Where to for Super Rugby?

[p.Tah]

Clearly SANZAAR can no longer operate and needs to be disbanded.
Keep 18 teams for 2018,2019. 3x conferences of 6.
Then introduce a new format in 2020.

 

[Brumby Runner]

The way it's going with the SARU and the ARU, both bodoies will next want SANZAAR to make the decisions on which teams to cut too.

 

[ACT Crusader]

Clearly SANZAAR can no longer operate and needs to be disbanded.
Keep 18 teams for 2018,2019. 3x conferences of 6.
Then introduce a new format in 2020.

SANZAAR seems to be okay, it's the best ARU and SARU that form appear to have their houses in order.

 

[NTT]

From Wayne Smith below in The Australian this morning (extract only)...as I've had cause to say before here, you could not make this ludicrous saga up if you tried. The negligence, arrogance and manifest incompetence of the entire process as it affects virtually every aspect of southern hemisphere rugby is breathtaking both in its extent and probable impact:


".....Meanwhile, the ARU has been taken by surprise by indications out of South Africa that the SARU general assembly meeting on Thursday does not have any debate about Super Rugby on its official agenda. According to a SARU spokesman, it will be SANZAAR that makes the decision on how many teams contest Super Rugby next season and once that is decided, South Africa will adjust accordingly.

Indeed, the spokesman categorically stated no vote would be taken on whether South Africa approves of SANZAAR’s plan to cut two sides or which franchises will be cut, if any.

But that flies in the face of everything that the ARU and SANZAAR had expected. The ARU had a board meeting arranged for yesterday but cancelled it because it was considered pointless to make any decision before it was known whether South Africa was prepared to cut two teams. If it was, then Australia almost certainly would cut one of its own. If not, then the five Australian teams would continue in a presumably slightly tweaked Super Rugby competition next season.

The ARU has rescheduled its board meeting for Monday morning, just ahead of the annual general meeting, which would have been a timely occasion to announce any planned changes. But where the entire process stands now that South Africa has declared there will be no ballots on Thursday is anyone’s guess.

SANZAAR, too, is believed to be tearing its hair out at the frustrating delay being caused by South Africa. Its expectation was that firm decisions on what would form the building blocks of SA rugby would be made on Thursday.

But Australia is also dragging the chain. An ARU spokesman confirmed that the broadcasters had come back to them with an indication of how they would react to key questions — presumably how they would view a reduction in teams and whether they would demand any compensation."

Like sands through an hour glass, these are the days of our lives ....

ARU needs to veto this to show it has a spine, go to 3 x 6 conferences until 2020, then see if in 2020 the ARU still values money over its participants. If they do not veto this mess then we the people need to veto the ARU.
Pulvers credibility is shot now, with all the talk of secret background documents, his willingness to backflip on his alliance deal with RugbyWA and his complete lack of compassion for the players and fans during this process.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Clearly SANZAAR can no longer operate and needs to be disbanded.
Keep 18 teams for 2018,2019. 3x conferences of 6.
Then introduce a new format in 2020.

I think it's time Super Rugby was certainly disbanded. Always been a fan but I'm struggling to maintain my interest level. And it has a lot to do with the current mess going all around it.

I think it's time everyone looks to do their own thing. Perhaps add in some kind of Champions League format but we all need to do what is best domestically and at present that's not Super Rugby.

I'd upgrade the NRC bring in the current 5 plus the Country Unions for 7. If you want to go for 8 bring in fiji. Do as the A-League does and play 3 H/A rounds for 18-21 games depending on number of teams.

The key will be the preservation of the RC.

In the current NRC window. Let the clubs organise an expanded Aus. Club Championship. Something like 3 Syd. 2 Bris. 1 Canberra and a club rep team from both Melbourne and Perth. Or something to that effect.

 

[chibimatty]

What happens if the ANC say that SARU can cut teams but NOT the Kings?

 

[joeyjohnz]

If the broadcasters came back demanding financial compensation - we're fucked.

The ARU should be veto'ing every proposal that involves cutting our teams. They have that right under SANZAAR. We can't lose 20% of our broadcast revenue 2 years into the broadcast deal that saved us from insolvency!

The broadcast contracts are signed till 2020. I've got no problems with Foxtel sucking eggs and overpaying for SuperRugby! Run the competition to the ground and eek every last cent from Rupert.

The Western Force stand to buy back their licence (Why the Force financials are an issue is pure east-coast hyperbole considering the ARU's total "bailout" was 1.5$mil compared to the $5mil-odd that has been sunk into the Rebels in half the time). The Rebels are sponsor-heavy and viable until 2020 at least.

Our provinces are looking collectively in better stead (off-field) wise then they have for the better part of 5 years. If it weren't for the ARU refusing to back AUS rugby to a hilt, the Force might be in the hands of their fans with the ARU being $1.5mil richer already!

I guess what I'm saying is that we should be consolidating financially and any tinkering must be done with the format until this deal finishes.

 

[wamberal]

Wow. Poster speaks commonsense. Very unusual. Must be new around here.

 

[Twoilms]

Clearly SANZAAR can no longer operate and needs to be disbanded.
Keep 18 teams for 2018,2019. 3x conferences of 6.
Then introduce a new format in 2020.

I feel like i should really already know the answer to this, but i'll ask anyway.
Why isn't it already a 3 x 6 conference system? South Africa + Arg = 1, Split NZ, Aus & Japan between 2. Wouldn't that make life infinitely easier?

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

^^^^^^^^ because SuperSport and/ or SARU wanted two home QF in recognition of the fact that SA generates more TV revenue than anyone else. That can only happen if there's four Conferences, which in turn can only happen if two of them have four teams each & the other two five.

It's now sounding increasingly like SuperSport are comfortable with just one guaranteed QF & possibly a second if a SA side is good enough to earn it. At that point 3 x 6 becomes viable: Aus + Japan, NZ + Argentina. Which, oddly enough, is what I recall the majority of people on here advocating in what I think was titled the "Super 18 of it's way" thread............

The latest out of SARU sounds like they don't wanna be seen as the ones who killed off the Kings & Cheetahs, they want SANZAAR ( of which they're 25% & over which they have a veto power) to be the bad guys.

 

[The torpedo]

I feel like i should really already know the answer to this, but i'll ask anyway.
Why isn't it already a 3 x 6 conference system? South Africa + Arg = 1, Split NZ, Aus & Japan between 2. Wouldn't that make life infinitely easier?

I'd put Argentina in the NZ conference - play every team in your conference 2x, 3 team in 1 conference 1x, and 3x teams in the other conference 1x. 16 games, 2 byes for each team. Add in not only a bonus point for scoring 3+ more tries than your opponent, but a bonus point for scoring 4 tries.

Top 2 from each conference go through to finals (seeded - division winners get seeds 1-3, wild card teams get seeds 4-6)

QF: 4 v 5 & 3 v 6 (1 & 2 bye)
SF: 1 v lowest seed winner & 2 v highest seed winner
GF: winners of SF

voi maddafacking la

 

[dru]

What happens if the ANC say that SARU can cut teams but NOT the Kings?

That is almost inevitable. The short answer is that SARU are unlikely to be able to do anything much at all after that. (More thought follows

The ANC could not give two hoots about the number of African teams in Super Rugby. They almost definitely will have an opinion about cutting the Eastern Cape/Kings. This will be put across as a demand for faster action on transformation. A guaranteed vote winner for the ANC in any Sport, but especially a traditionally white dominated sport (cricket and Commonwealth Games two others that come to mind.

Life becomes almost untenable for SARU if they intentionally move against the expectations of the Ministry of Sport on issues of transformation. I doubt they are capable of cutting the Kings if any politician speaks up, and someone inevitably will.

Cutting two teams from there would need to be something like cutting Cheetahs (or the Cheetahs getting swallowed into Kings) but then life gets interesting. Sharks are more English than Afrikaaner, and may not have as much support across SA as other teams. Stormers have recent poor finance and governance form. But both Capetown and Durban make sense geographically and in terms of innate rugby grass roots. Bulls and Lions are very close to each other geographically speaking, they're in the same province (same State if it was Australia) but it's a bit like expecting Qld and NSW to combine as one province. Simply wont happen.

Basically very unlikely that SARU have the strength to actually do any of it.

Getting SANZAR to cut the Kings removes some of the politics for them - just like it almost did when Melbourne was chosen ahead of the Kings (S15 at that stage?). The decission was made by SANZAR. SARU was able to say "hell, we tried", and it still failed as the Kings (Spears) tested their rights at court.

 

[chasmac]

This looks likepolitics and power 101.
The 4 conference system has been called out.
SANZAR propose S15 with 2 less from SA and 1 less Aussie team.
SA who caused the 4 conference debacle try and save face by complying with SANZAR.
S18 with 3 conferences arrives as it should have before the crappy South Africans messed with it.
Or is this outcome too good to be true!

 

[Twoilms]

I'd put Argentina in the NZ conference - play every team in your conference 2x, 3 team in 1 conference 1x, and 3x teams in the other conference 1x. 16 games, 2 byes for each team. Add in not only a bonus point for scoring 3+ more tries than your opponent, but a bonus point for scoring 4 tries.

Top 2 from each conference go through to finals (seeded - division winners get seeds 1-3, wild card teams get seeds 4-6)

QF: 4 v 5 & 3 v 6 (1 & 2 bye)
SF: 1 v lowest seed winner & 2 v highest seed winner
GF: winners of SF

voi maddafacking la

Seems infinitely better than current system.

 

[RedsHappy]

If the broadcasters came back demanding financial compensation - we're fucked.

The ARU should be veto'ing every proposal that involves cutting our teams. They have that right under SANZAAR. We can't lose 20% of our broadcast revenue 2 years into the broadcast deal that saved us from insolvency!

The broadcast contracts are signed till 2020. I've got no problems with Foxtel sucking eggs and overpaying for SuperRugby! Run the competition to the ground and eek every last cent from Rupert.

The Western Force stand to buy back their licence (Why the Force financials are an issue is pure east-coast hyperbole considering the ARU's total "bailout" was 1.5$mil compared to the $5mil-odd that has been sunk into the Rebels in half the time). The Rebels are sponsor-heavy and viable until 2020 at least.

Our provinces are looking collectively in better stead (off-field) wise then they have for the better part of 5 years. If it weren't for the ARU refusing to back AUS rugby to a hilt, the Force might be in the hands of their fans with the ARU being $1.5mil richer already!

I guess what I'm saying is that we should be consolidating financially and any tinkering must be done with the format until this deal finishes.

I respect your thinking, but the calculus for all the SANZAAR broadcasters is way more complex than this.

They make their rugby TV income from advertising and subscriptions and some (minor) on-sale rights. They justify what they pay to SANZAAR partners based solely on projected income, subscription base and market share calculations. The sheer number of S18 games by a certain number of teams played does not in itself, necessarily and intrinsically, drive their income lines from S18 and Tests. That's because for viewers, quality matters for them to turn on, not just endless feeds of game quantity for quantity's sake (as we see so clearly with negative Aus Foxtel viewership trends for S18 and Tests).

If they sit there and play poker with SANZAAR as both say in standoff mode - no change to anything in S18 - then the broadcasters know that if viewers decline (as is happening markedly in most markets for S18) and pay TV subscribers decline both materially (these two parameters are related over time for sports-driven subscribers), so will their $ income quite quickly decline. Advertisers pay for predictable and validated eyeballs of a certain demographic. This viewership level risk is a potential P&L killer for them as they have large contractually fixed payments to make over numerous years to the SANZAAR parties.

The broadcasters must maximise year-on-year income to justify the sports-buying deals they make in the first place. They know that if a sports format in either quality or (bad) quantity terms turns off viewers big time, then the original deal they did can turn bad financially for them quite quickly.

My point being: the broadcasters have a big, big monetary vested interest in SXX rugby + Tests succeeding in aggregate, and sustainable aggregate, viewership terms. Equally, they will know that if they hit SARU and the ARU too hard in income reductions for (say) a new S15 comp, these unions may fall into severe financial difficulty and not be able to fill the broadcasters' screens with adequate quality of, or even quantity of, product.

And the hard-heads in SANZAAR (hopefully........?) know this. So the poker game is something like this from SANZAAR to the TV companies: 'you force us to reduce income from you just to now get a product that works for both you and us better than we have today that is not working.....OK, then we'll stay with what we have and you can see your income fall, likely very badly, whilst you still have high fixed and fixed term cost payments to us, etc. You'll end up far worse off and we still get the original payments. So, on rational grounds, let's agree maybe some moderate-only income reduction over 3 more years, but you agree to a major format change that is really a clear win-win for both the RUs and broadcasters as it stands a good chance of holding viewership up (i.e. broadcaster income) or even increasing it'.

 

[chasmac]

Is the viewership going to tune in when we get flogged by the kiwis on the field and get their smug fans giving us shit off the field.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

 

[TOCC]

Every other sport administrator in Australia is laughing at Rugby Union and the utterly shambolic way of dealing with this whole situation

 

[wamberal]

Every other sport administrator in Australia is laughing at Rugby Union and the utterly shambolic way of dealing with this whole situation

Who cares? If the final result works for our code, that's all that matters. As they say, if you like to eat sausages, never visit a sausage factory. Our little, struggling, code is fighting for survival, and that is never pretty.


Apparently all the other sports are doing okay. If they have time to laugh at us, fair enough. At least they know we are still here.

 

[half]

Reds Happy

Re your above post pertaining Fox and the broadcast payments.

Fox are no longer anywhere near as desperate for product as they once were.

Not saying your logic is wrong, more they will see more a profit or a loss on Super Rugby today IMO.

 

[TOCC]

Who cares? If the final result works for our code, that's all that matters. As they say, if you like to eat sausages, never visit a sausage factory. Our little, struggling, code is fighting for survival, and that is never pretty.


Apparently all the other sports are doing okay. If they have time to laugh at us, fair enough. At least they know we are still here.

Who cares?
Sponsors, fans and players all care.
Those who pay the bills, referee the games and coach the kids all care.