im adding this to my LinkedIn profile.
Melbourne Rebels 2024
- Thread starter RugbyReg
- Start date
im adding this to my LinkedIn profile.
Highlander35
Steve Williams (59)
Gotta wonder if full blown shamateurism could be the way to go 
. Let the best of the best get cherry picked by Japan, or France, or even NZ and pick a mostly overseas side topped up with a handful of remunerated locals.
(Mostly Bitter Sarcasm, slight element of truth.)
. Let the best of the best get cherry picked by Japan, or France, or even NZ and pick a mostly overseas side topped up with a handful of remunerated locals.(Mostly Bitter Sarcasm, slight element of truth.)
dru
David Wilson (68)
It's a tough time trying to talk players into thinking there is a future when the clubs position is anything but certain. Rebels will definitely be impacted. In the mean time isn't RA obligated to 5 teams through 2025? I'd hope that on the balance of things a Super team remains in Melbourne for 2025 giving RA time to work through longer term future.
Of all Super franchises, NZ, Australian and Pacific, in spite of the toughest market competition, Melbourne has the greatest potential upside if you could just market the thing for a few percentage points.
This. Hold on to this.
Of all Super franchises, NZ, Australian and Pacific, in spite of the toughest market competition, Melbourne has the greatest potential upside if you could just market the thing for a few percentage points.
This. Hold on to this.
Derpus
Nathan Sharpe (72)
Well if you buy into the whole cohesion thing that's pretty much doomed to fail outside the odd decent world cup run (and by decent I mean a quarterfinal appearance).Gotta wonder if full blown shamateurism could be the way to go
(Mostly Bitter Sarcasm, slight element of truth.)
Marce
John Hipwell (52)
And they blamed Sydney's Media for saying this few months ago
Proud Pig
Tom Lawton (22)
While I don't support a fully amateur competition, I think I would support a semi-professional one. This would still involve all the top players playing overseas and picking the Wallabies from Europe and Japan.
We have to be realistic, Rugby does not make sufficient revenue in this country to support the current structure. However, getting rid of a team would save some money but would also impact the revenue potential that Rugby has. I am sorry but if you get rid of Melbourne, Stan will not offer the same amount for television rights. Melbourne is currently the second largest city in Australia and is expected to overtake Sydney in population within 7 years. If you don't think cutting that market out would not have a detrimental impact on any possible television renegotiations you are kidding yourself. The other thing to remember is that less teams means less games and as such less content which still needs to be filled.
As I stated Rugby does not produce sufficient revenue to support the current structure so costs have to be cut or new revenue streams created. Unfortunately, interest in Rugby is simply not high enough in this country to expect significant increases in revenue. The sugar hits that will come from the Lions tour and the World Cup will not bring enough in to support the game long term.
So the game needs to tighten it's belt and learn to live within it's means. That means stop trying to play Billy Big Bollocks with AFL and NRL, and accept that we are the poor cousin. We need to understand that Rugby is competing with soccer and basketball as a second-string sport in this country and position the game and clubs accordingly. If that means letting France and Japan pay the exorbitant wages for Tupou and Sui'ali'i etc... then so be it. The quality of the game here may drop a bit but the game may at least survive. Make no mistake if we don't change the cost/revenue model of Australian rugby Melbourne is only the first in the whole house of cards.
Sir Arthur Higgins
Dick Tooth (41)
That’s great - with other rugby fanatics or with fans of other sports that you convince to come along?
Sir Arthur Higgins
Dick Tooth (41)
Mistakes probably didn’t start here but devaluing the super brand through expansion of the sun wolves, Kings and the Cheetahs (lesser extent jaguars) was a big turning point. I would add in the rebels to be frank. They needed to win in year 1 (see Las Vegas golden knights and Seattle kraken for how to do an expansion team).
All of the sudden Australian talent was spread a bit thinner but more just another non winning team to go with the force.
The sa teams stopped being filled with names people know. Timezones got further stretched and the competition couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.
With international soccer the pinnacle, you need lots of internationals at club level to generate interest from sa teams in particular.
We stopped getting that.
Rebels sold out game one and the buzz about the team was massive. Then they got flogged night in night out. One chance to make a first impression etc.
Then arg and japan added and then cut. Conferences to no conferences.
Not enough games in a season
A stupid international break.
It’s just been so poorly run
All of the sudden Australian talent was spread a bit thinner but more just another non winning team to go with the force.
The sa teams stopped being filled with names people know. Timezones got further stretched and the competition couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.
With international soccer the pinnacle, you need lots of internationals at club level to generate interest from sa teams in particular.
We stopped getting that.
Rebels sold out game one and the buzz about the team was massive. Then they got flogged night in night out. One chance to make a first impression etc.
Then arg and japan added and then cut. Conferences to no conferences.
Not enough games in a season
A stupid international break.
It’s just been so poorly run
Mr Pilfer
Alex Ross (28)
Yes completely agree, Sanzaar have a lot to answer for in the way they have stuffed this competition.
It was similar for the Force, early days crowds were above $30k regularly and that was at a footy oval, but after years of underperformance the crowds stop coming. This is why we need winning teams. Does dropping to 4 teams help this, history shows not really.
Rebelsfan
Billy Sheehan (19)
When will the forensic accountant / insolvency expert from Korda Mentha step down from the board? Surely this doesn't look good on his linkedin profile.
Dan54
David Wilson (68)
Yep, but that will be the end I think, I really believe RA and states will be hanging on to get team/s in the proposed world club championship. Without being part of that (if/when it happens)the game in Aus will really struggle even more.Gotta wonder if full blown shamateurism could be the way to go
(Mostly Bitter Sarcasm, slight element of truth.)
Sir Arthur Higgins
Dick Tooth (41)
World club comp will deliver a bunch of games in shitty time slots. Club comps at global level don’t even draw attention in soccer. Get interest in the club comps up locally (aus, Japan, wales, Italy etc) and people will care.
Won’t surprise me if we see England clubs merge up with celtics
4 Irish, 2 welsh, 2 Scottish, 8-10 english.
Cull some of the deadweight clubs in wales and England.
France maybe lets the Italian clubs compete in its system.
SA goes alone and maybe back into a championship with euro or aus nz teams.
Don’t think sa including doing much for Celtic nations (could be wrong) and the game not overly strong at club level now. Need a tighter and tighter comps up there
Won’t surprise me if we see England clubs merge up with celtics
4 Irish, 2 welsh, 2 Scottish, 8-10 english.
Cull some of the deadweight clubs in wales and England.
France maybe lets the Italian clubs compete in its system.
SA goes alone and maybe back into a championship with euro or aus nz teams.
Don’t think sa including doing much for Celtic nations (could be wrong) and the game not overly strong at club level now. Need a tighter and tighter comps up there
Scooter
Nicholas Shehadie (39)
A mixture of both.
LevitatingSocks
Alfred Walker (16)
Agree in spirit but the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken were successful because the NHL has mechanisms for parity beyond a cost cap. They were essentially allowed their pick of players from the rosters of every other team in the league with a few protected exceptions per team and also given priority picks in the rookie entry draft. Even normal season with no expansion teams results in the worse teams getting priority exclusive rights to better prospects similar to what the AFL does. That mechanism doesn't exist in Super Rugby either.
I think the issue of talent dilution would still have been a problem even if Australian rugby teams had gone with that model of expansion. The existing teams already struggled to win against their NZ counterparts and there would be a long-term imbalance in developing players up to the challenge anyway.
Not a supporter of "Shrink to Glory" by any means but there are just so many facets to the problem.
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Members Section
John Thornett (49)
Just got an e mail back from the club, all memberships still stand & regular payments will continue for 2024
hoggy
Nev Cottrell (35)
One of the problems with Super rugby expansion was it was always just a money grab with little thought of how things would work or how they related to any specific supporter base, the competition itself never really grew in value it was simply just adding content, there was never any sustainability to the whole thing, even now the problem with Super Rugby has is not enough people give a shit.
When you had a Japanese team playing home games in Singapore against teams from South Africa you knew the gig was up, the fact that they signed off on that showed just how fucked up the whole thing had gotten.
The concept has always been smashing a square peg into a round hole, the whole thing will eventually collapse as is is doing so, the RA are in a real bind because they themselves are broke so any rescue package is simply borrowed money, to a concept that will continue to die.
When you had a Japanese team playing home games in Singapore against teams from South Africa you knew the gig was up, the fact that they signed off on that showed just how fucked up the whole thing had gotten.
The concept has always been smashing a square peg into a round hole, the whole thing will eventually collapse as is is doing so, the RA are in a real bind because they themselves are broke so any rescue package is simply borrowed money, to a concept that will continue to die.
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KevinO
Geoff Shaw (53)
The annoying thing with the expansion to 18 18 teams, was it had potential until they made the whole draw a cluster fuck. 4 pools and two promised spots for SA teams in finals. If they had just added the 3 teams with one in each pool and not changed the structure to much it could have worked.
