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At a time when rugby is struggling to remain profitable, and in Australia’s case relevant, the Southern Unions and the IRB need to look at the overall structure and nature of professional rugby.
Professionalism and Super Rugby brought many benefits, but also opened up a Pandora’s box of challenges. Union is in the odd situation of trying to compete professionally with a largely amateur structure.
Money is the obvious challenge, and the root of most others such as development and player retention.
In the cases of New Zealand and South Africa it is probably fair to say that a point of saturation has been reached. There are unlikely to be untapped markets for viewers or players.
It’s difficult to see how more money can be made or more players developed. Their problem lies in worldwide market disparity. France, Japan and the UK can afford to outbid them and that is not likely to change.
Australia has a different, more difficult challenge, in that not only are they fighting the call of offshore cash, but also two giant domestic rivals.
Barring some year of apocalyptic, game-destroying scandals (ok, this could conceivably happen in league!) the NRL and AFL are not going anywhere, and are likely to continue to dominate the Australian domestic scene.
Bill Pulver has recently announced a very poor financial outlook, and rather than paying more to retain players a paycut is on the cards.
No matter how much you hype up the lure of playing for your country, this would lead to more offshore losses. Today’s players do not, on the whole, have degrees and professions to fall back on once the knees give out.
You can’t eat gold, black or green caps, nor can you pay them into a superfund.
Where can they get more money? Calls have been made for expansion of the domestic competitions and a reduction of Tests.
Expansion costs money, is only borderline feasible in Australia and with domestic saturation the way it is in New Zealand and South Africa will it ever produce the money needed?
Would expansion within the Unions really get that many more people to turn up to a match or turn on the TV?
International expansion has the possibility of adding new audiences, but has the twin perils of expensive, time-consuming travel and timezone differences.
The Unions big pay days currently come from internationals. These teams are picked in an rather amateur fashion, have limited training and preparation time and probably, rarely play to the full potential of the players in the dozen outings a year they get.
Rather than reducing internationals to accommodate a risky, low-reward domestic expansion, perhaps the solution lies in the other direction.
It’s time for international rugby to become a full time job, with players playing under their country’s colours for a full nine months of the year. Not a meager 10 or 12 Tests, but more along the lines of 30 to 35. This will spell the end to the era of domestic rugby hamstringing what should be the pinnacle of the competition.
Two fully professional conferences would be created, comprising the northern six nations and the southern six nations with Japan and Samoa joining the current SANZAR group.
The year would consist of an internal home-and-away series in each group followed by six months of hosting or making international tours.
Tours would go back to the old format of a tour match and multiple Tests between hosts and visitor. The scheduling would see each of the top tier nations meeting either home or away once each two year cycle.
With permanent squads and development academies, each major nation will also commit to establishing a second tier team which can make a limited number of tours to emerging nations in their zone of influence to help the continuing growth of the game.
The potential payoff in advertising, TV rights and gate takings is enormous. An immediate 35 development spots open up in the domestic competitions.
And with the best players training and playing continuously under the national coach, rugby itself would rise to a whole new level in skill and entertainment value.
Madness or genius?
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.