Omar Comin'
Chilla Wilson (44)
I'm not disputing any of this and have said as much many times..
I do disagree with your claim that Australian Rugby could afford 5 teams on the previous deal.. they couldn't, the ARU needed the Lions tour to stop them going bankrupt, ARU had just $300k left in the bank by the end of 2015 thanks to $16million in losses over 2014-2015, and 4 of the 5 Aussie Super Rugby teams posted significant losses in 2015.
Yeah I know we agree on most points.
But the way I view the affordability point is that it's just a fact of history. Because the ARU did survive with 5 teams in the previous deal. The Lions tour is a fixed event so the windfalls from it are predictable. In a way we have to think of the ARU as essentially having a 12 year financial period.