The current Conference format of the Super rugby Tournament has 15 teams playing a total of 120 pool matches, plus 5 additional matches for the play offs.
There are talks of the Super Rugby tournament being expanded in 2016, obviously with an aim to once again increase television revenue. I question the intentions of increasing the number of teams when in reality the quality of the tournament will be diluted through this.
Is it truly the best way to increase revenues when the SANZAR nations are already struggling to put 5 competitive teams each into the tournament and is it not strength vs strength that supporters want to see?
There is a case to be made that SANZAR is chasing money in an arse about face manner by thinking more teams bring in more revenue when the current setup is not optimized for available number of games that can be played.
Understandably the number of games played dictates the revenue, not only for gate money but also television revenue, but there is a way to retain the number of matches played and still increase the quality of the competition.
Consider 12 teams playing home and away fixtures against one another, completely ignoring the conference system. If twelve teams were to play home and away matches against all other teams you would have 132 matches played during the round robin, then include Semi-Finals and a final and you end up with 135 matches, ten matches more than is currently being played.
The benefits of reducing teams are numerous, more revenue for less teams, better quality rugby all round and a fair competition whereby no team escapes playing all other teams. Granted the local derbies are reduced from 20 matches to 12, but the credibility of the competition is enhanced and supporters should feel more satisfied that their team has a return leg against all comers.
SANZAR currently faces the challenge of deciding where they will take Super Rugby’s future. The expansion into other markets for the sake of bigger television audiences with more revenue that will have to be split amongst more teams would only reduce the quality and could become financially less viable. Surely this would mean that it would no longer live up to its name as a “Super Competition”, but would merely be a more global competition that represents a hotchpotch of teams assembled for the almighty dollar.
SANZAR need to consider the benefit of having fewer teams play more matches, and a double round robin would provide them with more revenue. Due to each participating country having to fund only four teams there will be more expendable cash to finance the next tier development in all three nations.
Australian supporters are begging for a sustainable next tier competition that will ensure development of players and provide a constant stream of new talent.
South Africa and New Zealand will also benefit as the extra revenue will increase their finances for the Currie Cup and ITM cup.
Are we really in favor of diluting the quality of the teams and expanding Super Rugby into other markets? There is of course the consideration that must be made for Argentina who will at some stage want to join Super Rugby as well.
Would it not be much better to have a closed competition between the four nations participating in the Rugby championship than expanding willy nilly into other markets?
The intention of Super Rugby has always been to increase revenue to make professional rugby sustainable in the SANZAR nations and with Argentina being included from this year, that responsibility should include them rather than anyone else. However the quality of the competition should never come under threat.
Argentina has a proud rugby tradition and a passionate following, being part of the SANZAR nations would surely improve their standing as a potential rugby powerhouse.
There is a lot of talk about increasing the number of Foreign imports to accommodate more teams to become competitive in Super Rugby, some have suggested the allowance to be as many as 5 players per Franchise, but realistically how does that help the domestic situation?
If five teams have five foreigners in a squad of 30 there are 125 domestic players from each nation being exposed to Super Rugby, whereas if there are four teams with no foreigners then there are 120 local players gaining experience.
So the foreign players in essence would then really just facilitate the existence of a fifth franchise, wouldn’t it? Consider the amount of salary paid to foreign players that could go towards developing local players.
SANZAR need to stand firm and consider the options carefully, growth isn’t always the best answer to increase revenues. The Private Business sector often consider their expenses vs revenue and optimize their profitability in local markets before expanding into foreign markets that may increase revenue, but might not always be the best way to go.
SANZAR has a high quality product (yes, sadly rugby has become a “product”) and the focus must always remain on the sustainability of the quality, mass production in any language dilutes quality and hence ultimately profitability.
Just a thought.
nomis
Guest
I'm not sure, but is the intention of those 3 teams to be the SR franchises, and the national comp to involve more than those 3?
Bob Anderson
Guest
As an American, I can state there is no market in the US for its own professional rugby competition, nor even for its own conference in SR. However, one team in SR would be a good way to build interest over time. The US (and Canada too) are already saturated with pro (and university) sports leagues (NFL, MLB,NBA, NHL, NCAA FB/BB, MLS, even minor league baseball and hockey). Starting a new US pro comp or even a multiple team conference in Super Rugby would be a failure. Look at lacrosse, a sport that is better known at least in certain parts of North America, and its never been able to become remotely viable as a continent wide professional sport ( look at MLL, NLL). That's just one example of how not to do it. That said, I am all for expanding Super Rugby into North America, but it needs to be done the right way. Not with a continent wide league or conference, but with one team at a high level to start which would roughly correspond to the US Eagles national team (you could do the same thing in Canada with their national team). The US Eagles would probably be able to hold its own in Super Rugby, if you try to dilute the player pool with multiple teams you'll just end up with more Rebels or Force in terms of results, only worse, and with even less public interest. One team, however, would probably do quite well in SR. Then you get coverage of its games onto a major cable network and even some FTA coverage if possible. You expose the public to quality rugby, a decent on field product, and build interest in SR and rugby in general before even considering more teams. This would also allow top US players to play professionally in the US against the top professional club teams in the world on a consistant basis; most would love that opportunity. As I live in Southern California, I would suggest basing the team in Los Angeles, lol. Seriously, though, it would make travel to Aus and NZ easier for sure. The main thing is not where you locate the games but getting it onto TV with a quality team.
Chino
Guest
In Australia the first Australian Football associations (the Victorian Football Association and the South Australian Football Association) both started in 1877 while the sport itself had been played in Victoria since 1859 and South Australia since 1860. While the NSW Rugby Union was founded in 1874 as the Southern Rugby Union and the Queensland Rugby Union started in 1883 as the Northern Rugby Union. So Australian Football and Rugby Union became organised at roughly the same time here in Australia, so I would say they have had approximately the same amount of time to develop their respective sports. On the topic of professionalism Australian Football went openly professional (Though still semi-professional, full professionalism did not occur till around 1990) in 1911 though it appears that players had been receiving undercover payments for decades previously. So in terms of professionalism the Australian Football had 84 more years of it then Australian Rugby.
Chino
Guest
In terms of the AFL attendances the grand final typically gets over 90,000 (the record was an attendance of 119,000 in 1970 before capacity was reduced.) while one team in Collingwood maintain average attendances of almost 60,000 while three other teams in Carlton, Richmond and Essendon average over 40,000 to their games. It is also not unusual for games between these teams to attract over 70,000 supporters.
Johnno
Guest
Crowden this week said there is board disharmony now with JON about the direction of Australian rugby. A warren livingstone at the balmiain rugby club is out hero and potential rescuer from the toxic poison that is JON and Nucifora. The ARU is the most backward time warped board i have ever known along with the Argentina board, who the iRB offered a super rugby comp to in 2007 to go pro but they are still deep rooted in amateurism. Forwad thinking with the pumas but domestically still very conservative. http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/union-news/get-well-soon-fellas-wallabies-have-an-entire-test-team-in-the-infirmary-20120913-25v41.html
Lachie
Guest
Sheek I fully agree about the difficulties in change in any organization let alone the ARU. As you say no great idea belongs to one person so do you not in an insular and frankly defensive organization like the ARU need a catalyst with out any prior opinion or built in prejudice to break open the debate and start finding solutions to Oz rugby in a strategic and long term way- this to me would mean dropping JON over the side and bringing a professional sports exec with a track record in running a sport which has the ingredients which are lacking right now in Australian rugby with no quick fix butdealing with the real issues INSIDE Australia instead of looking for a miracle ball from somewhere else
crip
Roar Pro
Yeah mate. Both codes were going great guns up till that point.
chris
Guest
I wish for Rugby's sake that it never went pro in 1996 and Super League never happened.
Kidk, I agree we don't have anything to fear, however I would not be keen to join the NH, if Super Rugby was cancelled then I would prefer we just do our own thing.
kid k
Guest
BB i have always seen these comments on the roar of people saying we should get kicked out(most of those from ausies) it used to scare me but now that i realise that it wouldnt really be that bad. Although i love super rugby if we left it would be that bad i mean since the turbulance seen in europe with the HK with the french and english teams threatening a breakaway tournament by 2015 this could be an ideal time for us to move into something with them and even more encouraging is that kenya, zimbabwe and nigeria are all developing their rugby kenya more than the others so in future we could do something with them so the future for us looks very bright but for those ausies that want us out you know be carefull what you wish for. Oh by the way did you hear about the lions setting up their own comp and maybe not needing to return to super rugby this could be interesting
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Nomis, If it has a team in Queensland, a team in the ACT and a team in NSW, it isnt a national competition. Just saying.
nomis
Guest
If there was a greater platform for each nation to have a more finically viable national comp, and if you only opened up SR to 3-4 teams each, what would they lose? 1. Dropped revenue is picked up by the domestic comps (perhaps) 2. the former SR teams that miss out in AUS, still play in a national domestic comp 3. Doesn't matter as much if a team misses out in SA and NZ because they are only franchises and those areas have a better domestic comp to play in now Am I missing something? What if they offered only 3 spots from each SANZAR country, surely they would send 3 franchises: SA (Bulls, Sharcks, Stormers), NZ (Crusaders, Blues, Chiefs), AUS (ACT, NSW, Qld)? And if SANZAR were still persistent on expansion to new areas it might be more manageable. If it were truncated, it could include more conferences, more countries, but with less teams per conference and per country, undiluted depth-filled rugby. Just a thought....
jmacredie
Roar Rookie
True it does come down to Getting more playing at junior level. get more clubs out there and get it in more schools. IRB should put more investment in to help the grass roots.
jmacredie
Roar Rookie
Yes Kingplaymaker one professional team v's one professional team. and the warriors do have a billionaire owner. The warriors have had a multi millionaire owner for over a decade. NRL teams have raped our young Rugby Union talent for about 30 plus years. I think that the NRL will expand in Australia with it's fight against the AFL long before it try's to progress further into NZ. NZ is a very small market I think SKY pays just over 1 million a year for NRL games compared to 200 million in Australia. Rugby Union is only behind the 2 codes you refer to in Australia. In the rest of the world both codes are way behind Rugby Union. One small example is Rugby Union is in the Olympics. Rugby League may get into the Commonwealth games one day and AFL won't get into either of them.
sledgeandhammer
Guest
Can people stop regurgitating this great product myth? The NRL has blanket media support pumping up what is in objective terms an average 'product'. Interestingly I just read a very negative article on modern AFL and most of the 96 comments were in agreement - have a read, apparently a lot of AFL fans hate their sport as much many Roarers hate rugby. Just goes to show how fickle Australian fans really are. http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/what-made-former-sports-journalist-andrew-ramsey-give-up-watching-afl-entirely/comments-e6frea83-1226473684265
jmacredie
Roar Rookie
Sorry Sheek Aussie isn't the be all and end all. Super Rugby is an awesome product easily as good if not better then afl and nrl. Rugby Union is a way behind in structure because it has only been professional for 17yrs instead of 100yrs of league. Australian Rugby has more players in total than what New Zealand has and the only reason they struggle for quality players is because of the league history. In New Zealand we are brought up being able to play a hard but open game close to the gain line whereas in Australia everyone is used to people being 10m back. For that reason that means you don't have to think or react as fast so when you meet a country like New Zealand in Rugby you struggle. Take Sonny as example he was an absolute super star in league from the age of 18/19. He was tearing league defences apart. It has taken him 5 years of training and reconditioning to get to stardom in rugby. That is not to say that he suddenly became the best centre in the game but he was certinly heading that way. I do agree that Australian rugby is not in great shape at the moment but that is a very short term thing. In the space of 17yrs it has gone through an incredible high up until 2003 and has gone through some very bad lows up until 2008. It is recovering at the moment and still gets good viewership for internationals, qld reds get good crowds (they averaged better then the brocos at suncorp) and it has major teams in all major centers. New Zealand also went through some bad times for a few years but has recovered in an exceptional way. Sanzar has created a brilliant contest with super rugby and as Australia gets more depth it will get more and more popular. Something that the nrl has done well is not be concerned about the amount of forign players in the comp. I think that there should be 6 super rugby teams in all conferences and not have any restriction on imports. So far the argintinians have been spectacular in the rugby championship, so imagine what they would be like if they had 30 odd players playing in super rugby. With a few Americans, South Americans Canadians, Japanese and Pacific islanders in there it would be even more special. With a few of those countrymen in there play the odd compitition game in those countries and pretty soon you would have a comp worth a few billion a year and Australians would be right behind it. It is only in Australia that some people think that the Nrl and Afl is the best sporting product. In all other countries Rugby Union comes well before them.
sheek
Guest
biltongbek, It's my vision Argentina teams will eventually join super rugby (HC-style).
Phil Bird
Roar Guru
Agreed
Phil Bird
Roar Guru
Great to hear Wilbur This is a brilliant. The reason we actually care, at the end of the day, is because we want to see rugby brought to others Go the rebels!
Phil Bird
Roar Guru
Tc mate why don't you leave the development of Australian rugby to someone else? That's the worst comment I've read on the roar yet. Totally defeatist!