So from reading both Geerob in the SMH and Harris in the Guardian, the picture seems to be a little clearer.
There is no TV money flowing in from Fox, Optus or anyone. Some will call it bad luck, others bad tactics, but regardless we won't be signing a big deal with anyone for the next TV rights period. AFL and NRL have seen a significant drop in TV money so it's hardly a problem unique to rugby, but it is a big problem nonetheless.
So without TV money, we need to find another pot of cash so we can continue to pay our players a competitive salary.
This explains McLennan's very public call for private cash to come into the game. While I love that he's signalling an end to Super Rugby, the whole exercise is tinged with a bit of desperation. 'Come and buy us, please!'.
The other red flag here is timing. We need a deal in the next few months if we want to retain all of our players. That doesn't seem conducive to solid decision making IMO.
So it's a bit of mixed news to me. Great to see we're talking the end of Super, but I'm a bit nervous about throwing the keys to middle-tier rugby to some cashed-up venture capitalists out of desperation as much as anything else.
Barb, a few points:
1. With the right radical redesign of Super Rugby for 2021, and McL's good relationship with News Corp, I would expect Foxtel to come back in, but at _much_ lower $ levels pa than prior, and, almost certainly, any such $s tied to some package of outcome KPIs allowing them to cut back or cut completely if that new comp fails to deliver X eyeballs on their platform by Y period (which would be a healthy thing IMO to have such annual payment-contingent KPIs so as to force RA to be driven by fan engagement principles not just maximising $s for 5 fixed years and then just sitting back and spending the money as has been the laziness-inducing case in the past ).
2. Yes, we are financially and commercially desperate, there is no way around that fact. It will as you say, have consequences.
3. As I have said elsewhere: THERE IS NO PERFECT CHANGE AGENT GOING TO ARRIVE TO FIX AUST RUGBY.
We have to accept that the existing status quo has failed, we (ie the governance systems) have run out of money and ideas (no COVID, still would have happened soon anyway). The change agents that do arrive, McL, WR (World Rugby), private equity, Wiggs, Twiggy, whomever, will certainly bring a complex bundle of pros and cons and some great things, and some not so great things. Let's get real about this and stop whinging about these types of parties' failings as though something/someone much better (that we would only then approve of) was just around the corner or could be imagineered into a present reality.
Finding faults with every single one of the realistic potential change agents is not the point - the point is to articulate the best viable and alternative strategies we can here - as the final frontier, rusted ons - in order to maximise the chance of the code's survival in this country.