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The potential demise of the Otago Rugby Union (ORU), which has existed for 126 years, displays the dark side of modern sports. Namely, money, and the pride that comes with it.
Rising player salaries, increased stadium costs and dwindling crowd numbers are all impacting heavily on well founded and seemingly knowledgeable clubs worldwide.
In the instance of the ORU it was ill-advised decisions regarding player salaries and the worth of their obsolete stadium, The House of Pain. You could blame them for over-paying players, but is that not the price of success in the modern era?
The pressure placed on a modern team in a world dominated by media, advertising and corporate sponsorship is enormous. Results speak louder than words, tradition, history or legend.
Sponsors rarely want to be associated with teams that cannot win, or attract decent crowds and TV coverage. If they choose to sign with these teams, they will rake you over the coals before they part with cash.
This plague is not limited to small unions or sports with a limited audience. Manchester United, the most recognisable brand in world sport, currently carries a debt of 439 million pounds. This is a decrease from 508 million pounds 12 months ago.
While Man U are still afloat, other teams have spontaneously combusted in spectacular fashion to find themselves toiling away in the dark depths of English football’s divisional levels.
Portsmouth and Leeds United were the most prominent of these. After Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 2008 there were rumours that they had spent 120 percent of their turnover on player salaries. Greek politicians must have given them a standing ovation.
It is unclear whether this was a case of pure greed or that the club felt the pressure to purchase high-profile players to help them perform in Europe, become a dominant force in the EPL, or satisfy fans.
Leeds United took out substantial loans based on the assumption that if they paid Robbie Fowler and Seth Johnson large sums they would continue to make it to the UEFA Champions League by finishing in the top four in the EPL. They would then be able to repay these loans with their share of European TV money… uh oh.
They finished fifth that year and the faecal matter hit the fan in extraordinary fashion. They had to sell top players to help repay the loan. First Rio Ferdinand, closely followed by Lee Bowyer, Nigel Martyn, Fowler, Robbie Keane and Harry Kewell, while he could still stay on a pitch for 90 minutes.
Very quickly they were relegated, and while the administrators were left out of it, the club still fell into a financial black hole and has never recovered. The costs and risks associated with success in the EPL are astounding.
This unbridled spending often results in the teams which are owned by billionaires, or who are willing to bankrupt their organisation for success, winning titles. This seems to detract from the whole point of sport.
Sport should be the perfect contest between athleticism and intelligence, rather than who has the biggest bank balance and wants to take the biggest financial risk. It should be the performance as a whole, from the front office to the players on the pitch, working as a team, which decides results.
The price of success has seen teams forced to merge, most notably in the National Rugby League. The Northern Bears have now been swallowed by the Manly Sea Eagles. Saint George and Illawarra teamed up and the Wests Tigers are made up of Western Suburbs and Balmain.
All of these clubs survived as singular entities, however once player salaries increased with the introduction of professionalism, they couldn’t cope.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) also has its own issues. The Association has had to take control of the New Orleans Hornets just to keep it afloat. This is the result of over-expansion in the quest to make some quick money in the hope to secure a larger market share of sporting viewers, thus making their league more successful.
The AFL is doing this right now. It has infiltrated previously uncharted territory on the Gold Coast and Western Sydney in an attempt to become the most powerful sporting code in Australia. This may have backfired as only 700 spectators turned up to see GWS play the Gold Coast.
They have neglected the fact that teams such as North Melbourne can barely pay their stadium costs every match because of a lack of crowd attendance. Surely the league should be secure before expansion occurs.
Not every league in the world is going to have a salary cap or have stringent financial controls. But isn’t there a serious issue here? Is the cost of success becoming so large that we could end up with a sporting version of the global financial crisis?
I feel like this is something which we should concern ourselves with. I am not proposing we go back to amateur days, with the lifelong injuries these players endure. Modern players deserve to be paid and have this as full time employment for a brief period in their lives.
After all, they are the modern day gladiators who fulfill our bloodlust in a socially acceptable way.
If the powers that be continue to ignore this alarming issue then I am confident in predicting catastrophic failures like what we are seeing at Otago become the norm rather than the exception.
The Mayan people predicted that 2012 would be the end of the world. Maybe we won’t have time to watch ourselves destroy the sporting universe.
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.