Total Comprehensive Income (all figures in AUD)
This is a common term used by the ARU and NZRU which is the real measure of how much each organisation made or lost.
Over 2011 and 2012 the ARU lost $26 million under this measure as detailed in part 1 of my article. The NZRU made $11 million. Over two years that’s a difference of $37 million!
The detailed comparison can be found here.
Financial Position (all figures in AUD)
You may immediately think that the strength of the New Zealand financial performance can be explained by their hosting of the RWC but the NZRU’s 2011 profit including the RWC results was only $8 million as the IRB take such a big chunk of RWC income.
The financial position of the two organisations clearly demonstrates how much better the NZRU is managed – at the end of 2012 net assets of the NZRU were $77 million compared to $3 million for the ARU.
Of the net assets of the ARU of $3.01 million, $2.205 million was in ‘Memorabilia’ and ‘Intellectual Property’.
The ARU only had $3.41 million in the bank at 31 December 2012 despite having already banked $11.937 million of future revenue ($3.403 million of which relates to years after 2013). $5.286 million of that future revenue is for the Lions tour.
The NZRU’s bank balance of $41.35 million was boosted by $33.60 million in future revenue that has already been banked ($4.042 million of which relates to years after 2013).
The ARU’s cash position decreased in 2012 by $2 million whereas the NZRU’s cash position increased by $21 million.
Without having banked future revenue the NZRU would still have nearly $8 million in the bank whereas the ARU would be overdrawn by over $8 million!
The impact of the 2013 Lions tour has been estimated to provide a surplus of around $30 million, a very similar figure to that achieved from hosting the 2003 RWC but don’t forget the ARU has already banked over $5 million of that in 2012.
When you consider that the ARU lost over $26 million in the last two years the expected surplus from the Lions tour will not last long unless urgent changes are made to improve financial performance.
