Where to for Super Rugby?

[Slim 293]

Across almost all metrics, apart from history, the ACT doesn't deserve to have a Super rugby team (or, at the very least, no more claim to a team than Melbourne or Perth).

Nah, like I said this has been discussed ad nauseum over these 271 pages but that's simply not true.

 

[James Pettifer]

Wasn't crying, just saying you are wrong. I agree Super Rugby is dying. But that's it. New Zealand won't play us. They have absolutely no interest in playing us. They want the Saffas. If we leave they will not follow.

Any competition we start on our own will generate a significant amount less revenue than Super Rugby. If Super Rugby doesnt generate much now, how much can we expect to generate without European TV money largely garnered by the Saffas? Yeah fuck-all.

Once the money leaves so do all our fucking players. We are left with players who cant make it elsewhere and are therefore shit. The competition is therefore shit. Look at A-league. If any of those players could make it in Europe they would be there and the games are barely watchable.

Be assured the death of Super Rugby is not a good thing for us.

The problem here though is that players are getting paid for different things.

American sports don't have that issue. In the NRL, State of Origin and International match payments don't count towards the salary cap.

Does it really work in the ARU's favour if they create a rule that means that in order to offer someone a top up contract (and try and decrease the chance of that person taking up an overseas offer), they say to that person that in order to be paid what they deserve for being important to the Wallabies they have to move interstate?

Completely agree and that is one of the fundamental problems behind Super Rugby in Australia. What is the point of it?

Is it a club based game like the NRL / A-League / AFL / Big Bash?
Or is it for players to develop into the international version of the sport such as the Sheffield Shield?

At the moment it is halfway between each and is one of the major reasons why the ARU is having such problems. If we want the later, then things should be centrally controlled and definitely shouldn't have a privately owned team. If we want the former, then there needs to be better equalisation of talent across the teams. And if that means a couple of the Waratahs would have to leave and either go overseas or join another club leaving some money for the Rebels to retain players (such as Jones or Pyle) then that is what it means.

In the NRL, the additional payments for the other games are relatively minor. In Rugby, the top ups can be multiple times the salary of the player (look at Folau for example) and have been concentrated in the original teams.

I think the numbers for last year were the Rebels got $120k, the Force $260k and the Waratahs $2.6 million. Even with the Waratahs having a massive higher spend on players, the Waratahs were only one win above the Rebels.

Normally when you are doing expansion teams, then you want to try and maximise their success so that they can grow a following. The ARU have gone to the other extreme.

 

[Slim 293]

Politics and narrow mindedness .

Nah, that's reaching.......

 

[blues recovery]

The top up contracts are designed to keep players in the country. If you wanted to live in Sydney or Brisbane because that is your home and your Australian contract option was to move to Canberra or Perth, the offer of a bigger contract in France, England or Japan might be more tempting.

Players do have to move interstate in the AFL due to the draft. They also don't have the option to take up a lucrative offer overseas.

A draft in Super Rugby could surely only work if the minimum wage was higher. It's fine for fully contracted players, but all teams have a bunch of players on levels below that and it is not nearly enough to demand that someone moves interstate if they want that option.

Even an EPS contract probably isn't enough to suggest to someone that if they want to play professional rugby, they have to be drafted to the team that picks them and go there for that money.

Any situation the ARU comes up with won't be designed in a way that will make it harder to keep the key Wallabies in Australia.

I know it's not a simple answer but the Kiwis seem to be able to run a system that ensures a fair level of player quality amongst their Super teams
Clearly the Reds and Tahs have the most to lose from a cap including top ups and a draft but it's time for all of us I believe including me who love this game start to think of the collective good of Australian Rugby .
If you start with the fundamental premise that having four highly competitive Super teams able to challenge for finals berths is good for the game then you work your way back from that position as to how best to make that happen
If that's not important to you and you don't see any merit in trying to do the best we can out of a competition we are contractually bound to compete in then let's just keep doing what we are doing because it's clearly working a treat

 

[FiveStarStu]

I don't think discussion, here or otherwise, has caused anyone to believe its a bad idea.

Don't get me wrong, I believe it's a bad idea.

It is, however, by every discernable metric, the least worst idea.

All these teams are dying in 2020 anyway so why not go out with a bang.

 

[FiveStarStu]

The post that is exactly why the game in this country is rooted .

Politics and narrow mindedness .

In fairness to Slim, the game was likely rooted in politics and narrow mindedness well before he was born.

 

[Slim 293]

Nah, the least worst idea would be to merge the Force and the Rebels.........

But if I were to suggest that then we're well and truly stuck in an endless loop and the thread should be closed.

 

[KOB1987]

Perhaps this should have it's own thread, but let's just for a minute do the maths on the feasibility of a completely domestic comp. I'm flying blind here and others who know more can make corrections and fill in the blanks.

1. Based on the information from others, it costs $10-12m p.a. to run a super franchise. Lets work on $12m and say 60% of that goes to players. 5 franchises x $7.2m = $36m.
2. For a domestic comp of 8 teams, say it costs $10m per franchise with the same split. 8 franchises x $6m is $48m to pay the players.
3. The total revenue required to run the comp and break even is $80m. Based on the figures above we should be able to keep most of the high profile players. How much would a media company be prepared to pay for the rights to such a comp? The difference between $80m and that is what is needed to be generated from ticket sales (and a bit of merchandise).

Is it doable?

 

[James Pettifer]

The Tahs lost Berrick Barnes and Drew Mitchell who would have been two of their highest paid players as well as Lachie Turner who was an experienced Wallaby.

The Rebels lost 4 Wallabies - Phipps, O'Connor, Beale and Vuna - and replaced them with no Wallabies. They would have signed Foley but he changed his mind and stayed with the Waratahs. I believe that the only ex or current Wallabies with the Rebels in 2014 were Luke Burgess and Scott Higginbotham.


I think the Rebels may have lost out significantly worse here than the Tahs did ...

 

[FiveStarStu]

Nah, the least worst idea would be to merge the Force and the Rebels...



But if I were to suggest that then we're well and truly stuck in an endless loop and the thread should be closed.

You know where Perth is relative to Melbourne right

LEAST WORST IDEAS (ranked)
1. Merger
1.1 Rebels + Brumbies
1.2 Rebels + Waratahs
1.3 Rebels + Reds
2. All the nonsense happening now

 

[Slim 293]

You know where Perth is relative to Melbourne right

I do, but since you can't have a team based in two cities it's not as silly as that other idea.........

 

[Strewthcobber]

Distribution of salary caps would make Australia's teams more equitable but probably reduces our chances collectively of winning the competition.

You'd never get the equivalent of Gregan, Larkham, Gits, Roff in the same backline along with the Wallabies in the pack

More guys getting paid, but those that do get paid less.

It means you pay your absolute top guys less so lose more of them OS. You would keep more of your non-first choice wallaby guys eg Gill/McMahon - who would become first choice though!

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[FiveStarStu]

I do, but since you can't have a team based in two cities it's not as silly as that other idea...

Incorrect. It is, at least, equally as silly

 

[Strewthcobber]

Perhaps this should have it's own thread, but let's just for a minute do the maths on the feasibility of a completely domestic comp. I'm flying blind here and others who know more can make corrections and fill in the blanks.

1. Based on the information from others, it costs $10-12m p.a. to run a super franchise. Lets work on $12m and say 60% of that goes to players. 5 franchises x $7.2m = $36m.

Tahs spent $20m in total the year they won the comp - plus another couple of million in topups for ARU players if you want to include those costs too.

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[Strewthcobber]

Perhaps this should have it's own thread, but let's just for a minute do the maths on the feasibility of a completely domestic comp. I'm flying blind here and others who know more can make corrections and fill in the blanks.

1. Based on the information from others, it costs $10-12m p.a. to run a super franchise. Lets work on $12m and say 60% of that goes to players. 5 franchises x $7.2m = $36m.
2. For a domestic comp of 8 teams, say it costs $10m per franchise with the same split. 8 franchises x $6m is $48m to pay the players.
3. The total revenue required to run the comp and break even is $80m. Based on the figures above we should be able to keep most of the high profile players. How much would a media company be prepared to pay for the rights to such a comp? The difference between $80m and that is what is needed to be generated from ticket sales (and a bit of merchandise).

Is it doable?

Using the ALeague as a model - even after the relative success that the competition has had over the last decade the salary cap is $2.6m for far more games and fewer players that a rugby comp would need to support.

Average salary probably halves (?) for a domestic comp

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[KOB1987]

Tahs spent $20m in total the year they won the comp - plus another couple of million in topups for ARU players if you want to include those costs too.

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Presumably ARU top ups would be paid by the ARU still so I'd leave them out of the base equation. They'd be factored in to the distribution of salary caps though.

 

[kiap]

Wasn't crying, just saying you are wrong. I agree Super Rugby is dying. But that's it. New Zealand won't play us. They have absolutely no interest in playing us. They want the Saffas. If we leave they will not follow.

In extremis, they very well could. So they sign another 5 year deal to play an 18-week comp travelling to Joburg, Tokyo or Buenos Aires for one week in every two?

Let's see the broadcast revenue from that and how long that comp lasts. In the meantime we cherry pick some of their production line and build.

But more likely, after the next three seasons are over, Super Rugby will be fully brown bread … dead. From there, a champions league might be salvaged and we get in it to take a share of that. Test matches, of course, provide the bigger revenue

Any competition we start on our own will generate a significant amount less revenue than Super Rugby. If Super Rugby doesnt generate much now, how much can we expect to generate without European TV money largely garnered by the Saffas? Yeah fuck-all.

Even with the cargo-cult Super Rugby on life support, these "Super" revenue streams won't be up to be much. The demand for Saffa content in Europe is overblown because they clash with the prime European rugby. They are filler and so are we.

Options open up with control of your own competition, and you get more watchable games to sell here. The sooner we take charge, the better.

 

[blues recovery]

Perhaps this should have it's own thread, but let's just for a minute do the maths on the feasibility of a completely domestic comp. I'm flying blind here and others who know more can make corrections and fill in the blanks.

1. Based on the information from others, it costs $10-12m p.a. to run a super franchise. Lets work on $12m and say 60% of that goes to players. 5 franchises x $7.2m = $36m.
2. For a domestic comp of 8 teams, say it costs $10m per franchise with the same split. 8 franchises x $6m is $48m to pay the players.
3. The total revenue required to run the comp and break even is $80m. Based on the figures above we should be able to keep most of the high profile players. How much would a media company be prepared to pay for the rights to such a comp? The difference between $80m and that is what is needed to be generated from ticket sales (and a bit of merchandise).

Is it doable?

The ARU currently gets about 60 million a year in tv rights in total of which about half is relative to Wallaby matches so it's very hard to see how a comp of this nature would attract anywhere what's needed especially if you consider how much of the current TV money comes from SA and NZ

 

[RedsHappy]

Turinui in despair, and who could blame him

http://www.rugby.com.au/news/2017/05/16/06/16/rebels-turinui-sanzaar

 

[oztimmay]

Morgan Turinu, with the equilivant of a 60cal machine gun, unloads on the ARU. No prisoners taken. Plenty of ice packs handed out at ARU and RUPA HQ.

http://www.rugby.com.au/news/2017/05/16/06/16/rebels-turinui-sanzaar