IMO, in the majority of posts in this thread and within the intense concerns over cuts to the number of Australian Super teams, two fundamental realities are not revealed and debated enough, namely:
One, whatever we may think, the truth inside the ARU's head is a rapidly mounting fear that virtually every Australian Super franchise is now headed into financial and commercially dangerous places whereby their core sustainability will be threatened without either (a) radical new external financings from say 'private equity' and/or (b) more likely, directly and significantly increased cash funding from the ARU.
There is not one financially and commercially healthy Australian State RU in existence today. All are experienced falling Super crowds and, generally, falling TV viewership levels (see Two below btw, it's related to One). The Rebels are still utterly dependant upon ARU cash subsidies and Blind Freddy can see that when they stop, with Rebels crowds numbers at c.9k-11k levels, the Rebels will face severe cash flow and core viability challenges even with private owners (and further the ARU seems to have guaranteed many Rebels obligations in the event of a collapse of the Rebels business, and this is another serious event-contingent issue for the ARU to contemplate).
The deterioration all our Super franchises in parallel - vs the historical situation where the individual RU crises and bail-outs were more or less isolated - is the core reason the ARU is highly pre-disposed to structurally reducing its obvious 'lender of last resort' exposure and the emerging real risk of an ARU bankruptcy - should all these trends not be corrected, and there is zero evidence they are being - in c. 2019-20. This essential reduction commends to the ARU the option of cutting one or more Super franchises to reduce the whole-of-system risk that the ARU clearly now sees on its immediate horizon. This factor is just as much a reason for the ARU to potentially want to cut (say) the Force as is the additional disaster they actively helped incept with the arrival of the strategically idiotic S18 format.
This existential problem is almost entirely of the ARU's own design and making - I have been predicting and saying this here since c. 2010. However, that statement does not obviate as consequence the financial hard facts and very worrying related exposures as they are now being realised in St Leonards.
The ARU's forward-looking risk situation is demonstrably perilous and they know that they must reduce their core forward funding exposure as they cannot conceivably fund a scenario where in say 2018 some time the State RUs need (incremental to normal grants) a total annual funding of say $8-10m in new raw cash support. The ARU simply does not credibly have those resources and it is further aware that Wallaby gate income is declining markedly in parallel with all the Super income declines, all of which materially increases the ARU's inherent risk profile to now genuinely dangerous levels.
Two, and this can be quickly summarised: the central problem with Super Rugby in this country today is categorically not one of the S18 format and all the endless variations touted here as proposed fixes for it all of which involve principally format and structural changes and not genuinely radical qualitative measures. The S18 format is a problem, but it is not germane, it is not the root, it is not the central core issue at all.
The root problem is the contemporary quality of Super rugby being played in Australia and this is powerfully reflected in all of code-wide Super crowd declines, Pay TV declines and, even more sharply, the embarrassingly hapless position of all the Australian S18 teams on the March 2017 Super points table.
The playing quality today of our professional rugby teams in total is mostly crap and thus we keep losing games over and over again to all expect very weak non-Aus teams, and our own teams.
Look at how the Brumbies are now playing, from a spectator perspective, it's chronically boring, limited, unexciting. Compare the woeful skill lapses and ridiculous penalty incurrence levels of the 2017 Reds vs the dazzling, coherent running play of their 2010-11 version that saw Brisbane as whole quickly come right back to rugby union. The Tahs had a 2-year surge to a short moment of greatness then more or less immediately lapsed back to old mediocrities and excuses. The Rebels are in their 7th season no less yet today cannot even win one match so far this season. The Force's crowds have been at non-viable levels for years now as their local RU elite (like many others on the East Coast) grossly botched managerial and coaching appointments over and over again resulting in a team that, sadly, never achieved anything real enough to enlarge its paying fan base.
It's blindingly obvious - our core problem is NOT format re-aligments and, say, more competitions with the Kiwis alone (wherein people conveniently forget we'd be decimated virtually every game with that the case as the Kiwi have improved just as much as we have degraded), and NRC turbo-charging and all such fancy variations on a dying theme.
Our core problem, and the related challenge, is how to do everything radical in deep change terms that is essential to ensure a far smaller number of professional Australian rugby teams can be well coached, the better-skilled players well selected and developed, and whereby the resulting teams can compete with others (principally the Kiwis) on an equal or near-equal footing based on a display of skills and fitness that enables a brand of as-played rugby that Australian crowds have shown, when it exists and consistently so, they can appreciate, enjoy and pay to watch (as was demonstrated by what Cheika and McKenzie so briefly enabled in the glorious glimmer years of 2010-12 and 2013-14).
Note above I consciously say 'far smaller number'. There can be no doubting that. The urgent revolution we need to get _real skills and consistent, attractive playing quality_ back into Australian professional rugby (and thus to forestall its decline into bankruptcy and irrevocable code death here) will never, ever arise from a volume of total professional playing days that way exceeds the essential skills and capabilities we realistically have at our disposal but will be only be enabled if we shrink back to place where we can assemble and focus the essential critical mass of coaches (some of which will need to be imported) and players we need to achieve the qualitative playing outcome improvements described above.
The idea that 'we must have 5 Super teams and let's kind of deny for now that it doesn't matter if most if not all play badly for yet more years on end' is more sentimental and emotional than it is in any way rational.
The notion that 'fixing' Australian rugby is all about overall format shuffling, new comps but with the same quantity of play days, 'only play the Kiwis', 'must get rugby back on FTA', and so on is a well-intentioned illusion that avoids the truly radical changes needed so to _systemically_ and, indeed, rapidly enough, fix the problems associated with the appalling decline in the standard of play and coaching in the Australian professional rugby playing system in its entirety.
This essential revolution will only commence with the complete reformation of the ARU's board and most of its management combined with similar actions at most State RU levels.
Australian rugby and its many code-loving and loyal fans have been grievously betrayed by its elite in one of the worst cases of disgraceful corporate self-indulgence, strategic neglect, poor conduct and raw incompetence ever witnessed within the conduct of a sport in this country..or anywhere for that matter.
We now know the consequences - and our own docile passivity as fans is partly to blame as there is no 'rise up' movement to be seen anywhere - and they can be denied no longer. There is little time left for effective action. Rugby's emerging death in Australia is now more likely than its revival.
