I would say a "barbarians" side is the Brumbies in all honesty. Why re create a team of perceived 'unwanteds' by the big 2 states that ends up probably the best of the lot. That's the Brumbies.
The Rebels spent $43m over three years, and lost $15m doing it, to win 11 games out of 41.
It's a larger scale but he should've just bought HBF park as the key to the long term rescue package for the Force. Far and away the biggest indicator for long term financial viability for sides around the world seems to be owning their stadiums and being able to both offset the costs of hosting and generate revenue in the off season from other tenants. It's obviously an expensive and difficult asset to get a hold of, but if you can with a long enough runway it's hard not to see it paying off. Particularly for owners who are relatively well connected in the local/state political environment.
Feel even better to own the ground the future Perth NRL team would use....
I once took a Melbourne billionaire, who has heavily invested in AFL, to a Rebels game where they lost something 0-30 to the Blues and he said it was the worst thing he's ever watched. My fault for trying.
Sounds like plan. If peak net worth was twenty five king kongs then round it down now to say ten.
That’s kind of what I was alluding to as well. Let the senior players (say anyone over 23) go off and earn what they can elsewhere and still be eligible for Wallaby selection, and focus on better pathways and retaining the younger talent to develop the domestic pro model. Provincial teams become representative teams as a stepping stone to the Wallabies, in whatever competition format that allows.
I'd love to see the OS club partnerships grow (ideally with some sort of ownership stake) as a way of managing this. It'd probably have to be in the lesser club comps, but say there were a few sides around MLR, maybe Japan 2nd division or Pro D2, etc. that had partnerships with RA or the specific super sides. You can then organise for players and coaches to do gap years or sort out lone arrangements back and forth to boost game time and development while keeping them in the system. Arguably this is even more important for coaches who really don't have any way to bridge the gap between club and super without going overseas.
I guess we can look at Argentina, do they do anything like this? Argentina are surely what Aus will become.
I think it happens on an ad hoc basis for them as the Spanish speaking players tend to congregate around a few clubs (maybe because of coaches?), but I'm not sure we can expect that to go quite the same way for us. It has happened a bit with the South Africans at places like Sale too, but I'm not sure if that will hold long term.
Nicola already owns the Western Force via her shareholding in Tattarang, and together with her children was an instrumental influence in saving us in 2017.
don't go hoarding billionaires now, share the love
