Where to for Super Rugby?

[hoggy]

And I would agree if that was the competition seen as the one to drive revenue in the game, but it isn't and I can't see that changing.

The Wallabies drive the revenue.

The Wallabies generate more revenue when they are successful. The international nature of rugby dictates that more income comes from overseas interest than for a domestic focused sport that doesn't attract TV rights overseas.

If there was a way to smoothly transition our current playing stock to a domestic competition I think it would be far more likely to succeed but no one has come up with a suggestion to do that. The suggestion seems to be that if we just remove Super Rugby and make say the NRC the main competition in town (except with less professionalism) that it will suddenly be much more successful than Super Rugby is.

I agree, however that revenue the Wallabies produce is on a slow spiral downwards, as the game becomes more irrelevant on the domestic front and there are less people to ultimately support the Wallabies.
Have we really created more revenue or added value, or have we just added more and more content every year.

They are playing upwards to 15/18 tests(half of them meaningless friendlies) each year now to create that revenue, and limited the ability of a domestic product to create any revenue stream on its own. You go from world conquering Wallabies to sausage sizzle rugby

Every year less and less people are introduced to the game to eventually support the Wallabies, so what happens when the whole thing goes bust, we end up with a domestic product that survives on sausage sizzles.

The game here will ultimately die out as a major sporting code as it slowly cannibalizes itself to survive. Well IMO anyway.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Do you really not accept that rugby is a religion in New Zealand, the game in all its glory is deeply rooted in popular culture, it is followed like a religion (no, far more seriously), and the vast majority of the best kids who choose a winter football code want to play rugby?

In other words, even though the potential recruiting catchment is much smaller over there, rugby in New Zealand gets the best of the best. Compare and contrast with Australia. Surely, surely, you understand that the AFL and the NRL (or their forebears) have swamped us over the years in providing opportunities - most particularly during our amateur era, which is when they established their dominance. We were small, and we were amateur.



The gulf appears so large because it always has been, except for very brief periods when we managed to retain some very good players.


Our game nearly died in the fifties. We were saved by a couple of inbound Fijian tours. We managed to survive, and have had some short periods of prosperity since. Just managing to survive is a huge achievement, frankly.


We are still an amateur game at heart, in the sense that if a person does not grow up loving our game, there are lots of attractive alternatives, especially the AFL and NRL (both designed for Australian tastes, and locally governed) and always have been. There is no serious alternative in New Zealand.

We are run as an amateur game and we allow far too much influence from certain elements of that. Which is why we are in the state we are in. It is also the reason why we will continue to slip further and further into the realms of irrelevance. We need a complete reorientation of how we run the game. From one who has participants to one that has customers. And that provides services to those customers that they perceive value in.

Also, one where active engagement with new customers builds the brand and thus the overall sustainability of the business.

 

[sunnyboys]

interesting point you make about customers v participants.

i remember a guy i knew once, who had played at first grade level, saying he hated going to watch Super Rugby or test rugby because there were too many people in the stands that hadn't played the game!

 

[cyclopath]

interesting point you make about customers v participants.

i remember a guy i knew once, who had played at first grade level, saying he hated going to watch Super Rugby or test rugby because there were too many people in the stands that hadn't played the game!

Was it Matt Burke?

 

[sunnyboys]

Hahahahaha!!!

 

[John S]

interesting point you make about customers v participants.

i remember a guy i knew once, who had played at first grade level, saying he hated going to watch Super Rugby or test rugby because there were too many people in the stands that hadn't played the game!

My old man tells the story of when he and mum were either dating, or just married, he took her to watch a Wallabies test. Mum had never watched a game of rugby in her life, and was asking my old man questions all through the game.

After the game, the guy behind tapped my old man on the shoulder and said "mate, do yourself and us a favour, don't bring her again".

 

[Proud Pig]

I frequently take my friends to games and sit there and explain the game and rules to them. I particularly like talking in great depth about the dark arts, whether they want to hear about it or not.

 

[sunnyboys]

One part of discussions on Super Rugby v domestic comp that quickly turn binary is this notion that one is professionalism and the other semi pro.

What if we just had lower paid full pro’s. What if we did throw the kitchen sink to retain stars? But instead set wages at sustainable levels? Yes those that can will go offshore but I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as some think?

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

One part of discussions on Super Rugby v domestic comp that quickly turn binary is this notion that one is professionalism and the other semi pro.

What if we just had lower paid full pro’s. What if we did throw the kitchen sink to retain stars? But instead set wages at sustainable levels? Yes those that can will go offshore but I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as some think?

And there's options available in regards to our big stars as well. We could look to establish similar relationships with AP and Top 14 clubs to that the NZRU has with the Quins. With conditions of course. Strict conditions.

 

[hoggy]

One part of discussions on Super Rugby v domestic comp that quickly turn binary is this notion that one is professionalism and the other semi pro.

What if we just had lower paid full pro’s. What if we did throw the kitchen sink to retain stars? But instead set wages at sustainable levels? Yes those that can will go offshore but I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as some think?

I agree with this, the perception so often forwarded is that without Super rugby, there can never be any other possible option moving forward that is professional, its either Super Rugby or we rank amateurs.

 

[wamberal]

I agree with this, the perception so often forwarded is that without Super rugby, there can never be any other possible option moving forward that is professional, its either Super Rugby or we rank amateurs.

There have been a number of us who have posted about the reality of semi-professionalism. While it is true that the amateur ethic is a hugely important virtue of our game (in the true sense: people play it, support it, and watch it because they love it), have a closer look at the Shute Shield in Sydney.


It will be there in 100 years time. It will have changed a fair bit, but it will be there. It is, of course, semi-professional.

 

[dru]

I agree with this, the perception so often forwarded is that without Super rugby, there can never be any other possible option moving forward that is professional, its either Super Rugby or we rank amateurs.

Or at least the expectation seems to be that it needs to be Trans Tasman.

In my mind the WB cash cow is the same - or at least maps the same down trend.

The Super Rugby international costs are saved and diverted to additional national teams. Net result more cost.

A SOO style system becomes a new income generator. This hopefully makes up (or tries to) otherwise reducing wages for the Stars.

Then you hope that the improved domestic content starts bringing fans back and we build finances from there.

Yes in terms of income it goes backwards initially, this has to be considered against the trend and against where the next Super deal takes us.

 

[half]

Fox appear from media reports today to have tied up the cricket .

There is a huge cross over between union & cricket fans.

So how important will Super Rugby be to Fox when the subscribers lost would be reasonably small I think if Fox have the cricket.

 

[Braveheart81]

Fox appear from media reports today to have tied up the cricket .

There is a huge cross over between union & cricket fans.

So how important will Super Rugby be to Fox when the subscribers lost would be reasonably small I think if Fox have the cricket.

Foxtel paying big for cricket rights can only be good for rugby in my view. They are going all in on sport.

 

[charlesalan]

well F*&k me - no Friday night Aussie game to watch - may as well watch the AFL Collingwood v Adelaide

 

[John S]

well F*&k me - no Friday night Aussie game to watch - may as well watch the AFL Collingwood v Adelaide

I had to resort to last week's Crusaders v Jaguares followed by some violence on Netflix

 

[hoggy]

Well I wonder after Fox have paid for the cricket & AFL/NRL will they be so willing to throw coin at there old friend rugby union.

I remember in the early days Union was Pay TV's baby, beginning to look a lot more like that odd cousin you don't want to admit knowing anymore.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-...e-gamble-is-falling-flat-20180413-p4z9es.html

 

[Quick Hands]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-...e-gamble-is-falling-flat-20180413-p4z9es.html

First, RA is a top-heavy organisation; second, it is dangerously addicted to broadcast revenue; third, it is locked into a Super Rugby competition that is beginning to look like a burden; and fourth, the grassroots is still living on crumbs.

Take a deep breath. In 2017, RA spent $12m on ‘‘Super Rugby team costs’’, $27m on ‘‘Super Rugby funding’’ and $25m on ‘‘player payments and RUPA costs.’’ That’s a total of $64m.
However, it’s total broadcast take – by far the No.1 source of revenue – only amounted to $61m.
It gets worse. Much worse. RA also threw $1.3m to the ‘‘SANZAAR office,’’ spent another $8m on ‘‘High Performance and National Teams’’ and another $4m on ‘‘Marketing and Media’’.
There’s more. Rugby Australia also spent $17m on ‘‘Corporate’’ costs, described in the RA report as ‘‘all costs associated with the administration, legal, compliance . . . of running the business.’’
In other words, executive salaries and the like.
Separately, the costs associated with Super Rugby are beginning to look outrageous when you consider how the competition has alienated supporters in recent years.
At its current rate of spending, RA will spend $195m on ‘‘Super Rugby team costs’’ and ‘‘Super Rugby funding’’ over the next five years.
What makes those outlays particularly worrying is that RA already received a boost in broadcast revenue from the last TV deal.
Therefore, the capacity or desire from broadcasters, in Australia or overseas, to pump in enough money to generate a similar uplift in the next deal is limited.
Even the UK market – which gave SANZAAR such a boost in the last deal – has run out of steam.

 

[hoggy]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-...e-gamble-is-falling-flat-20180413-p4z9es.html

It is a depressing article one that highlights to me that ultimately without the whole thing collapsing or some sort of revolution happens, nothing is going to change, because those very people at the top are the ones who directly benefit from this system.

 

[hoggy]

If grassroots spending is $3.7 million and Folau/Coopers salary combined $1.6 million would it not be close to a %50 rise. Whatever way you do the figures, it highlights just how broke the whole thing is