Where to for Super Rugby?

[dru]

And their major sponsor is a Japanese air conditioning manufacturer. Clearly the international aspect of Super Rugby (and rugby in general) is not attractive to a sponsor based only in a local market but it is more attractive for one with international reach.

Daikin manufacture here in Sydney and very little is imported. It is an impressive factory. True they would also have market in NZ and possibly SA, but I don't think it's as clear as you imply. Daikin sponsorship in NSW rugby will very much depend on local market.

 

[Braveheart81]

Daikin manufacture here in Sydney and very little is imported. It is an impressive factory. True they would also have market in NZ and possibly SA, but I don't think it's as clear as you imply. Daikin sponsorship in NSW rugby will very much depend on local market.

How does the location of where they manufacture impact things? I'm pretty sure the aim of the sponsorship is not to attract people to work in their Sydney factory.

My point was that their sponsorship isn't worthless when the exposure isn't to the Sydney market.

 

[charlesalan]

RA has an infinite life span (unless it goes seriously broke) while the CEOs and Board members have between five and nine years tenor.For most of them its a gentleman's gig -sorry Raelene, and fingers crossed all goes well in the corporate hospitality tent.
On top of that, most of the CEOs (well Pulver and ONeill) didn't actually need the money - they liked the money though, and all that went with it. So if things didn't work out, no problems, Pulver has just retired to a mansion in the Southern Highlands. Clyne didn't need the money as Chairman, and by all accounts, has donated his earnings back to Rugby.
The CEO and Board need to be smart enough to run the place and hungry enough to need to run the place.

 

[hoggy]

Clyne didn't need the money as Chairman, and by all accounts, has donated his earnings back to Rugby.

Is this true, the bloke gets a hard enough time as is, and I personally think he should step aside for the game to move forward, but if he is donating his pay back to the game it should be noted.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Clyne didn't need the money as Chairman, and by all accounts, has donated his earnings back to Rugby.

Is this true, the bloke gets a hard enough time as is, and I personally think he should step aside for the game to move forward, but if he is donating his pay back to the game it should be noted.

Are any of the directors taking fees at the moment? For at least a couple of years from 2014 it was a volunteer gig. Haven't seen anything to suggest they were accepting payment again. Pretty nominal fees (especially for the likes of Clyne) in any case

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[Quick Hands]

Isn't this what they are doing?

Explaining why they made a loss in a certain year doesn't mean it was unexpected.

Effective budgeting should mean that they achieve a surplus in the years when they have a good inbound tour and a big surplus when there is a Lions tour and these cover losses in the years where there is a RWC or a Lions tour elsewhere.

Your expenditure is going to remain fairly similar across each year. You're still paying everyone. In a RWC year you don't have a June series so you have less matchday expenses but apart from that things should roughly stay the same.

I'm not really sure how they're meant to push more revenue into the years they know will be bad or push more expenditure out of those years into the good years.

No, it's not what they are doing. What they are doing is overspending on a fairly consistent basis and use RWC and BIL as some sort of excuse for spending too much money as if the drop in revenue is some sort of surprise.

If a business has a consistent income and expenditure on an annual basis, then that business expects a certain amount of revenue every year and is able to spend the same amount that it earns each year because there aren't any foreseen peaks and troughs. If such an enterprise has a particularly bad year, then that could be considered unexpected.

But rugby in Australia isn't like that. Every 4 years we have a RWC and every 4 years we have a BIL tour. In each of those years (except the 12th year in the case of BIL) there is a foreseen and forseeable drop in income. Rugby in Australia seems to spend as if these foreseen and forseeable bad years don't exist and feign surprise when revenue drops and the whole operation goes into loss.

According to the 2017 revenue grew by $19.6 million, but there was $21.6 million in reveue which was a government grant for a specific purpose (ARDC). So taking that one off item out, revenue fell by $2 million, but at the same time expenditure increased by $5.5 million.

It's not sustainable.

 

[dru]

How does the location of where they manufacture impact things? I'm pretty sure the aim of the sponsorship is not to attract people to work in their Sydney factory.

My point was that their sponsorship isn't worthless when the exposure isn't to the Sydney market.

BH, I'm not particularly emotive about it, but no, I don't think you were suggesting that international exposure from Daikin was "not worthless". You were suggesting it was primary. I don't think so.

 

[Quick Hands]

How does the location of where they manufacture impact things? I'm pretty sure the aim of the sponsorship is not to attract people to work in their Sydney factory.

My point was that their sponsorship isn't worthless when the exposure isn't to the Sydney market.

You're now clutching at straws BH. Are you seriously suggesting that companies which sponsor Australian rugby teams do so to achieve exposure in foreign lands?

We often disagree, but at least you usually present a logical and coherent argument which I can respect even when in disagreement, but that's just nuts.

I'd suggest that the reason Daikin sponsor the Waratahs is largely because they want exposure in the Australian market, not in Tokyo or Mendoza or Pretoria. Most of their sponsors are either Australian companies or the Australian arm of international companies. The sponsorship by Volvo for example would be coming out of Volvo's Australian operation not from Stockholm, nor would the Volvo operations in Argentina, South Africa or Japan be contributing to the sponsorship. Daikin would be the same. The local managers would have a budget and would have to justify the budget on the basis of sales in Australia, I'd be extremely surprised if they'd be able to claim sales in other countries against their sponsorship spend.

 

[half]

Cyclopath, as while back, kinda inspired me to think a lot more. His comments about the need to change but let’s no rush into a fail situation makes sense. BH seems to be following a similar line of thinking.

As I see it Super Rugby is in its last days whether in two or six years or eight years it’s in a tail spin, so many issues and so many problems and to me it seems much internal looking after my patch by the partners. Full of self-interest and with no real separation of powers.

With this in mind I will make three posts. They are separate as they are to explain each part of a grander puzzle.

We need a plan B, and if pan B is to work we need to start planning now.

Before I start it’s full of holes and is the basic of a discussion rather than the finished product.

The three posts will be
1] The model
2] Player earnings.
3] Model costings.

 

[half]

The Model

The model is based on US models especially Gridiron & the MLS.

These models work by a company or trust being formed, say X Co.

X Co shareholders are its member clubs.

Lets call our model R Co

To be a member of R co you need to commit 15 million dollars over ten years to develop R co.

R Co will have total responsibility for the running of say a 16 round plus finals competition with say 9 clubs. The current NRC teams could make up 8 of the clubs but don’t have to.

Players will be semi-professional training between 3 & 4 nights a week

 

[half]

Player Earnings.

R Co will have squads of say 28 players. Each player will be paid $ 2, 000 per week, and with a 16 a say 19 rounds with finals and say 6 preseason weeks that’s $ 50, 000 per season.

RA will run a SOO series of say 4 teams over 3 weeks that’s 12 games.

Assume with gate, sponsors and media it earns 10 million. 50% to the players. Meaning 5 million over 120 players or say $ 42K per match.

Remember the plyers are semi-professional so have a full time job, business or studying. So make $ 92K when added to other income and you are prepared for after sports life has some real appeal.

RA run say 8 internationals per year at say 4 million per game or 32 million. This time 40% to the players. Say 4 million @ 40% is 1.6 million over a 28 player match day squad is $ 57K per match, if you play 10 matches that’s 570 K plus 92 K from SOO and the new model.

 

[half]

R Co Costings

The A-League has ten teams over 27 rounds playing 135 games, from Perth to Wellington. They report their travel cost as 8 million. Let’s assume with only 16 rounds with most on the east coast we could half that say 4 million.

Assume we get revenue to cover travel.

The competition would be played out of small boutique stadiums with little cost to hire. Say we average a crowd average of 5K @ 20.00 a ticket plus sell at canteen another 20K profit so $ 120K over 8 matches is $ 960 K

If we play in the afternoon there is no need for overnight stays, maybe Perth the exception.

Costs 28 players @ $ 50K each over 26 weeks is 1.4 million.

Assume travel is paid.

Major unknown, costs

Training i.e. lighting
Stadium hire, I suggest quite low using small stadiums.
Coaches
Coaches equipment
Other

Major costs wages 1.4 million offset by gate takings say 1 million.

Unknown revenue
Streaming of matches on platforms like facebook. Team sponsors

The owners put in 1.5 million, assume transport is covered by a competition sponsor @ 4 million.

The loss on wages over gate is 400K leaving 1.1 million to fund the differences between unknown cost and unknown revenues.

 

[hoggy]

half, Only quickly looked over your proposals but it is similar to what many of us propose.

One important understanding must be accepted for anything to happen.

We cannot compete with overseas wages, an acceptance that a majority of top tier players will play overseas.
That Wallabies from overseas will have to be selected. The game cannot live on a credit card.

For a tree to grow a seedling must first be planted, but just as important is acceptance of this.

 

[sunnyboys]

Half. i like that model (of course i'd say that as i wrote something similar a few pages back).

Imagine after the new July Test window we got into 3 weeks of state v state stuff. that's when you could potentially go back to larger stadiums.

the one thing in this style of model for me is what to do for players who arent playing tests during sept oct and nov. NRC was developed to help non-test Super Rugby players get more game time to aid development. with a shift to semi-pro it might not be required.

 

[sunnyboys]

this concept of losing wallabies to OS intrigues me.

i get that the current established wallabies might go, but at some point they will retire - and the next wave will still need to hit the 60 test eligibility.... so it might hurt in short term but would even out in time.

 

[sunnyboys]

interesting to see that Kiwis think turning back the clock has fixed it

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=12029868

and now all they are worried about is injuries sustained in all these local derbies

(i just love the thinly veiled arrogance and superiority in this article... how kiwis cant wait to play SA Aus etc because the implication is that the opposition is softer)

 

[cyclopath]

this concept of losing wallabies to OS intrigues me.

i get that the current established wallabies might go, but at some point they will retire - and the next wave will still need to hit the 60 test eligibility.. so it might hurt in short term but would even out in time.

No, it wouldn't. We'd end up with a lower level of professional players being the only "eligible" players, and the better ones plying their trade overseas. I don't know why people don't get that players playing in a lower level comp will play to a lower level. A lower level than all the Home nations, probably France, definitely NZ and maybe SA.
OR, if we waive the eligibility rules, we accept the limitations of running a squad with far more limited coaching access and squad time. The antithesis of, say, NZ or England.
Now, that's all fine, but we would have to accept we would really be a Tier 2 team, all the time.

 

[Gnostic]

No, it wouldn't. We'd end up with a lower level of professional players being the only "eligible" players, and the better ones plying their trade overseas. I don't know why people don't get that players playing in a lower level comp will play to a lower level. A lower level than all the Home nations, probably France, definitely NZ and maybe SA.

OR, if we waive the eligibility rules, we accept the limitations of running a squad with far more limited coaching access and squad time. The antithesis of, say, NZ or England.

Now, that's all fine, but we would have to accept we would really be a Tier 2 team, all the time.

Just as the French have begun to realise with so many top line positions in their premier competitions taken by OS players and they are now trying to limit the number. I've never been a fan of the "Giteau rule", play here or don't the only except I could possible make is play in the Super Comp. and be eligible because at least they are in the same competition and can be assessed under the same conditions as the other competing players and supporting the continued Pro game in this country by that participation.

The big issue as well is that players are starting to leave for development of their game, I think, players Like Alan AA, Lousi and others.

 

[sunnyboys]

Cyclopath, so accepting that i'm wrong on the Wallabies thing, I ask you the question - how few viewers or live punters at games are you willing to accept to continue supporting Wallabies players as they are now?

are 10k viewers/5k punters per Super Rugby game ok just as long as offshore broadcast money can keep wallabies in oz?

i'm keen to know what peoples threshold is for this... Tahs had 29k viewers last week - 10k isnt a bizarre hypothetical anymore

 

[Gnostic]

interesting to see that Kiwis think turning back the clock has fixed it



http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=12029868



and now all they are worried about is injuries sustained in all these local derbies



(i just love the thinly veiled arrogance and superiority in this article. how kiwis cant wait to play SA Aus etc because the implication is that the opposition is softer)

Unfortunately, arrogant or not it has proved true in previous years and whilst the jury is still deliberating a bit as some of the SA teams for 2018 have improved greatly (Lions and Sharks) the first example of an Australian side V NZ has done nothing to dispel the notion.