Australian Provincial Championship (APC) is the way to go!
Roar Guru By Bruce Sheekey, 26 Nov 2007 The Crowd is a Roar Guru
I know I’ve said this many times before, but until I’m convinced there is a better way, it’s my belief that an Australian Provincial Championship (APC) is the missing link in the structural hierarchy of Australian Rugby.
For my inspiration, look up and read about Australian cricket’s Sheffield Shield/Pura Cup; New Zealand rugby’s NPC/ANZ Cup & South African rugby’s Currie Cup.
If the ARU thought 8 teams good enough for the ARC, then I’m going with 8 teams in my APC. I like the 8 team structure & format of the ARC. It allows for 8 home & away matches (including double-up local derbies), plus 2 semi-finals & a final.
The 8 provincial teams are (clockwise from north around to west): North Queensland; Queensland; Eastern Australia; New South Wales; ACT; Victoria; South Australia & Western Australia.
Nicknames, capital cities, home grounds & capacities are as follows:
NQ Cane Cutters; Townsville – Dairy Farmers Stm (25,000)
QLD Reds (koala); Brisbane – Ballymore Park (24,000)
EA Kookaburras; Newcastle – EnergyAustralia Stm (26,500)
NSW Waratahs; Sydney – Sydney Football Stm (45,500)
ACT Brumbies; Canberra – Canberra Stm (25,000)
VIC Rebels (Eureka flag/goldminer); Melbourne – Olympic Park (18,500)
SA Black Falcons; Adelaide – Hindmarsh Stm (16,500)
WA Force (black swan); Perth – Members Equity Stm (17,500)
Test matches would be held at Telstra (Australia) Stm, Sydney (83,500); Suncorp (Lang Pk) Stm, Brisbane (52,500); Telstra (Docklands) Stm, Melbourne (56,500); Subiaco Oval, Perth (43,000) & perhaps AAMI (Football Pk) Stm, Adelaide (52,500).
Provincial boundaries are as follows:
North Queensland – above Tropic of Capricorn.
Queensland – below Tropic of Capricorn.`
Eastern Australia – Newcastle, Central Coast, North Coast & North West NSW.
New South Wales – Sydney, Illawarra, Central West NSW.
ACT – Canberra, South Coast & South West NSW.
Victoria – all of state.
South Australia – all of state.
Western Australia – all of state.
Make no mistake, this is an expensive exercise. There’s ground hire; travel, transfer & accommodation requirements; sport & leisure apparel outfitting; labour costs of players, coaches & support staff, etc.
But it’s absolutely necessaryfor the future well-being of Australian rugby. And to succeed, the very best players MUST be available. Therefore, the ARU must find a 10 weeks ‘window’ in their annual playing schedule that allows for the very best players of Australian rugby to be available.
There’s no point entering this venture half-hearted. It has to be the “big bang”. A 5 year plan to enter the ‘black’. All of a province’s resources are ultimately directed to the sustained success & long-term viability of the respective province.
Top drawer corporate sponsors & TV programming stations must be acquired.
My suggestion is a 10 weeks window from late August to the end of October, bringing the APC into line with the ANZ Cup & Currie Cup. One or two rounds would co-incide with Wallabies’ commitment in the Tri-Nations, but this is unavoidable. Starting the comp any later brings us into November when the Wallabies usually conduct their end of season northern hemisphere tours.
The 8 ARC clubs employed a coach & assistant coach, 28 players & various other personnel. My suggestion is 33 professional players per province (264 total), plus coach, assistant coach & other support staff.
Each province would in any case be set up with a general manager (CEO), operations manager, financial manager, marketing manager, rugby team manager & various support staff.
It’s important the 33 players chosen for each province be more or less evenly distributed. Expressions of interest taken initially. Down the track, both a salary cap & draft would be required. Each province could be allowed 1-3 ‘marquee’ players, the actual number to be determined.
Within each province’s capital city would be a district premier rugby club comp; below this suburban, regional & country comps; below this secondary schools comps; below this primary schools & district comps.
Above the APC are the Super teams, which are now basically regional – northern (Reds & Cane Cutters); eastern (Waratahs & Kookaburras); southern (Brumbies & Rebels) & western (Force & Black Falcons).
At the apex sits the Wallabies. Total top-down structure.
Furthermore, to protect the longevity of district premier rugby clubs, you can’t play for an APC province without first representing a senior metropolitan club. You can’t play for a Super 14 team without first representing an APC province. You can’t play for the Wallabies without first representing a Super 14 team.
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November 28th 2007 @ 7:10am
Sam Taulelei said | November 28th 2007 @ 7:10am | Report comment
Brad, Scuub
Agree with your comments. It would dilute and diminish the obective of running a strong competition to include all teams at the same level. How super can the Super 14 competition (and any proposed changes for adding teams) be if there is no penalty for teams that are only playing for pride? once their chances of qualifying for the playoffs is over. What incentive do teams who consistently inhabit the bottom placings have to improve if their positiion is guaranteed every year.
In NZ the revamp of the NPC to include all 14 teams is widely acknowledged to have been a failure for the unions who are struggling financially as well as the crowds who voted with their feet.
The Pacific Nations and Argentina would need to be subsidised and compensated for heavily to be involved as the majority of their professional players are signed to overseas clubs/provinces in NZ, Europe, Japan and Australia. Initially their teams would be made up of promising players and not their established test stars. One of the reasons why the original Super 12 didn’t include Pacific island teams (after they were involved in the South Pacific Championship and Super 10) was because they couldn’t generate enough revenue in broacasting rights and ratings for News Corp who were financing the competition.
It is in the best interests of southern hemisphere unions to establish a stronger provincial competition than a regional/franchise one like we have with the Super 14. We rely heavily on revenue generated from playing test matches as an additional source of income, which is why we more often than not send full strength teams on end of season tours if we’ve agreed with the hosts a share of the gate takings and broadcast rights.
Northern unions have a stronger domestic competition with playing numbers, financing, and market growth. Their main focus internationally outside of the World Cup is their annual Six Nations tournament. End of season tours are a necessary evil but often clash with club finals committments and are seen as more important than travelling down under. They don’t rely as heavily on revenue from tests as their domestic competitions run longer, they play more games and provides a steady source of revenue.
We have several disadvantages down under with large geographical distance between competing countries, financial resources, loss of players abroad, different time zones etc although the quality of skills in our players is high. We need to improve the strength of our domestic rugby and make it a healthy vibrant competition. Manufacturing a team won’t elicit the same parochial support as teams based along provincial or existing club boundaries. Is it any coincidence that the most successful teams and best supported teams in Super 14 history are those that most closely resemble their provincial identity.
November 28th 2007 @ 9:03am
westy said | November 28th 2007 @ 9:03am | Report comment
Where’s the money going to come from?The soccer A league 8 national club competition required minimum funding of 6 million per club and a further 5 million for associated costs in its first year. That is over 50 million and they only had in their 1st year 20 players per squad. And you want to run a 2nd division! The costs of hiring certain grounds with security is enormous unless you guarantee minimum crowds just ask the ARC they want to shift games to the outer burbs and it ain’t for development. The NH has always had a strong club competition as its foundation and there is little doubt the bargaining power vis a vis their respective national associations. The ARU quite literally has to start a national provincial / club competition from the ground up into the very strength of the AFL and the NRL and increasingly soccer. Are we sure the current super 14 sponsors are going to provide that much more money that may in time erode thier own pay television competition.Unless the ARU is willing to redirect significant resources over the medium term [and this means away from the Wallabies] to strongly subsidise no such competitions can survive .Really do you expect commercial sponsors to chase Rugby at its lowest appeal level in Australia or a sport that for a midweek game between a local club team and an american club got 83000 to TELSTRA and the 2nd/3rd highest TV ratings all year. Just ask chan 10 .The money who is going to pay?
November 28th 2007 @ 12:52pm
Midfielder said | November 28th 2007 @ 12:52pm | Report comment
Westy, surprised on a rugby thread so much is known about the A-League.
Your figures are reasonably close, the six million per club is right except for Sydney who over spent in year 1.
The money 6 million per club is growing but is still there or there abouts what it cost to run each club and add another 7 million by FFA spent on the A-League. To keep the accountant happy it will cost somewhere between 55 & 60 million.
To offset this is income.
Crowds this year are expected to average about 15, 000 per match over 90 matches.
Thus 1, 350, 000 at $ 15.00 per person is about 20 million
Fox 20 million
Spondsors
Hundyia 1 million
Club
Central Coast 3.5 million
Melbourne 4 million
Wellington 2 million (just signed Sonny Corporation)
The other clubs I don’t know
So I am not sure if it is breaking even yet, but the plan is to be in a break even position in year 5, with expected losses to be over the five years to be in at least 80 million, and allowing each club to be able to loose 5 million in the first year.
But in year 1, the cost was over 50 miilion with about 15 million of income which mostly came from an average crowd of 10, 000 per match. Thus a lost of 35 million plus what ever extra Sydney lost in year 1.
Hope this helps with your planning boys and the best of luck with the new format.
November 28th 2007 @ 5:42pm
sheek said | November 28th 2007 @ 5:42pm | Report comment
Sam Taulelei,
Agree Australia should retain its uniqueness from NZ, but we all get our inspiration from somewhere/someone else.
With regards NZ & Australia combining their domestic resources, this is obviously not a new idea. Back in the early 1980s, QRU CEO Terry Parker suggested a 6 team Trans-Tasman provincial comp – Queensland, Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury & Otago. This became the forerunner of the South Pacific Championship, S10, S12, S14, etc.
Gatesy,
Thanks for the support. Agree with you that S14 is now a hindrance rather than a help to domestic comps. I was in NZ last year at the time of their semi-finals & finals (ANZ Cup), & there was great concern at the lack of turnout to games.
What I have always liked about an APC is the lack of artificiality. The States & regions presented have always existed. North Queenslanders have a disdain for those down “south” in Brisbane. Similarly, the Eastern Australians (or Northern NSW-men) have a similar disdain for the “big smoke” of Sydney.
There would be no problem developing tribalism in these regions. The problem would be creating RUGBY tribalism.
Matty P,
Tasmanis & NT are cated for in the Australian Rugby Shield (ARS), which I would envisage being a 2nd division to the APC. Along with NSW Country & Qld Country, & perhaps U/23 teams from the 8 capital cities of the APC.
November 28th 2007 @ 5:51pm
sheek said | November 28th 2007 @ 5:51pm | Report comment
Westy/Midfielder,
The money will come from the money tree, of course! Yes, I did exknowledge this comp would be expensive. But I’ve observed that unless you’re willing to go “big”, you won’t succeed.
Of course, ‘rule one’ is to have the right structure, which I believe I have with the APC.
Take the ARC – you had the south-east Sydney Fleet playing out of North Sydney Oval; the north shore Central Coast Rays playing at Gosford; & the leading 30 players absent on World Cup duty. Too much compromise, too little faith.
As for how much money it would require to pay each team, it depends on affordability, of course. Likely Rugby can’t afford the $6 million of Australian Football. It would depend on the quality of sponsors it can attract. But to do that the ARU has to offer a top quality comp, not some watered-down , itsy-bitsy compromise.
November 28th 2007 @ 5:54pm
sheek said | November 28th 2007 @ 5:54pm | Report comment
Scuub,
Obviously the SH mega-provincial comp is your baby, just like the APC is my baby.
Agree this comp has it’s place, & perhaps like the APC, needs to be stepped up gradually. Although I haven’t shown any restraint with my APC!
I think the S14 or equivalent still has its place, but must be truncated to give national domestic comps more “oxygen”. Suggest all SH mega-comps be like their NH cousin, the Heinekin Cup, played along WC format of pools, with crossover quarters, semis & a final.
November 28th 2007 @ 6:21pm
brad said | November 28th 2007 @ 6:21pm | Report comment
the nice thing about the Heineken Cup type structure is that we will not have the same teams playing each other every year. thus creating great anticipation when the big clashes do happen (imagine waiting 3 years before NSW take on canterbury? that fixture could even fill Aussie stadium because fans may not get another chance) Local derbies may only happen during the knock out stages creating even more pride and passion. By the way 6 teams per pool is way too much remeber this rugby not european footbal. also having too many teams from the domestic competition will mean teams do not have to break their necks to make it into the Super Cup. If the Super cup place is still very special thing then the domestic leagues will prosper in that they have to fight for places as well. in order for the pacific islanders and Argies to be compettitive their teams can resemble current super 14 franchise/regional setups. If only I were a billionaire!
November 28th 2007 @ 8:13pm
sheek said | November 28th 2007 @ 8:13pm | Report comment
Brad,
A promotion & relegation won’t work in Australia for 2 reasons – overall lack of depth & tyranny of distance.
This being the case, I envision 2 static divisions – the APC(1) & ARS(2). The APC being provincial, & the ARS being a combination of regional & metropolitan.
8 teams is manageable, the problem being uneven concentration of playing numbers.
Westy,
The ARU wouldn’t be starting the APC from the ground up, strictly speaking. The states have been around a long time, & playing rugby also, at various levels of competency.
Each state already has a controlling body, with a CEO, & various admin staff, etc. So the ‘footings’ are there, that being the correct terminology as any decent builder would argue.
My idea is to flesh out those structures already in place, by giving them the means to expand the game, & their revenue streams. Will cost a packet, no doubt about it.
But you can’t discover new oceans if you’re afraid of losing sight of land!
Adam,
Thanks for the support.
November 29th 2007 @ 6:31am
Scuub said | November 29th 2007 @ 6:31am | Report comment
It is certainly going to be difficult to fund any new domestic rugby competition within Australia using the current financing structures.
Even though the ARU recieves $25M per year from NewsCorp, compared to the FFA’s $17M, the fact that the A League clubs are privately owned, not centrally is a big factor.
The massive debts being incurred by the A League does not fall upon the 10% stakeholding FFA, but the private backers.
And without rugby following the soccer pathway, of individual majority owners who pour millions of dollars into their teams, creating any new league would be very difficult.
Maybe the answer to the ‘money tree’ problem might infact be to emulate this private ownership, the system that has made the NH clubs profitable and allowed the A League to run at such significant losses? There is certainly a lot of wealthy individuals and companies who would jump at owning a rugby club who could potentially be competing in Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America. The massive money being stumped up by the Western Force shows their is definite commercial interest in international domestic rugby within Australia. But it would be a bitter pill to swallow for the rugby traditionalists.
The issues the RFU and Premier Rugby have had in the UK makes it look like a very unpalatable option to take, but even they have now figured out a way to overcome the elite player ownership issue. And the amount of money the ARU could poor into grassroots rugby if they only had to concentrate funding on the Wallabies would be massive!
Regarding the number of qualifying berths and teams per pool, either 6 or 7 English and French clubs qualify for the heineken cup each year (depending on who did better in the previous season) from domestic competitions compromising 12 and 14 teams respectively. Thats a qualification ratio of at least half. 3 of the 4 Irish sides qualify, along with both Scotish teams and at least 3 of the 4 Welsh sides.
Only allowing 4 of the APC teams would make sense, but only 4 out of the 14 NZ sides wouldn’t be fair. But likewise, allowing 6 NZ teams and only 4 Aussie teams would also not be fair on Aussie stakeholders. A balance would have to be met.
I agree that the Heineken Cup format of cross-over quarters etc work well. But to remove the 16weeks of lucrative Super 14 rugby to be replaced by only 9 weeks of this new comp (with 4 teams per pool) would mean significantly less games and significantly less money. Unless you went for 6 pools of 4 like the Heineken Cup?
The current Super14 has 91 regular season games with 3 finals games making a total of 94 games each season.
4 pools of 4 teams each would only produce 48 regular season games and 3 finals games, for a total of 55 games in the comp.
So you’ve only got 59% of the previous amount of games. Thats a lot less money to ask from News Corp, especially as you’ve also lost the 5th teams from both NZ and SA that currently participate in the Super14.
Four pools of 6 team each allows fair representation from each domestic comp and also produces 120 regular season games with 7 finals. Thats 127 games, or 35% more game time than the current Super14.
Also importantly this comp only runs over a total period of 13 weeks, compared to the current 16 weeks of Super14. So each player is free to play another 3 games within the domestic comp than they do currently. The lower quality of games is subsidised by 35% more action. Whether quality can be substituted by quantity is difficult to predetermine. But the fact remains that these games are the big revenue generators and need to be exploited to generate money for the domestic comps.
November 29th 2007 @ 9:13am
sheek said | November 29th 2007 @ 9:13am | Report comment
Scuub,
My suggestion in truncating the S14, is that the short-fall would be picked up elsewhere, ie, national comp. Basically you would still have the 40 odd weekends of rugby generating revenue. But I’ve always favoured a “mixed bag of goodies” – internationals, S14, national comp, premier rugby – rather than concentrating on just the Wallabies & S14.
It allows for more tiers (hopefully, not tears!) of sponsorship, & would attract TV broadcasters to the diversity of product.
Nothing new here. European Football has a myriad of national leagues, Euro club championships, continental club & country championships, Euro Cup, World Cup, etc. it’s a smorgasboard of entertainment.
But like you said, we’re basically in agreement.