By zhenry
November 9th 2009 @ 7:54am
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Steve Tew wants to sell off NZ Super 14 franchises
In a recent article in Rugby Heaven, Greg Ford is not clear about what kind of share, if at all, the NZRU should have of their Super 14 franchises. About the time John O’Neill took over as ARU Boss, Greg Ford wrote another article about ‘privatising off’ NZ rugby, which was suffused with a golden glow that something wonderful was about to happen.
Previous to that, John O’Neill had stated his concern for ARU finances and wanted a partnership with the Sydney CBD (Central Business District). Straight away the Sydney corporate media were reporting on the ‘buy off’ of Australian rugby.
O’Neill immediately rebuked the media ‘beat up’ stating that the ARU was not about to provide a ‘pigs in the trough’ (he used those words) windfall for certain private interests.
‘Calm down’, he said, we need people involved in Australian rugby who have the long term goals and interests of the game at heart. We will not put at risk the assets of Australian Rugby but we are willing to share the financial burden and profits with business. However the ARU will always have, in good measure, the controlling interest.
Remember, O’Neill had just come from a whirlwind period as head of Australian Soccer, a body which completely embraces the privatisation ethos.
The privatisation of the Melbourne franchise has a different context to the other Australian franchises. The ARU could not financially support a 5th franchise.
With the help of Mr Tew and the NZ NPC (National Provincial Competition), O’Neill has puffed up the ailing Super competition so he can provide the Australian TV audience with a full season of rugby and hopefully compete with the media blitz of AFL, NFL and Australian soccer.
The stakes are high. The All Blacks were built from an economy of scale, in recent times global corporate interests have thrown huge amounts of money its way.
New Zealand has a recent history of being naive and cavalier with its national interests.
What the NZRU needs is a boss who has a good intellectual grip of the complete picture and who is not an ideologue; especially of certain business practises.
I am not sure that Mr Tew fills that role.
At the moment I feel very fearful for the future of New Zealand rugby union.
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Bay35Pablo said | November 9th 2009 @ 8:12am | Report comment
Sounds like Tew has been hanging out with JON too much. Although a number of NZ Roarers have said that already.
Where is the reasoning behind this? Why is it needed? Just like JON and the ARU with Melbourne, where is the discussion and justification?
I for one have too many questions and not enough answers to take any of this on trust. And the example of football in Europe as to what happens when it goes wrong ….
True Tah said | November 9th 2009 @ 8:17am | Report comment
If I was a Kiwi rugby fan, I would be asking for Tew to get sacked and for NZ rugby to seriously reconsider super rugby.
cookie said | November 9th 2009 @ 1:12pm | Report comment
Only a moron would sell of the clubs etc
Does this mean we’ll all get a special dividend cheque in the mail?
Katipo said | November 9th 2009 @ 8:39pm | Report comment
I agree with True Tah. The NZ super franchises were an ill conceived idea anyway. Kiwis like to support their geographic /traditional team not a franchise colour or weather pattern. Pro rugby had so much promise but the guys like Tew are now out of touch with the average rugby supporter. They are spending too much time in corporate boxes and boardrooms. If Tewwants to be in marketing, hob knob with company execs building brands and making money then go and do it (somewhere else).
The current administrators seem more concerned with generating bigger and bigger broadcast agreements than they are with the good of the game itself. us fans are sick of it. And ultimately if you have no fans, then you have no tv audience.
It has taken these ‘professional administrators’ 13 years to organise mid week tour games. And we still haven’t got a fourth nation in the sanzar international series. Even league has done that! Too slow guys. The amatuer administrators gave us proper tours, meaningful competitions, full stadiums and contests between teams from our local area that we believed in.
SANZAR started with a bang but now it is a noose around SH rugby’s neck.
bever fever said | November 9th 2009 @ 9:11pm | Report comment
Bad move boys .. read GC soccer club.
Membership driven community clubs must be the way to go in the long run.
zhenry said | November 10th 2009 @ 12:05pm | Report comment
Completely agree. Not only that we have no choice in the matter. The probability is very high, that in the next 5 years the price of oil will blow out and all the world economies (including Murdoch’s advertising revenue) will be seriously effected. Economies of scale and local community action will became paramount. Airline travel will become hugely expensive. This is almost a complete certainty. What would Tew say? ‘Rubbish’?
JamesB said | November 10th 2009 @ 7:47pm | Report comment
‘New Zealand has a recent history of being naive and cavalier with its national interests’, – an example being?
Private ownership of clubs is an inevitable reality of professional sport, so anyone who is remotely surprised by this suggestion is indeed naive or a socailist.
zhenry said | November 11th 2009 @ 9:15am | Report comment
What I say in my article about O’Neill is very pertinent to your comment.
In the broader context NZ has no media of its own: Almost completely, Australians own the radio, the TV stations and the print media. Our only sports radio heavily promotes rugby league as if it’s the national sport. In my opinion our national media is the worst in the world, it apes and is populated by ‘would be’ or ‘ex-executives of the private media giants
The previous Labor Government established Kiwi Bank. It was rubbished by the media but fortunately for NZ it has flourished, but it is still a small player and the National Government are a real threat to selling it off to private interests. The main banking system is almost entirely owned by overseas interests, mainly Australian.
In essence the NZ media and banking system is run from Sydney.
There is absolutely no protection for NZ business and it is being gobbled up by mostly Australian companies. I am not blaming Australia for this, but NZ interests have been swamped by foreign agendas.
NZ have naively hooked lined and sinkered globalisation propaganda. As mentioned above peak oil is real and globalisation will almost certainly not survive peak oil. Of course international sport will be hit and we have not long to wait.
JamesB said | November 11th 2009 @ 10:32am | Report comment
For a small country our media is not as bad as you make it out to be. You obviously haven’t visited many other countries, though the quality and attitudes are distinctly small minded and very typically have a left-wing bias.
There are many companies and industries owned and dominated by foreigners throughout the world, and in the case of NZ, you are correct in stating the banks are practically all owned by Australian companies. But this is besides the point. The most important issue is how well they are managed and governed, and in the case of the banks it appears they are run very well. In fact both NZ and Australia regulations governing the banking and financial sectors are some of the best in the world, which is one of the reasons why both countries financial system weathered the recession rather well compared to many of our trading partners.
As for Kiwi Bank (and you have to be joking?!), the first question has to be – what business of government is it to own a retail bank? None at all of course, and a complete waste of taxpayers money. And those ridculous nationalistic advertisements that Kiwibank runs mocking the Australian banks are pathetic, not to mention an embarrasement!
The very same questions can be asked about government ownership of airlines and television stations, the latter traditionally used for propaganda. Not forgetting of course the debacle of Kiwi Rail.
When will governemnts stop meddling in businesses which are best run by business themselves, and concentrate instead on creating the right environments for businesses to flourish, grow, provide better more efficient services, and ultimately add value and create jobs.
zhenry said | November 11th 2009 @ 2:25pm | Report comment
Attack and make assumptions about my person, negatively frame my comments, use generalisations and state nothing of substance to back yourself up: What are you complaining about? Your politics are crap and my politics are better than yours………..A 12 year old child could do better than that.
I am not going to rant ‘a self-righteous ponce’ I will attempt to follow through on the detail so that others might gain from reading this article.
The corporate media is written for the advertisers and information is presented as universal fact. The issues of real importance and substance are not discussed.
For example the extraordinary issue of peak oil and climate change: The experts are clear on how serious it is; in the media it’s barely worth a mention. That means society does not soften the blow for its population by making adequate preparation.
That’s an example of how bad the media is, and in NZ its worse!
The people on the boards of Fairfax and Murdoch are connected to other Australian (not NZ) companies, they are top down managed, reporters do what they are told; its called self-censorship. NZ‘s interests have no part to play in that setup.
Economics is not a science but the pumped up authority of your statements makes it seem so. There is good economic argument to support a country having its own banks as an essential for its sovereignty. And the NZ government should be in the business of printing its own money. Not giving licence to foreign private banks to offer loans with 6% actual money and print the rest, charging NZ’ers the interest and taking the windfall out of the country. Not only the banks (recently an Australian bank was fined millions for ripping NZ’ers off) but foreign companies rip the guts out of NZ’ers and take their profits offshore. Some sections of the financial industry criticise the government for its lack of regulation, it’s the Wild West here. Australian companies think NZ’ers are the biggest suckers on the planet, and there probably right.
Government, the tax payer, have every right to own there own business and maintain them for the general good. Our sell off of the Airlines and Rail was a disaster for the NZ public. Private interests brought them for a song, ran them down and sold them back to Govt at a huge profit. In my value system, mate, that’s criminal behaviour.
Private business has a very important role to play, but not financial anarchy, but within Government regulations that civilize and maintain the advantages for the majority and not the wealthy few.
JamesB if I ever see you in NZ I’ll kick your arse from here to kingdom come.
zhenry said | November 13th 2009 @ 10:54am | Report comment
Thought I would try and get the ball rolling here.
Some may have been put off by my anger but if you read what’s above I think that’s understandable.
Thought I would throw some relevant arguments back to you Roarers.
This might not be a popular issue but in my opinion it is very important:
The case of the 5th Super Rugby Franchise:
The ARU has no money for this venture, no Australian players and a serious declining TV and game audience. In a competition that is too long, too demanding for players and over exposes and exhausts the interests of its supporters. Any imported players such as Islanders and ‘NZ’ers’ will be removed from their grassroots.
The only reason for its existence is a big wad of money from TV rights to enable a continuous season of Australian RU TV.
Bazzar? Will the Australian TV audience be watching? Good enough reason?
Can it succeed?
At the expense of:
The NZ Super season will have no international presence throughout its season but an international flourish during the finals. In other words NZ will have two NPC’s.
The idea of an international presence throughout the Super season was to blood NZ players for the AB’s. This will no longer happen. OK travel and money would force this anyway but a smaller competition would enable more of the international factor.
The NZ NPC will need to be reduced from 14 teams to 10 to fit into the available time window caused by the establishment of this franchise.
The NPC is the nursery competition for the AB’s and a 14 team competition will best serve NZ player development. However Tew’s reasoning here is contentious.
The lure of NZ players to Melbourne to help fill the Australian player void.
From a player point of view this 5th Australian Franchise is a huge loser for NZ. Mr Tew actively encouraged it. He did so, presumably because he considers that the increase in TV rights for a 15th team will help NZRU debt. This debt and how it is defined is a contentious issue; its as flexible in its form as the subject of economics is and many prominent NZers have pointed this out, it must be balanced off against the overall health and future of NZRU.