Over lunch and a few Hunter Reds we [ 7 guys age range 43 to 74, in a local pub] were discussing the Australian sporting environment, especially media deals and the future of more traditional sporting codes.
To cut to the core issue we spent some time on was in the past a media deal helped grow a sport at say park level. Further especially free to air helped grow ratings.
Our conclusion was this is no longer the case, or nowhere near previous years. Growing a sport is more difficult these days given the competition of actives not around until the last say 20 years [internet in its various egames, youtubes, tick toc etc] added to this is parents far less willing to let there children go off to the park alone to play.
We were then stuck in how you grow a sport, and how do you use or more to the point how do you change your media broadcasts to grow park players in greater numbers.
We always could be wrong, but on reflection even if wrong the trend lines all point this direction.
SOOOOOOOOOO any ideas on what or how to change media broadcasting to engage and grow the player base, in particular rugby given the dominance of AFL & NRL at our broadcast times, no ideas are silly.
Focusing on increasing broadcast revenue there appears to be two major options being discussed post 2023, the first is to accept more of the pie from the NZRU, if they are willing to give up some of their revenue to keep Australia in SRP (Super Rugby Pacific). The second is for Australia to go it alone. RA would have been buoyed a few weeks ago when both Andrew Forrest and Nine voiced their support for RA if they did decide to go with option two.
To do this a domestic comp would have to have seven, preferably eight teams. We have five already and they will form the basis of the new comp. Add in the Drua and that brings us up to six.
To get to eight we will need two new sides, forget all the talk about NSW country, QLD country, Adelaide and provincial centres, there just isn’t the player depth, fan base or potential sponsorship to support a super rugby side.
The two sides will come from Sydney and Brisbane, the two biggest rugby nurseries in Australia.
The eight sides would play each other twice with the top five sides playing a finals series culminating in a grand final.
To get to eight competitive sides playing attractive rugby we would need a player draft/central contracting model to spread the players around evenly. The salary cap would rise to six million with each club having five players that are not in the cap.
The first player would be the marquee player that is Wallaby eligible, the second player is an overseas player, the third a local junior that has come up through underage teams and grade teams, the fourth player is someone that has given seven years of continual service to the club( the Adam Reynolds rule) and the last player would have their contract paid for by a third party supporter or group of supporters.
How does a cash strapped union afford to pay for the expansion and still fund grass roots?
Last year the SRAU consisted of twenty round games and one final, twenty one games in all.
With eight teams playing two rounds and a five team finals series gives you a total of sixty one games.
If we can also attract players from overseas the calibre of Aaron Smith, Ardie Savea, Will Jordan, Malcolm Marx, Eben Etzebeth,Lukhanyo Am, Owen Farrell, Freddie Stewart, Ellis Genge and players returning such as Harry Hocking, Isaac Lucas, Marika Koroibete, Samu Kerevi, Sean McMahon, Emmanuel Meafou and Liam Gill.
With this new comp RA has forty more games to sell, games of higher standard because of the marquee players and interest from from overseas broadcasters because of the elite foreign players.
The players from overseas have to play fewer games and get to live in some of the most beautiful cities in the world.
