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The Brumbies, Israel Folau, floods of players leaving Super Rugby after the 2015 World Cup and anxious fan mail are the big issues for rugby this week.
1. The ACT Brumbies are in financial trouble
A couple of days ago I received this abrupt and anxious email from a rugby fan: ‘Heya Spiro, As a Brumbies fan I’m worried they won’t be around in two years.’
And the cause of his worry? An informed article written by Chris Wilson published recently (17 December 2014) in The Canberra Times with the headline: ACT Brumbies board gets a big shake-up.
The details of what follows are taken from this article which explains why the shake-up is necessary.
The former chairman of the Brumbies, Sean Hammond, in the face of a ‘record financial loss,’ has been replaced with a new chairman Rob Kennedy. Kennedy, according to the article, has not served on the board before.
Three new board members were also appointed, along with new chairman, in a night of the long knives at the annual general meeting of the franchise.
Kennedy is an executive of the Canberra accountancy and consultancy firm Synergy. Lisa Thorburn, ACT director of Datacom, Peter Callaughan (a representative of the junior clubs) and Scott Fardy (the players’ representative replacing Stephen Moore) are the new board members.
The new board are inheriting a franchise in deep financial trouble.
The Brumbies go into 2015 without a major sponsor to replace the University of Canberra.
The franchise suffered a record A$1.07 million financial loss in 2014.
Last year the Brumbies sold their Griffith property for A$11.4 million. Sean Hammond, the former chairman, according to the Canberra Times ‘has previously admitted only about A$2 million remains’ from the proceeds of this sale.
The Griffith property sale was supposed, apparently, to provide an investment for the future viability of the franchise.
Grants from the ARU were A$6.4m last year, which includes an increase in the number of Brumbies in the Wallabies and their payments.
Match day revenue dropped 31 per cent to A$1.6m. Sponsorship receipts were ‘also on the slide,’ down to A$3.96. Membership income remained steady.
It is any wonder, when reading these figures, that Brumbies fans are worried about the future viability of the franchise?
Hopefully, the ARU and the new Brumbies board will come up with a plan to put the franchise back on track, financially. But what is worrying about all this is that the ARU does not appear to be proactive in any obvious way to what is happening.
How should crises like this be handled? With some decisive action from the ARU, I would argue.
Some years ago when the Queensland Reds were in financial strife, not unlike the Brumbies situation, John O’Neill, the chief executive of the ARU, instigated an intervention. This intervention involved the ARU laying down a program of reform at all levels of the Reds organisation. There was some initial resistance but the ARU forced through the necessary changes.
The project was so successful that the Reds now have a membership of around 40,000. They won their first Super Rugby title in 2011. They have gone from a failing franchise to the most viable Super Rugby franchise in Australia.
What is the ARU’s response to what is happening with the Brumbies? Where is the plan to get the franchise up to its glory days? Has the ARU attached conditions to its annual payment to the Brumbies?
Everyone knows that running sporting franchises in Australia is difficult, especially in the football codes where the competition for fans, players and eye-balls (at the game or on television) is more cut-throat here than anywhere else in the world.
But the answer for the ARU is to be pro-active, as it has been in the past, and in a way the New Zealand Rugby Union (who else?) were when faced with similar financial problems with its ITM provinces.
The New Zealand Rugby Union reshaped the ITM tournament. They forced cuts in administration and management. And required detailed, workable plans from the provinces on how they were going to become solvent, in the short and long term.
The ITM tournament has been turned around. Where are the plans for the Brumbies and the Melbourne Rebels, another Super Rugby franchise in deep financial trouble?
2. The exodus of players from Super Rugby to Europe will be a flood after Rugby World Cup 2015. Should it be stopped?
Simon Poidevin made the shrewd observation when he ended his wonderful rugby career after the Rugby World Cup 1991 triumph that players would use the Rugby World Cup four-year cycle as a marker for their retirements.
There is a slight adjustment to the Poidevin theory in that players in Australia and New Zealand aren’t ending their careers in this part of the world, making them unavailable (right now) for national selection, and playing out their twilight years in Europe and Japan.
Adam Ashley-Cooper and James Horwill are the big Australian names who are leaving Australia after the Rugby World Cup 2015. Ashley-Cooper is going to Bordeaux (someone has to do it, I guess) and Horwill is going to Harlequins for the next three years.
Both these players have had long and distinguished careers in Australia, in Super Rugby and for the Wallabies. They deserve to cash in towards the end of their playing careers. Horwill (29), though, has not ruled coming back to the Reds (and the Wallabies?) after his stint with Harlequins. He will be, after this experience, still six years younger than Brad Thorn, who is still playing strongly in the UK.
The other aspect of senior players leaving Australia is that it opens up room in Super Rugby and later for the Wallabies of young, talented players to get their chance to make a name for themselves.
At this stage I see no sense in allowing players who have gone overseas to be eligible for the Wallabies. They have to have some inducement to come back to Australia, as James O’Connor is going to do in order to be eligible for Rugby World Cup 2015.
The case of Israel Folau will be interesting. The ARU could offer him the inducement of Sevens Rugby at the Rio Olympics in 2016 to stay on after Rugby World Cup 2015, the deal the New Zealand Rugby Union has worked out with Sonny Bill Williams. But if Folau wants to leave Australian rugby, then so be it.
I do see some merit, though, in allowing players to be eligible for selection in the Wallabies (or the All Blacks, for that matter) if they are playing for a Super Rugby franchise which is not in their country of origin.
This sort of arrangement would not stop players of the stature of Dan Carter (Racing Metro) or Ma’a Nonu (Toulon) from capping off their careers in the ultra lucrative French market. But it would help players who
for some reason or another can’t get a start in their own franchise to make a name for themselves out of their own country.
Under this system, Steve Devine might have become a Wallaby rather than an All Black.