Where to for Super Rugby?

[wamberal]

Nothing makes sense when it comes to mergers of existing franchises.


Too many vested interests, too much emotion amongst the rusted-on.


Might as well put a franchise in Albury-Wodonga, half-way between.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Nothing makes sense when it comes to mergers of existing franchises.


Too many vested interests, too much emotion amongst the rusted-on.


Might as well put a franchise in Albury-Wodonga, half-way between.

additional?

 

[swingpass]

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

many of these are mutually exclusive.

 

[Slim 293]

I do love how certain parties want less travel and to play fewer local derbies.........

 

[Slim 293]

And SA want to play more games against NZ, but have ultimately created a setup where half their teams don't........

 

[Strewthcobber]

many of these are mutually exclusive.

That'd be why we are all sitting where wondering what the hell is going on!

 

[Rebels3]

And SA want to play more games against NZ, but have ultimately created a setup where half their teams don't....

Tell me about it.

What's annoying me is the Aus conference is getting hammered by the media but the South African one is getting a free ride atm. Putting things into context the Aus sides have to play 5 games against the kiwi opposition, South African sides play either 4 games or 0 games against kiwi sides.

Aus teams get 1 game a year against either the Sunwolves or Kings, South African sides get a guaranteed 3 games against a mix of the 2. These game also offer a perfect opportunity to rest players mid season.

On top of this they are making the Sunwolves play half their games out of Singapore, but only once they play SAF opposition. It's crazy. No wonder Aus teams have a terrible record on the points table when compared to SAF teams, they are essentially getting a 10point head start with a less difficult fixture list with the amount of kiwi teams they have to play.

We all saw how strong thing really are when the Boks got together last year.

 

[Omar Comin']

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)

The salary cap wouldn't have to be that low. Say you just spread that $25M (which is currently more than covered by ARU grants) across 8 Australian teams, you're talking over $3 million per team. There could be more teams in the comp than this, but probably not from Australia. I think by moving away from a glorified test rugby pre-season to a genuine professional club competition focused on the interests of the fans we might be surprised how much capital could be injected into the game in the form of bids for new teams, local sponsorship etc.

In the short term we'd lose some more players for sure and we'd probably have to extend Wallabies eligibility to more overseas players. But we're going to lose them sticking to the status quo anyway because the wage gap between Europe and here is growing. And a failing competition has zero chance of slowing the growth in that gap. I've made this point before but no one seems to acknowledge it.

Maybe we have to go backwards a bit in order to have any chance of moving forward. Focus on our market and our time zone, with more content in ideal time slots, full length season, allow more imports. Focus intensely on making the competition as good as it possibly can be and see where it leads us. At least we'd have control over our destiny.

 

[Tex]

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

It sounds good on paper; four games each city and concentration of talent. Melbourne had a quiet expectation of more Brumbies matches back in the 00s anyway.

But it doesn't address the withdrawal of grassroots support for the secondary partner. If the admin base is in Melbourne, which players are going to be turning up to local junior rugby and schools in Canberra and vice versa?

 

[Slim 293]

Yeah, you pull the Brumbies and the Raiders are going to be pretty happy........

Although the ACT Government has said that they won't fund a new rectangular stadium (which Canberra needs) if the Brumbies are gone.

 

[Blue]

Tell me about it.

What's annoying me is the Aus conference is getting hammered by the media but the South African one is getting a free ride atm. Putting things into context the Aus sides have to play 5 games against the kiwi opposition, South African sides play either 4 games or 0 games against kiwi sides.

Free ride from who? The Aus media? Most Australian rugby journalists can't even name the 5 SA teams let alone pinpoint where they are located on a map. So having an opinion is generally limited to a throwaway line here and there. The discussion has mainly centred around the Rebels this year and rightly so based on what they have been serving up.

The South African Media and public are calling for less teams in SA. They just disagree on who should go. No fans outside of the Eastern Cape want to see the Kings in the comp. Most people will be sad to see the Cheetahs go but they won't cry in their beer.

SA fans realise that their teams will be stronger for it. Less teams and a smaller comp is what we all agree on. Super 14 in my opinion had the right balance. But that would need four teams top be dropped. Not going to happen.

 

[Blue]

PS I also love how people just willy nilly suggest that The Lions and Bulls or Lions and Cheetahs should merge. 4 teams there we go.

Right then let's merge the Reds and the Tahs if mergers are they way to go. While we're at it let's lump the Brumbies and the Rebels together and there we go. 3 Aus teams.

Or better yet, how about the Sunwolves and Jaguars merge. They all speak funny so they should get along yes? One team

There we go. Back to Super 15.

The whole thing is irretrievably f*cked and the blame starts wit the broadcasters and ends with SANZAR. Nothing to do with rugby.

 

[KOB1987]

This just got twittered but its out of Sth Africa
Georgina Robinson Retweeted

​

1 NEWS - Sport‏Verified account @1NewsSportNZ 21m21 minutes ago

More​

#BREAKING: Three teams to be cut from @SuperRugby, including Southern Kings https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/sport/rugby/exclusive-three-teams-cut-super-rugby-including-southern-kings …

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/spo...eams-cut-super-rugby-including-southern-kings

 

[wamberal]

Blue, start with the fact that the vast majority of Australian fans do not know where any of the South African franchises are from. (I would guess that this ignorance is not confined to Aussies, by the way, and also applies to most of the Soup franchises).


To my mind, the idiotic idea to overlook geographically based names was easily the single worst sports marketing decision in recorded history.

In one fell swoop, a key marketing tool was destroyed. Basically, the vast majority of the franchises have very little personality.

 

[KOB1987]

OK so the source is from SAF but the article is from NZL. So the inference is that AUS and SAF are going to bend over and do what NZL wants. If it's true then Pulver has to go. Who do we lobby to to get rid of him? Himself?

 

[Rebels3]

Free ride from who? The Aus media? Most Australian rugby journalists can't even name the 5 SA teams let alone pinpoint where they are located on a map. So having an opinion is generally limited to a throwaway line here and there. The discussion has mainly centred around the Rebels this year and rightly so based on what they have been serving up.

The South African Media and public are calling for less teams in SA. They just disagree on who should go. No fans outside of the Eastern Cape want to see the Kings in the comp. Most people will be sad to see the Cheetahs go but they won't cry in their beer.

SA fans realise that their teams will be stronger for it. Less teams and a smaller comp is what we all agree on. Super 14 in my opinion had the right balance. But that would need four teams top be dropped. Not going to happen.

Sorry my bad, I was speaking purely from an Australian point of view. I won't be so ignorant to think only Australian's were on this board. I do apologise.

 

[dru]

Pretty good Strewth, but of course it gets murkier as you dig into SA.

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)

• 
  
  SA Ministry of Sport and the govt ANC want:
  * more black representation
  * which means the Kings, but not only that (happy to lose Cheetahs or merge teams)
  * a threat on international events unless they get transformation
  
  Afikaaners want:
  *the big Afrikaaner teams, viz Stormers, Bulls, Lions, Cheetahs, no merging, any aliance is recognising franchise rights to these, other provincse (such as EP) under the majors is fine but these franchises are prima
  
  SARU wants:
  * skew rugby finances to the Currie Cup
  * franchises to come to the party on Transformation to get Ministry of Sport off their back
  * min two home finals
  
  The fans want:
  * no double up in local derbies with the Currie Cup
  * more home games (less travel)
  * no tolerance for other parties, in particular they still feel ripped off by JON all those years ago and will countenance nothing that they think replicates any of that.

 

[Braveheart81]

OK so the source is from SAF but the article is from NZL. So the inference is that AUS and SAF are going to bend over and do what NZL wants. If it's true then Pulver has to go. Who do we lobby to to get rid of him? Himself?

Do people really think Pulver gets to make all the calls?

If so, the entire ARU board should resign because they are not doing their job.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

The salary cap wouldn't have to be that low. Say you just spread that $25M (which is currently more than covered by ARU grants) across 8 Australian teams, you're talking over $3 million per team. There could be more teams in the comp than this, but probably not from Australia. I think by moving away from a glorified test rugby pre-season to a genuine professional club competition focused on the interests of the fans we might be surprised how much capital could be injected into the game in the form of bids for new teams, local sponsorship etc.

In the short term we'd lose some more players for sure and we'd probably have to extend Wallabies eligibility to more overseas players. But we're going to lose them sticking to the status quo anyway because the wage gap between Europe and here is growing. And a failing competition has zero chance of slowing the growth in that gap. I've made this point before but no one seems to acknowledge it.

Maybe we have to go backwards a bit in order to have any chance of moving forward. Focus on our market and our time zone, with more content in ideal time slots, full length season, allow more imports. Focus intensely on making the competition as good as it possibly can be and see where it leads us. At least we'd have control over our destiny.

You also have to take into account the overall running costs of these teams as well.

If we were to lose a franchise I would hope that the ARU would use any savings tp better resource and expand the NRC. Double its length and a greater level of promotion would go a long way.

 

[dru]

PS I also love how people just willy nilly suggest that The Lions and Bulls or Lions and Cheetahs should merge. 4 teams there we go.

Right then let's merge the Reds and the Tahs if mergers are they way to go. While we're at it let's lump the Brumbies and the Rebels together and there we go. 3 Aus teams.

Or better yet, how about the Sunwolves and Jaguars merge. They all speak funny so they should get along yes? One team

There we go. Back to Super 15.

The whole thing is irretrievably f*cked and the blame starts wit the broadcasters and ends with SANZAR. Nothing to do with rugby.

Merge of Bulls and Lions is amuzing. And exactly like merging Qld/NSW.
Merge Cheetahs/Kings wont happen either, but I can definitely see one get a franchise and the other with the RU linked to the franchise.