the pump here and the players held all the cards. Super League was throwing around telephone numbers as salary offers and the ARU didn’t want to lose their stars. Dempsey and RUPA were in the prime negotiation position and used it to their advantage.

Phil Harry, for RA, was discussing the offer with player reps Mark Hartill and Dempsey:

"MH: (James) Erskine (leading commercial deals for RA) told us at the meeting yesterday we were going to get all of the NewsCorp revenue. This letter says we are only going to get 90%.
PH: we need some of that money for youth and junior development
MH: You have other sources of income including sponsorships, gate receipts and merchandising to do all of this"
 

RugbyReg

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
He was the CEO who went 6m over budget at the World Cup so he certainly hasn’t helped the situation. He is also CEO that burnt the games money bailing out the Tahs.

he was appointed CEO 6 June. RWC squad named about 2 months over. I suspect most of the planning and budgeting was done before his appointed (and I'd suggest directly with the rogue Chairman...)
 

stoff

Bill McLean (32)
Yes, the AFL ran a worldwide search and hired the guy who sat in the office next to Gill…
To be fair the organisation has been performing well, have a proper independent commission and have a history of solid succession planning. Gil was Demetriou’s right hand
 

half

Alan Cameron (40)
Just on Waugh, and his merry men, they find themselves in the kind would say challenging situation the cruel would say hopeless.

With, extremely low budgets in comparison to his main competition in AFL trying to steal rugby’s position in private schools and in rugby heartland areas or previous heartland areas. With League grabbing more of the Pacific Island market each year, and currently attempting to boost digital revenue from the states.

From the more minor competition, the A-L is recovering, rebuilding & expanding, after its civil war, Basketball has been booming, and playing to near capacity stadiums and also in the mood for expanding. Both have broadcast agreements with 10 and Paramount. Both have mens and womens national teams, as well as competitions.

Given the above, Waugh finds rugby at a crossroads, he can’t make to many mistakes as he will drive rugby below basketball. Rugby needs not only to stem the decline but show growth. Given how far we have fallen he has little wriggle room.

While Super Rugby has almost killed Australian professional rugby in Australia, its impossible to get out quick as its our main revenue driver.

Waugh's, challenge as I see it, is to maintain revenue from Super Rugby long enough to build another competition and income stream. Its been left very late but is still possible but its getting very close to time.

If Waugh does not see his main priority, is developing a new competition to take over from Super Rugby, then we are in deep deep deep poo. Finally his plan has to work as you can look to both Basketball and Football both made errors of judgement in developing there competitions, Waugh does not have the wriggle room Basketball and Football had to recover from there management errors.
 

Tomikin

Simon Poidevin (60)
you not the only one who’s annoyed by this. Rebels twitter is also calling RA incompetence
Maybe the Rebels shouldn't have got themselves into insolvency then they could sell there own tickets.. just a thought. RA's pretty useless too but the Rebels lost the right to control their own Destiny when they left 17k in the bank and a couple of Datsuns out back.

If I was you guys, I'd just accept that the games happening and you can go. You'd be in a much happier state, if that passes and the games not played with no fans then have at it..
 

SouthernX

Peter Johnson (47)
If I was you guys, I'd just accept that the games happening and you can go.

what’s this “if I was you guys”

I’m a reds supporter - just sick of poor leadership from NSW RA HQ.

if the rebels don’t exists in 2025 we will be the only professional sports league without a team in the sports nations capital. (Might as well just shut up shop for pro rugby in Oz)

anyways - let’s see how Warratah Phil navigates RA / Rebels thru this crisis.
 

The Ghost of Raelene

Andrew Slack (58)
you not the only one who’s annoyed by this. Rebels twitter is also calling RA incompetence
This is just Rugby in Aus.... Someone gets into trouble and it's always THAT persons fault. Not mine. I should be supported and saved and then told how vital I am.

Lets just blame the Waratahs. Nobody cares if we do that (Most Tah fans don't). The Waratahs got looked after.... Maybe the Waratahs got ahead of some issues by going to RA and agreeing to centralisation.

Hopefully Waratah Phil & Dan the Red can sort it out.
 

SouthernX

Peter Johnson (47)
Hopefully Waratah Phil & Dan the Red can sort it out.


my beef with “Waratah Phil” is by previous comments is he wants to go the 3rd tier model of propping up club rugby… how is that in the best interest of VIC, WA & ACT who have inferior comps?

If the rebels fold - it’s time to bring back the NRC as our preferred 3rd tier…a rule you could implement is if any of the other state raids Victorian rugby for super rugby then those players must go back to the Victorian NRC
team.
(VIC has been the 3rd best nursery for next gen talent in this country)

if the business model 2025 onwards is no rebels in super rugby but a national club rugby comp over NRC model as our 3rd tier then your turning your back on Victoria and not doing anything about growing game moving forward.
 

The Ghost of Raelene

Andrew Slack (58)
my beef with “Waratah Phil” is by previous comments is he wants to go the 3rd tier model of propping up club rugby… how is that in the best interest of VIC, WA & ACT who have inferior comps?

If the rebels fold - it’s time to bring back the NRC as our preferred 3rd tier…a rule you could implement is if any of the other state raids Victorian rugby for super rugby then those players must go back to the Victorian NRC
team.
(VIC has been the 3rd best nursery for next gen talent in this country)

if the business model 2025 onwards is no rebels in super rugby but a national club rugby comp over NRC model as our 3rd tier then your turning your back on Victoria and not doing anything about growing game moving forward.
Completely agree. I'm not in favour of cutting the Rebels at all, I just take issue with blaming administrators not responsible for creating the dumpster fire for the fire.

Victoria are producing a much larger amount of professional players then before the Rebels existed. How many times have we heard "did you know Ewen McKenzie is from Melbourne". The underage teams have also become far more competitive.

I think this may force the NRC model if they do fold. I think when the Club comp concept was floated it was still very early days in his tenure and we latched onto one of the options that already exists and potentially has less work to be done in getting it going. Is it the right option? maybe not but I can imagine an off the shelf set of teams is more desirable for a broke organisation. Personally I hope they aren't cut and we create a Super Rugby A comp.
 

hoggy

Trevor Allan (34)
Completely agree. I'm not in favour of cutting the Rebels at all, I just take issue with blaming administrators not responsible for creating the dumpster fire for the fire.

Victoria are producing a much larger amount of professional players then before the Rebels existed. How many times have we heard "did you know Ewen McKenzie is from Melbourne". The underage teams have also become far more competitive.

I think this may force the NRC model if they do fold. I think when the Club comp concept was floated it was still very early days in his tenure and we latched onto one of the options that already exists and potentially has less work to be done in getting it going. Is it the right option? maybe not but I can imagine an off the shelf set of teams is more desirable for a broke organisation. Personally I hope they aren't cut and we create a Super Rugby A comp.
The problem with another NRC is once again you will end up in no man's land, just another added cost without really generating more interest or income.
You can't just add another entity because you primary product Super Rugby is not working.

IMO like you the only option is to go with a Super Rugby au competition with a strategic plan to grow the teams to a sustainable level say 8 teams, long term 15,20 years maybe 10 or 12.
But culling the Rebels just makes that even harder to obtain. and also the RA have shown little if any ability to forward plan, and they are essentially broke.

The whole bloody thing is just a rock and a hard place.
 
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KOB1987

Rod McCall (65)
Occam's Razor. If we are going to do away with SRP (Super Rugby Pacific) then just start with SRAu and build from there. At least the 6 teams (incl Drua) in that comp would actually have some degree of tribalism. 1st phase would be to add a reserve grade and 'colts' for each franchise, 2nd phase would then be to add a second team from both of NSW and Qld - how these teams are segregated within the 2 states would be the subject of a fairly comprehensive study of supporters' preferences - taking it to 8 teams. No need to plan beyond that for the time being.
 

SouthernX

Peter Johnson (47)
Super rugby AU means smaller tv deal. I’m totally against it (Kiwis would be forking out a good amount of money for their Stan subscription)

I don’t think Australia and NZ want to see their best players lost to France/Japan and NRL because they can only offer smaller contracts.

with less top talent playing in OZ/NZ you are devaluing the Bledisloe cup each year.
 
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