Where to for Super Rugby?

[dru]

I still think there should be 2 tiers of Super Rugby with promotion-relegation. That way the tier 1 competition will house the best teams at all times. Even if they were 5 Kiwi teams, 3 Aus teams and 3 SA teams and the Jaguares for example.

The 6 remaining teams can hit it out against one another in the second tier fighting for promotion for the next season.

How's that going for you in the Currie Cup?

From afar it reads as another kind of chaos and compromise leading inevitably to two tiers in QUALITY with the haves and have nots. Dictated by the system not the talent at each of the regions. Unless politics steps in as it inevitably did for EP.

This muchly replicates the same downside in Eng football where the money and power is very much settled into the obvious teams. Some residual power in the same handful of clubs that bounce up and (inevitably) down to the next tier.

 

[Twoilms]

Anyone know what's happening yet?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[p.Tah]

On kick and chase last night, Kearns said the comp at 18 was too many trams. He said its been proved time and time again that 18 teams in a comp don't work pointed to the AFL and the NRL as proof.
AFL currently has 18 - that seems to be doing well
NRL has 16 and I don't believe even after the super league merger they had 18, but I could be wrong.

It's not the number of teams that is the issue. It's the time zones, distances to travel.

 

[dru]

Anyhoo

WoB, why on earth should Australian fans settle for not only losing a team, but losing another one to the wilderness of African politics?

Sacrifice Auckland, or Dunedin, or wherever. Why does everyone but NZ have take it?

The more I hear this sort of thing, the more I think it's time for Aus to leave it behind. Possible move to a champions thing (but with Aus providing selected rep teams) and attempt to fall back to a re-vamped domestic solution.

It really is not the time to lose a team. Strategic stupidity which puts all our eggs in the SANZAR basket where we are effectively relegated to being unimportant to the decission processes. Why should we want any of that?

No thanks.

 

[Scooter]

On kick and chase last night, Kearns said the comp at 18 was too many trams. He said its been proved time and time again that 18 teams in a comp don't work pointed to the AFL and the NRL as proof.
AFL currently has 18 - that seems to be doing well
NRL has 16 and I don't believe even after the super league merger they had 18, but I could be wrong.

It's not the number of teams that is the issue. It's the time zones, distances to travel.

In 1998 the first year after the merger there were 20 teams in NRL and for 1999 this was down to 17.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

WoB, why on earth should Australian fans settle for not only losing a team, but losing another one to the wilderness of African politics?

Sacrifice Auckland, or Dunedin, or wherever. Why does everyone but NZ have take it?

The more I hear this sort of thing, the more I think it's time for Aus to leave it behind. Possible move to a champions thing (but with Aus providing selected rep teams) and attempt to fall back to a re-vamped domestic solution.

It really is not the time to lose a team. Strategic stupidity which puts all our eggs in the SANZAR basket where we are effectively relegated to being unimportant to the decission processes. Why should we want any of that?

No thanks.

I didn't say it's what SHOULD happen, it's just the only way I can see a 16-team comp being structured & formatted in a way that's acceptable (or probably more to the point not UNacceptable) to the various Unions & broadcasters.

I've said a number of times I'd happily give SA the flick in favour of a Trans-Tasman + Japan + maybe Fiji comp but I just dont think it's viable right now & probably won't be until at least 2025, if ever.

 

[The Snout]

I just don't think Rugby ever gets any real profile in this country while teams disappear to SA for weeks. Someone said earlier, Waratah's started their season then disappeared from their fans sight for a few weeks in SA. If you are a NSW fan you have to get up at 2am or whatever to see them. How dumb is that.

This should be a time of excitement as Rugby is back yet it's a fizzle.

I'm pretty ignorant in the financial and management side of things but I'm an average bloke who pays money to go to games, watch it on Foxtel and buy the odd bit of merchandise.

Frankly, as a fan and ignoring the constraints, I'd rather Australian Rugby leave Super Rugby behind and build the NRC into a national competition from Feb to June/July.

If we want to go all Champions League after that then that's fine but IMO what works in this country is a bit of tribalism. And having one team to follow, playing other teams in places you may have actually visited and playing them in a friendly time is as bread and butter as it gets.

I understand from more knowledgeable posters that the above is probably not possible without players really taking a drop in pay and probably losing quite a few of them. But I just believe that maybe Australian Rugby a bit like Soccer did, needs to take it's medicine and tear it down and focus on actually building a national local scene.

It's a problem and there's just no obviously or easy solution. It's going to require maybe sacrifice and some vision.

 

[Omar Comin']

Any candidates for a rugby version of Frank Lowy? Maybe it's time for a reset.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Not sure that the A-league clubs or FIFA (I realise the irony) think that Lowy & Sons continues to be a good influence on the game in this country

 

[dru]

FWIW its not just the Aus teams that disappear off radar for weeks. This year the Bulls have one home game only in the first 7 weeks of the comp. how do you build home support with that?

No-one is happy with the current. Its more important to watch what we are offered going forward.

 

[liquor box]

I would like the 18 team comp where you play each team once and alternate between home and away.

I would also like this to then have a 4 week Aussie comp where you play each other Australian team at the opposite location to the super rugby season to decide the best ranked Australian team and then a one off grand final between the two top teams.

So if the Reds play Rebels at Lang Park during Super Rugby either a preseason or post season return game would be played in Melbourne.

This 4 week mini comp could even be a pre season tournament.

This gives the best of both worlds, a super rugby comp and also an Australian competition.

 

[Omar Comin']

Not sure that the A-league clubs or FIFA (I realise the irony) think that Lowy & Sons continues to be a good influence on the game in this country

Well at least they have a decent competition with the potential to grow.

 

[Braveheart81]

^^^ it's the 13 broadcasters that can potentially veto any new proposal that's is troubling as well

That's only during a broadcast contract cycle which is not surprising. They're signed a contract for a certain product. I imagine there is some wiggle room for variation but you can guarantee that the number of teams and games etc. is set in stone.

It really is not the time to lose a team. Strategic stupidity which puts all our eggs in the SANZAR basket where we are effectively relegated to being unimportant to the decission processes. Why should we want any of that?

I don't really get this. So many act like SANZAAR is some external organisation that the ARU is at the mercy of rather than an organisation that we are one of the main stakeholders in.

When rugby went professional the creation of SANZAR was effectively the creation of a basket that we could put our eggs into. Without that we would have had no ability to establish any sort of professional competition.

A big problem of remaining an amateur game for so long is that it prevented the slow organic growth that was possible in AFL and league where wages slowly increased as the revenue generated by the sport could support it. We went straight to a position where there was a substantial amount of money in the game but only a small pool of players to share it so wages were instantly pretty high and the prospect of making our professional game involve more than 3 domestic teams pretty much impossible.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Re: #552, we're not going to see a 16-team full round robin, much less an 18-team one. For staters there's the travel costs plus SARU won't wear having their teams o/s for up to six weeks c.f. Australasian teams four weeks max. Also the Euro broadcasters who bought the rights based on there being "x" content, including two QF & probably a SF, in the SA time zone will be wanting some of their money back if it's done mid-cycle, or offer a lot less if it's done as part of the next cycle.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Any updates on this...
------------------------------

SA wants

• the Kings to remain for political reasons,
• fewer derbies because they already play the Currie Cup,
• guaranteed places in the finals,
• less round the world travel (4 weeks to match the others)

NZ wants

• games against SA sides,
• a reduction in the total number of sides,
• to keep their 5 teams

Aus wants

• more derbys,
• less trips to SA,
• keep 5 teams (probably?)

Everyone wants

• to keep the Sunwolves ($),
• probably to keep the Jaguars due to obligations as a member of SANZAAR
• to keep the Europoean TV money (is that from SA timezone?)
• TRC to remain as is

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Well at least they have a decent competition with the potential to grow.

Its not something I follow I am happy to say but you cannot ignore the bleating from the clubs. That is not a million miles away from the present situation.
IN practical time zone terms you can band East Cost Australia with NZ, to try and stretch that to WA is a bit of an ask and it is clear that SA is just not in a compatible time zone - their compatible timezone is in Europe where they always threaten to go: if nothing else the present shemozzle shows that as "crying wolf".

 

[John_X]

What are your guys thoughts on a possible merger between the Brumbies and the Rebels. Seems to make a lot of sense: The Brumbies are weak financially, the Rebels aren’t. The Brumbies have a lot of history that would be a shame to get rid of. Canberra has a relatively small population meaning less chance for growth, Melbourne doesn’t have this problem. Canberra is a traditional Rugby heartland, Melbourne is all AFL at the moment. The two cities could really thrive with a combined professional team playing good footy and winning games. Plus I’m sure less games in each city would lead to bigger crowd totals.
Even call them the Southern Brumbies. Play 4 home games in Melbourne each year and 4 in Canberra. Wouldn’t even have to change the colours much, use the brumbies current strip and change the yellow to red. 1 team needs to go in order for us to remain competitive but it would be a real shame to lose Rugby in one of our major cities/heartlands. 2018 The Southern Brumbies champions of the Super Rugby – you heard it here first

 

[Inside Shoulder]

The two cities could really thrive with a combined professional team playing good footy and winning games. Plus I’m sure less games in each city would lead to bigger crowd totals.

Where would they be based?
This sounds to me like what the sea eagles did to norths a few years ago.

 

[Brumby Runner]

^^^^^^ Seems to be a good concise summary Strewth. Plenty of conflicting desires across the conferences, but it also seems to me that there is a large contradiction within the SA list of demands. How can they, on the one hand, want to have fewer local derbies while at the same time want to travel less. Presumably, they don't want to reduce the total number of games played, bearing in mind how that is a crucial factor in the tv rights contracts, so they must want more games against NZ and Aus teams, half of which in all fairness will involve more travel by their franchises.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Well at least they have a decent competition with the potential to grow.

They also started with a salary cap of $1.6m which has risen to around $2.7m now (with some excpetions) over 10 years - and that's for 26 players playing 27 games.

If we could set up a comp as good as the A-League, how many players would we lose paying that sort of money? (Aus Super Rugby salary cap is $5m)