Twiggy: I'll launch my comp with or without RA approval

15% of these players spread between 6 teams would be 10 per team. I haven't checked the timing but does the IPRC fall outside the Japan competition window? If so, maybe a lot of those players would be into IPRC?

It will compete for viewers in WA and in the countries that have teams participating but that is about it I reckon.

1. His "wealth" went up by $1Bn last year so I don't think it is relevant mate. He has also signed on with Bill Gates & others to gift the majority of his (their) fortunes away before they die. 2. At an annualised 5-6% return he is making $250-300m per annum so losing $50m or even $100m over 3 years on a cause he is passionate about isn't going to move him one bit from his chosen course of action. 3. You could triple the losses I calculated and it would still be half the "hundreds of millions" you referred to that I was responding to.

If he has already donated a huge chunk of his wealth then doesn't that seem possible it may reduce the amount he has left and is willing to give away? Aussie SR teams have budgets of that. None of that is travel costs. These are covered by the ARU and SANZAAR. So it won't cost 50% of that. In order to pay players more it will cost more also. He will be able to sell media rights and sponsorship absolutely. But I don't see these being equal to Super Rugby for at least a decade if ever. There is a way it won't cost that much yes. But that doesn't correlate with the claims of what this will be.

Thank you!

Well he gave away $400 m last year so I don't doubt he is. However it won't cost him that much as he'll be able to sell the media rights and the clubs will get their own sponsorship. Maybe $5-8m per team (they will need to each raise $1-3m themselves in sponsorship on top) from him less media rights. He might get away with a loss diffecompetitiona total $30-50m over 4 years. Remember it is only a 6 team competition vs SR 18 (now 15) teams. Most Aussie SR teams have a budget of about $14-15m per annum so easy to imagine needing about 50% of that for this competition with its lesser travel. If he is successful he will be the hero of WA and of Australian and World Rugby in a world cup year. That is a pretty powerful driver for his ego and $50m in petty cash to achieve it is drop in the ocean for him at a little over 1% of his personal wealth.

Absolutely Gus

Either you missed the point of the comment, or it is warranted

Keep your snide remarks to yourself sport!! It's not warranted

Well aren’t you just a genius with the benefit of hindsight...

As I piru, as I.

Well I said it now!!

As do I. Which is why I think the extent of his wealth isn’t relevant. What is relevant is what amount of that wealth he’s willing to risk.

Not trying to justify anything. I was responding to Chappy statement that if he does it, he'll drop a load of cash and then pull out. My point is that is not our problem, or any reason why he should be stopped from doing so, and certainly not a reason why rugby should refuse to take the money.

I think IPRC could work for long enough to make a difference. there are 200 plus Aussies and 300 kiwis of reasonable standard playing in Europe - you have large numbers of islanders playing overseas as well. With globalisation etc you have expat communities in Singapore, HK, Beijing that could provide the beginnings of a fan base. Sevens (and Twiggy has talked about involving sevens in the IPRC) is an olympic sport and China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka could look at this as part of their olympic development. He only needs two or three marquees for 6 teams - 18 players in total and then some good quality squads behind them and build pathways to local involvement. In the 1990s their were a couple of Chinese army players who played in Brisbane 1st grade who were good players - not super rugby standard perhaps but that was 20 years ago. I think he has done some smart stuff on this - others would have talked about 10-12 teams but he's kept it manageable at 6 and it only has to potentially attract enough interest for 2 years that it then gets folded into a new Asia pacific comp. The time zone isnt bad - 7pm WA is around 11am UK time i think so you are potentially going to act as a pre-lim warm-up game for the European games. i acknowledge that there are plenty of reasons that it could fail but it doesnt have to last that long to make a difference

There are literally hundreds of countries playing rugby - why wouldn't you look to the USA, Canada, Georgia, Argentina, Italy, Japan etc etc for your players?

I don't think anyone would be happy to lose hundreds of millions, but I doubt Twiggy is going into this with his eyes closed.

I don't care if Twiggy dumps every cent he has into money and loses it. It won't hurt me one bit. But if you are trying to justify that something will be successful, you're gonna need better reasoning than "because Twiggy has lots of money".

Who's saying rugby would care? What I am saying is you can talk about all his money all you want, unless he's willing to lose that money on this venture, so therefore willing to invest that money, then it's not much good to anybody.

Actually, probably hundreds of millions on Asian rugby. Good for them, less good for Australia, but that is the situation created. But not a bad analogy otherwise...so maybe a bungalow for WA, but a big improvement for someone on the street after being the victim of predatory lending and evicted from their home.