Australian Rugby / RA

[dru]

The rugby mafia is in full swing atm and it’s making me feel a little embarrassed to be so involved in the sport. They are going to have their way unless we all speak up about it. Absolutely shocking the undermining that’s going on. We are going to be kept in the dark ages if they have their way. People are quoting Jones, pushing for Kearns to be CEO and O’Neil to be chairman. Removal of the NRC without any reasonable high performance alternative and negativity to attempt to test the market outside Fox is been slammed. Time for me to take a short break from it over Xmas and prepare myself for the shit fight that will no doubt be 2020.

All these things are obvious and a response to performance over the last few years. That doesnt make me comfortable, but the time to support Clyne was at least 12 months ago. I could not. Not one cell in my body.

I find myself, slowly coming on board the Castle wagon. But things have been dire for many years.

A rugby shake up has been called for - for some time. The gates have been opened for a shake up that we don't want. Well some/many of us.

Maybe it wont happen. Maybe no change will happen.

imho "good" is somewhere in between.

 

[Derpus]

All these things are obvious and a response to performance over the last few years. That doesnt make me comfortable, but the time to support Clyne was at least 12 months ago. I could not. Not one cell in my body.

I find myself, slowly coming on board the Castle wagon. But things have been dire for many years.

A rugby shake up has been called for - for some time. The gates have been opened for a shake up that we don't want. Well some/many of us.

Maybe it wont happen. Maybe no change will happen.

imho "good" is somewhere in between.

No one is defending Clyne (who is leaving regardless) - only Castle.

JON and Kearns would not qualify as a shake up tho.

More like a pick up and throw in the bin.

 

[dru]

JON and Kearns would not qualify as a shake up tho.

More like a pick up and throw in the bin.

ofc they do. Look I'm watching from the outside, but a return of JON with the media goose Kearns? And the Kearns Fox contacts? Take over by the blazer brigade that is watching, not the blazer brigade that is in and doing nothing.

Same smell, different shit.

 

[dru]

No one is defending Clyne (who is leaving regardless) - only Castle.

JON and Kearns would not qualify as a shake up tho.

More like a pick up and throw in the bin.

There we go, for me completely unexpected, but the only thing I like here.

 

[Lorenzo]

Its been rough - getting it from the religious, the muh free speech clowns, the fox group, jones and his 'staff' (lol), but people will lose interest now. The commercial radio guys are on holiday. Save for some fresh scandal, broad interest wont pick up again untol July. In the circumstances, we probably ought to be glad for it.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

All these things are obvious and a response to performance over the last few years. That doesnt make me comfortable, but the time to support Clyne was at least 12 months ago. I could not. Not one cell in my body.

I find myself, slowly coming on board the Castle wagon. But things have been dire for many years.

A rugby shake up has been called for - for some time. The gates have been opened for a shake up that we don't want. Well some/many of us.

Maybe it wont happen. Maybe no change will happen.

imho "good" is somewhere in between.

You know what, me too. I'm seriously considering writing a letter to RA and letting them know that whilst Clyne going is a good thing, that we need to stand behind our CEO and not let the Sydney mafia destroy the game here.

 

[Kenny Powers]

I wouldn’t regard this as a vote of confidence and I have confidence in none of them

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-...ir-calls-for-ra-overhaul-20191209-p53i9l.html

To quote the greatest modern day philosopher

‘You gotta know when to hold them
know when to fold them
know when to walk away
and know when to run’

 

[Teh Other Dave]

John O'Neill's third coming? Jesus wept. Luckily most of the nuffys who listen to 2GB don't give a shit about/can't spell rugby.

 

[Tex]

Is 2GB like 3AW down here in Melbourne? I flicked onto it (3AW) last night out of curiosity and found myself in a parallel universe of commercials:

• funeral insurance
• aged care providers
• harvest your daughter's umbilical cord stem cells
• etc

Seems like a safe space for post-retirement snowflakes raging against a world that accepts gender equality, marriage equality and people who aren't white.

 

[Slim 293]

Is 2GB like 3AW down here in Melbourne? I flicked onto it (3AW) last night out of curiosity and found myself in a parallel universe of commercials:

• funeral insurance
• aged care providers
• harvest your daughter's umbilical cord stem cells
• etc

Seems like a safe space for post-retirement snowflakes raging against a world that accepts gender equality, marriage equality and people who aren't white.

2GB would have to be a lot worse.........

They’ve got Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and Steve Price among others.........

Tom Elliot doesn’t hold a candle to their lineup of angry anti-science, xenophobia, general fear mongering, hate and lies on your drive to work.........

But then I don’t understand who still listens to the radio?

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

I wouldn’t regard this as a vote of confidence and I have confidence in none of them

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-...ir-calls-for-ra-overhaul-20191209-p53i9l.html

To quote the greatest modern day philosopher

‘You gotta know when to hold them
know when to fold them
know when to walk away
and know when to run’

I agree. It does need an overhaul. But I dare say we disagree in what that would look like.

 

[Teh Other Dave]

2GB would have to be a lot worse...

They’ve got Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and Steve Price among others...

Tom Elliot doesn’t hold a candle to their lineup of angry anti-science, xenophobia, general fear mongering, hate and lies on your drive to work...

But then I don’t understand who still listens to the radio?

The people who never found the FM button on the tape deck in their VT Commodore, much less Spotify. So in that respect, 2GB have cornered the radio market.

 

[Derpus]

2GB would have to be a lot worse...

They’ve got Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and Steve Price among others...

Tom Elliot doesn’t hold a candle to their lineup of angry anti-science, xenophobia, general fear mongering, hate and lies on your drive to work...

But then I don’t understand who still listens to the radio?

Old people, obviously.

Although even my partners 90 something grandfather from a mining town in northern England has figured out how to operate an Ipad.

 

[Dismal Pillock]

• harvest your daughter's umbilical cord stem cells

Please check your pm inbox.

 

[Set piece magic]

The most important thing about Castle is that she is distinct from the North Shore cabal and will not have her judgement jeapardised by self interest that is not in the games national interest. I think she's proven herself with the Folau case, it was always going to be a shit sandwich and they've ultimately come through in a decent position.

What's the intel on broadcast deal? Foxtel is currently running at a half a billion dollar loss, surely this is a problem
In the past we have played goodwill with foxtel and haven't tried to make the tender very competitive
Now it looks like we're playing hardball and so are they

 

[Derpus]

The most important thing about Castle is that she is distinct from the North Shore cabal and will not have her judgement jeapardised by self interest that is not in the games national interest. I think she's proven herself with the Folau case, it was always going to be a shit sandwich and they've ultimately come through in a decent position.

What's the intel on broadcast deal? Foxtel is currently running at a half a billion dollar loss, surely this is a problem
In the past we have played goodwill with foxtel and haven't tried to make the tender very competitive
Now it looks like we're playing hardball and so are they

People suggesting she needs to improve the existing deal to be a success are laughably naive.

With streaming a thing, almost every single rights deal.in the world is currently over valued.

 

[Set piece magic]

I agree, and it's a serious concern - facebook and google have ripped 50% of the advertising revenue out of the Oz media market.
I work in media and there's been a 30% reduction in the number of journalists in just four years, and television stars are either being made redundant or resigned on packages worth far, far less.
The idea that rugby will somehow get good money in this environment is just laughable. A deal worth enough to keep the competition going should be the goal

 

[Braveheart81]

With streaming a thing, almost every single rights deal.in the world is currently over valued.

This is a tricky one. The availability of streaming is directing a lot of eyeballs away from traditional TV.

The entry of content streamers, particularly telcos looking to enter the market is potentially pushing up broadcast deals in some areas.

Sport remains a unique proposition in that it provides an audience that wants to watch the event live and as such has greater potential advertising value whereas other options are diminishing rapidly because people have easy options to avoid ads.

The telcos in particular are interesting new player. The premium telcos (Telstra and Optus) are trying to pivot into being more general media businesses because the value of just being a "pipe" to access the internet etc. is highly competitive and heavily saturated.

Telstra has a market cap of $44B, Optus is a subsidiary of Singtel with a market cap of $55B. Meanwhile Channel 9 has a market cap of $3B (which includes other businesses) and Channel 7 (Seven West Media) has a market cap of $550m. They are massive businesses in comparison and have the ability to blow those traditional media companies out of the water in terms of rights deals.

 

[Derpus]

This is a tricky one. The availability of streaming is directing a lot of eyeballs away from traditional TV.

The entry of content streamers, particularly telcos looking to enter the market is potentially pushing up broadcast deals in some areas.

Sport remains a unique proposition in that it provides an audience that wants to watch the event live and as such has greater potential advertising value whereas other options are diminishing rapidly because people have easy options to avoid ads.

Advertising revenue aside. The money was in (i think - no expert) being able to sell a whole package of bullshit for a lot of money that included sport versus selling one sport individually for a little money - with sport being the primary hook for a wide portion of the customers.

 

[Braveheart81]

Advertising revenue aside. The money was in (i think - no expert) being able to sell a whole package of bullshit for a lot of money that included sport versus selling one sport individually for a little money - with sport being the primary hook for a wide portion of the customers.

That is certainly the Foxtel business model. They clearly have a critical mass issue in terms of their content. If they lose too much they will suddenly lose all their customers because the value proposition is too bad.

The risk is that those companies will no longer be able to afford to pay for the content because their business model is no longer a going concern. I don't think that lessens the importance for them to hang onto the rights for sports nor the new players trying to outbid them to enter the market.

Rugby's biggest problem in terms of broadcast rights in Australia is if Foxtel can't afford to pay what they need, they need a new player to enter the market (Optus) because the FTA networks aren't going to be interested at any reasonable price.