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I can’t escape the irony in the way professional rugby union is set up in the Australasia.
Those who run the game are generally successful businessmen, captains of industry and finance, disciples of free market capitalism and entrepreneurship, and probably, in the vast majority of cases, Liberal Party (or National Party in New Zealand) supporters.
Most of them have had successful business careers in the private sector. These men are the rugby elite, a clique that includes Bill Pulver, Steve Tew, the board members of the Australian and New Zealand Rugby Unions, the CEOs of the various franchises, and sundry other members of the Blazer Brigade who tag along and exert influence from time to time.
The irony is that this rugby elite – who are, in the main, believers in free market capitalism and entrepreneurialism, and who have themselves lived according to and benefitted from the fruits of that ideology – continue to insist rugby union in this part of the world should be organised like a 1950s Siberian goat farm, whereby SANZAR and the unions control and own everything.
This control over the players, coaches and teams is the antithesis of the free market spirit these people live and die by, and is all-ecompassing. Furthermore, it is holding rugby union back behind football, AFL and NRL in this part of the world, and it has reached ridiculous levels.
Criticism of referees by players and coaches is strictly curbed in a shocking limitation on freedom of speech. I once read somewhere that SANZAR rugby union referees have more protection from verbal abuse and criticism than Pope Francis I.
Players cannot play outside of their home country if they want to play for the national team. This is a draconian measure that significantly limits a player’s ability to earn income over the span of their career, and amounts to corporate blackmail.
The five New Zealand franchises can’t even pick their own kit supplier, or main sponsor. And, if you want to invest money in a franchise, you have to do so ‘for the love of the game’ as you won’t get any return on your investment because the unions will cream the profits and control everything from marketing (not that there is any), player rosters, branding, jersey design, and salaries.
The Australian and New Zealand unions exert this control because they are paranoid about the effects private ownership will have on their respective national squads.
You can’t argue that since the game went professional, the Wallabies and All Blacks have enjoyed excellent success, both on and off the field. But any monkey could make money off the All Blacks brand, and there’s an argument that, as one of the best international sports teams in history, it should be making much more.
With the establishment of the NRC, the Australian Rugby Union has missed a golden opportunity to create a well-funded and well-promoted league that will seriously compete with the other codes. Super Rugby can’t even do it at the moment, so why does anyone think the NRC will? I’ve never seen so much fanfare for a competition where only one game a week is going to be shown live on television.
Apologists will say “You have to start somewhere”, but if you’re going to start with that, you may as well not start at all.
And here’s the point. The Bill Pulvers of this world will say “Rugby has to live within its means”, and “new competitions need to be financially sustainable”. But if you are going to limit investment and control of the NRC to a Soviet-style entity like the ARU, only a pitiful amount of money is going to be available.
The means within which the NRC has to live will be ridiculously small. In the battle for the hearts and minds of the Australian people, rugby union brings a peashooter to the table.
And here’s what I can’t understand. The ARU, NZRU and SANZAR boards, the boards of the Super 12 franchises and the top clubs, as well as other upper-level management in the rugby elite are stacked with people who’ve made names and a good standard of living for themselves by adhering the pursuit of commercial success.
They know private investment is the most efficient way to allocate resources and make progress in a highly competitive world. They know they don’t have enough money to compete with the NRL or AFL. They know de-regulated private investment will unlock millions of dollars in desperately needed funding for the NRC.
They vote for political parties who push this ‘pro-business’ or ‘free enterprise’ agenda. Yet these same people refuse to let the control of rugby out of their hands.
When it comes to rugby, somehow those dearly-held laissez-faire principles go out the window, and they want to control everything.
The NRC should have been a club-based competition where a group of existing (and predominantly Sydney-based) clubs were privatised and bought by rich entrepreneurs; similar in structure and organisation to the NRL or Top 14 in France. Such a competition would give rugby union the best chance possible in the Australian market, because it would have unlocked millions of dollars in private investment funding.
If the ARU board was running, say, a private software company that had the next best thing to compete with Microsoft or Apple, but just didn’t have enough money to take the product to the next level, their collective expertise would tell them they would need to either borrow money, or seek private investment.
In the sports context, borrowing money is out of the question, but why should private investment be, especially when all your training, instincts and experience supports it?
As rugby fans, we tend to look in awe at the size and scale of the English Premier League, or Indian Premier League or National Football League. We wonder how localised competitions like the AFL, Top 14 and NRL can unlock billions of dollars in TV money between them.
The short answer is that these competitions are successful because they are not run by the ARU, New Zealand Rugby Union or SANZAR. They are not shackled by an unhealthy control of all things commercial, or by the conflict of interest created by focusing on the national team.
Investment in these competitions and clubs is open and free. Billionaire entrepreneurs are welcomed, not shunned. This is what the NRC needed. It’s what Super Rugby needs.
This is not a rugby revolution, but simply an application of the very same principles the elites who run rugby have already used to achieve success in their own private and professional lives.
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.