The head spins when trying to decipher the power plays that are emerging as global rugby’s landscape gets ready for a sizeable shake-up.
Who needs to work with who to succeed? Is all what it seems, or are there ulterior motives? Where do the financial imperatives end and the public relations pitches start?
Of course, the Super Rugby axing of Japan’s Sunwolves is all just speculation for now as we wait for SANZAAR’s official announcement on the future of the competition later on Friday.
However, it’s all but certain that the Sunwolves – in their fourth season in Super Rugby – will say sayonara from the top-tier southern hemisphere competition at the end of 2020.
The mail is that SANZAAR want to go for a 14-team competition, with a new broadcast deal set to be negotiated to start in 2021.
That would likely result in a return to a round-robin format, meaning the end of the unpopular conference system.
Simpler. Easier. It’s apparently what the fans have been telling them in their marketing surveys and focus groups.
Hayden Parker reacts after a Sunwolves loss. (Photo by Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images for SUNWOLVES)
The speculation is that the Sunwolves might find a home in what could be described as a second-division Asian Super Rugby competition run in conjunction with Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s Global Rapid Rugby.
The demoted Sunwolves would join the Western Force, Fiji, Samoa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and potentially a second Australian team.
One of the more intriguing details of the media speculation was that according to the Sydney Morning, the new Asian Super Rugby set-up would be a SANZAAR-endorsed competition part-owned by Forrest, Australia’s mining billionaire.
Why would SANZAAR – an organisation whose members are the South African rugby union, the New Zealand rugby union, Rugby Australia and Argentine rugby union – feel the need to endorse a competition that includes teams almost entirely outside their membership?
The only one that falls inside the catchment membership, the Western Force, is the same one that SANZAAR flicked a few seasons ago.
Needless to say, Force players, fans, coaches and administration would prefer to flick the bird to SANZAAR and Rugby Australia.
But perhaps this has the potential to become a symbiotic relationship.
How? The teams that the Asian Super Rugby competition would consist of are from nations that don’t easily attract a big rugby following.
Even if rugby is Fiji’s national sport, its small population of about 900,000 and being a relatively poor country means their power at the negotiation table is fairly weak.
Idealistic rugby fans might not like it, but these factors matter to administrators as they map out the structures of a new competition.
Maybe more directly these factors matter to broadcasters, who want lots of passionate fans with high disposable incomes to tune in to matches, and advertisements.
Perth, Hong Kong and Singapore include people with high disposable incomes, but their rugby markets are relatively small.
Even Twiggy, with all his business nous and golden touch, would struggle to sell an Asian Super Rugby competition to broadcasters.
The markets are small and they don’t – and won’t – have enough big-name players to give the competition kudos, despite Twiggy’s insistence that they will soon sign a slew of global rugby stars.
Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)
There’s curiosity and admiration to have the courage to change some rugby rules to jazz up the game and increase ball-in-play time, but it would take a decent gamble for broadcasters to do a deal.
So who could help? SANZAAR, who have a public image problem. They’ve tried their best to spark up Super Rugby through expansion, but it’s been a failure.
They got all bloated, and then had to trim down. The damage was that they peed off not only the folk from Perth, but also players and fans from two South African teams: the Bloemfontein-based Cheetahs and the Port Elizabeth-based Southern Kings. And now, the Sunwolves.
The most ardent critics would say that SANZAAR have treated them as their play things, and then when it hasn’t worked out as they had hoped, booted them to the kerb with little love. There isn’t a whole lot of goodwill from rugby fans towards SANZAAR.
The recent Super Rugby axings have left many to view them as cold-hearted. They’ve been accused of being aloof, with little public communication and interaction.
How could SANZAAR redeem themselves and show the region that they care? How could they prove that they’re not all about banking the biggest broadcast contract, but are sincerely motivated to ensure the health and sustainability of rugby in the Asia-Pacific?
By packaging up two broadcast deals. That is, they go to the negotiating table soon to sell the rights to the new 14-team Super Rugby competition as well as the second-tier Asian Super Rugby competition.
It’s both or nothing. The broadcasters can’t take one without the other.
There are practical reasons why this could work well, particularly in terms of scheduling to prevent overlaps in kick-off times between the two competitions.
The member unions from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji and Samoa – along with Twiggy – would surely embrace this kind of collaboration if it eased the financial load of kickstarting their new competition.
It may even mean SANZAAR taking a hit financially to get the Asian competition some media exposure and give it a chance to grow. But it’s a burden they may have to bear, even in the strange circumstances in which only one of the four nations within SANZAAR would have a competing team.
It might prove to be good business to make it their business, because marketing surveys and focus groups wouldn’t be necessary to confirm that rugby fans would want SANZAAR to show some love for their neighbours in the Pacific and Asia.
Timbo (L)
Roar Guru
Will, I am a bit disjointed in your article. You appear have taken content from a SMH article that has since been refuted by GRR and dressed it with some weasel words. What is your problem with GRR? A lot of research was put into the viability of it. Sure, I am biassed being in WA but I am not the only one that thinks SR has lost its luster. A high stakes competition designed to draw in the best of the best. It has working in the Northern hemisphere, they have most of our players over there for the same reason. Get some balance
Timbo (L)
Roar Guru
Interesting spin you put on this, Sunwolves are the only team that get charged to Participate in the competition. It is a gentle reminder that SR is a business first, a sport second. I am sure there are reasons for the deal, - they probably bought their way into the competition. But then again, the Rebels saved their bacon in the same way, The Victorian government made significant financial commitments to what was at the time the ARU. Money makes the world round.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
I don’t know anything, but I suspect they were asked to contribute an amount that would at least equal the current commercial arrangement. That could be entirely wrong though
AndyS
Guest
So it all depends on whether the JRU is taking money out. As with others my understanding was not, being guests rather than full partners. If so, then where Australia puts in TV money then takes that cash out as revenue, Japan was being asked to put in equivalent money but get nothing back. I seriously doubt the JRU was only being asked to contribute a participation fee so as to receive the same sum back again as revenue. If nothing else, SANZAR would have called that a wash so as not to attract tax. I definitely couldn't see there being a tax advantage to the double handling. The thought that is amusing me is that people talk about an Asia Pacific competition as paving the way for some future where SA leaves and SR collapses. If Japan is a major partner in such a competition and RA/NZR come knocking, I wonder whether SANZAR has just set the annual price they will be asked to meet for each team they want to include?
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
I wonder if the Sunwolves were a bad venture for the JRFU to begin with.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Australia is putting money in. TV money. What we don’t know is if this is because Japan doesn’t add much TV revenue.
Paulo
Roar Rookie
The cost of participation is an interesting one. Yes, the Sunwolves were asked to pay more than the other franchises, but also I would assume given the logistics, the cost to the other franchises to play the Sunwolves in Tokyo or Singapore or wherever was also higher. Without a doubt when you look at the costs of playing in Tokyo vs Dunedin for the Crusaders, you can see a clear difference. It was this fee based on the assumption that the JRFU would get a win fall from hosting the RWC? And in part would that have helped sway the votes to give the RWC to Japan? It seems the timing is not a coincidence, but the JRFU refusal to foot the bill they can probabaly afford and SAANZAR probably expected them to foot, is the change in circumstance that has rustled in their expulsion. It looks like there should have been a clear performance management plan in place, in that, for the JRFU if the Sunwolves do not return this much revenue they not subsidise them further.
Paulo
Roar Rookie
It’s decision by committee. Which never works. You end up with the least worst option, rather than the best option. It’s what gave Australia the spread called iSnack 2.0, if anyone remembers that travesty of name, short lived as it was. Even if the decision didn’t change, announcing it a few months out from the RWC hosted in Japan seems idiotic. As duplicitous as it would be, wouldn’t it be smarter to wait until after the RWC to make the announcement, especially as there are no changes to the 2020 season as such.
AndyS
Guest
It is called constructive dismissal. A billion yen is $12M a year, on top of the cost of running the team. Do you think Australia is putting $50M into the competition on top of team funding? It is the near equivalent of RA being told they can keep their SR teams, but only if they hand over their whole share of the broadcast money from that and the Rugby Championship.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
What was it previously?
jeznez
Roar Guru
They bowed out because SANZAAR upped the cost of staying to 1 billion JPY per annum. They wanted to stay but couldn't afford to at that price.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Remember what we’ve now learnt now is it isn’t exactly putting the Sunwolves under the bus. Japan have changed their view and won’t support the team going forward. I was against it based on what we previously knew, but with the full facts, supporting the Sunwolves (inc financially) would be hypocritical after cutting the Force. Interesting that rumors I’ve heard are that RA supported SA on this as leverage for a bigger slice of the pie. The issue is that with less home games and local content that will just help pay the bills rather than increase revenue.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Your comment is RA needs to thing about the grassroots in the same breath as saying the AFL is ahead because it’s introducing kids to professionalism so early. You contradict yourself in the same paragraph...
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Sanzaar have the most difficult job. Multiple markets. Multiple stakeholders. Massively differing issues in each market. They get the worst outcomes, partially because they have the toughest job.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
You don’t consider that a major factor is that Japan have chosen to bow out. Should RA and NZRU have fought for a stakeholder that didn’t want to be there?
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
It’s a cultural thing. I’m at a game tonight. Probably 80k here and it’s a shocking game with more behinds than goals from both teams. Quality of the spectacle barely factors into it. It’s unbelievable.
Istanbul Wingman
Roar Guru
The Jaguares are staying and deservedly so. But that's going to be a lot of travel!
Bob
Guest
Sanzaar are the worst sports Administrators whos short sightness as cost them at every turn and created a downward spiral for super rugby, i do not see why any Asia comp would want Sanzaar siphoning off the small amount of money they will make for "endorsement Rights''. it is not like they should like to sanzaar for a good governance model. Hopefully they can have centralised administrator owned by the clubs like the NFl with a clear stratergy to grow the league and grass roots participation.
kick n clap
Guest
Sorry, I thought you were talking about the Western Force? Their trophy Cabinet was really full wasn't it?
jeznez
Roar Guru
Fully agree GRR should not link their broadcast agreement to Super Rugby. Given what happneded to the Force they will want to ensure they don't wind up beholden to SANZAAR. As I understand it the key endorsement they are seeking (contrary to other club competitions) is that Twiggy wants Force players to be eligible for Wallaby selection. I really hope that the Sunwolves wind up in GRR and hope the competition thrives.