- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
For the 2012/13 Heineken Cup season, 164 players from the southern hemisphere are in the squads for the 24 teams participating.
The four biggest exporters to the Heineken Cup are South Africa (49), New Zealand (42), Argentina (27), and Australia (17).
This does not include any French Top 14, English Premiership, and Rabo 12 players whose teams have not qualified for the Heineken Cup.
There is no doubt why players migrate north. It is mainly for the money and the opportunity to play professional rugby.
We have to be realistic and accept the fact that currently there are only 15 club or province teams in the southern hemisphere that are sustainable professional franchises.
The ITM and Currie Cup may provide players the opportunity to play professional or semi-professional rugby, but have nowhere near the required income levels of Super Rugby.
The challenge is though, to retain the best of the best in our competition.
When you consider countries such as Scotland, with a very small player base and under-developed in rugby terms, Ireland, with a population of a tad over six million, and Wales, who struggle to sustain four competitive regional teams, you wonder how they can afford the kind of contracts that lure overseas players.
In my view the answer is rather simple. The broadcasting revenue is largely dependent on England and France’s viewership, which subsidises the Celtic nations.
There are four major revenue streams for SANZAR.
These are broadcasting revenue, gate takings, merchandising, and sponsorships.
Unfortunately it is rather difficult to debate these issues, as facts are difficult to obtain.
SANZAR does need to consider the expenses incurred to run a tournament of this magnitude. Europe is pocket-sized compared to the vast travel distances required for SANZAR.
The question is what SANZAR can do to increase revenue, decrease expenses and retain the top players in the southern hemisphere.
You aren’t going to stop general migration north, as there aren’t enough teams to keep players here. Nor does the answer lie in adding Super Rugby teams, as the increased revenue will flow straight into additional player salaries and travel.
At the end of the day the revenue pie will just be sliced into smaller portions for more teams, without boosting player income.
The further downside of increasing the number of teams could mean more games, more time required and more injuries coupled with player fatigue.
There was an idea thrown about in regards to a Heineken-Cup style format, with more teams into pools and then quarter finals and finals.
This idea sounds appealing, as that format could mean that even if teams are increased and the number of games retained, individual teams won’t play more, and the tournament length won’t be negatively affected.
But even then, SANZAR still needs to find additional markets for viewing. Additional markets don’t necessarily go in hand with participation from their countries.
We could consider the USA as a potential market, but need to acknowledge that their participation at this point is premature as they are still developing. Another way must be sought to attract their viewers.
A likely option is to include Argentina into the fold.
Rugby has become more high profile there recently, and with a population more than double Australia’s, it would make sense to do it.
Bringing South America – compatible with USA time zones – into the fold could afford SANZAR the opportunity to increase the profile of rugby to another 300 million people.
In fact, the games played in Argentina will provide more convenient viewing times for New Zealand and Australia than the games played in South Africa, as they’ll be played at breakfast time for the Antipodeans.
Only Perth will have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning.
We have to acknowledge that North America is not ready for the Super Rugby competition, but Argentina is. They need it as well as us, so it makes sense that they should join.
Obviously Argentina is not ready for three, four or five teams yet, but that can be phased in.
In the meantime, the other three nations can add teams to make up a total of either 16 or 20, to make four pools of four or five teams.
It is probably wise to plan an expansion to 20 teams. You would likely want Argentina to get to five teams in the next five years, expanding at a team per year.
Once Argentina has grown to five teams, the most cost effective way will be for each nation to have their own pool. However, the possibility is there to rank teams from 1-20 and then allocate them evenly through the four pools.
This would mean more travel, but you would have cross-national matches during the pool rounds.
Pool rounds with five teams would mean eight weeks (home and away) plus travel weeks, so 10 weeks in total to complete a pool round robin, another three weeks for the knock out rounds and final.
Add two weeks for travel, and we complete the Heineken Cup format in 15 weeks.
I really don’t think each country should have more teams, but rather have five very highly skilled teams with the 150 best players per country.
Of course evenue needs to increase in order to pay these players more competitive salaries, and reduce the appeal of the northern hemisphere’s financial carrot. But that’s what increasing the broadcast market is all about.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.