Rugby in Australia can no longer afford the status quo

If the government closes down your business for a year or two, that can tend to happen. Wasps moved from London to Coventry and purchased the soccer stadium that the soccer club had lost which caused bad blood in the local area. With no fans, no concerts and no people staying at the Hotel for events the money to pay back the government loans due to covid made them go bankrupted. They have been quickly bought up and will be back in the Prem in 2 years. Of Covid hadn't happened the money from the hotel and non rugby events at the stadium is more than enough to fund the business. While I only mentioned 2 teams there are many more like Exeter and Racing. Benetton use their rugby team as a sponsorship having changed its name from Treviso to Benetton. Capri Sun owner has Capri Sun on his Stade jerseys. The difference between SA players and NZ players is who are the players advertising. SL will build up the AB brand which is fine but it only works as long as the best players stay and NZR have sole rights. BB and RM will not be able to be commercialised by the ABs after the WC. Even if they could keep all their players only 4-5 players in a team are stars. In SA each team is selling stars so instead of just the best boks it is the best stormers, Bulls and Sharks players. Can NZR afford the $1m a year for each big star player SL produces as that will be the value of the player on the open market and if NZR can't keep the players then the brand starts to fall apart. If you are paying 1m for the stars then players who get into the AB squad will want 500k and soon the SR cap becomes unsustainable. If SL deal works it will cause massive wage inflation in NZ which then makes SRP even less competitive.

If you can find a financial amount you are better than all the media outlets that I can find as none have put a value on it. SR was sold as part of the RC like it is everywhere so not sure that number even exists. You may have noticed media deals are becoming announced less and less with a financial amount. You can believe that SR will pull in the same viewing figures as 2022 in the US even though the landscape has changed.

1996 two teams top four two teams bottom three. 1997 all four teams in the middle half of the table. In those years the overall mean was 6/12 one year and 7/12 the other - if you want to draw any conclusions from the years you cherry picked it's that they got the number of teams right. Now take the next four years you cherry picked 2007-2010 when the Bulls had their golden period. Out of 14 teams the average South African position was 7th, 9th, 9th, 9th. Ok you had one elite team, but overall performance was poor (NZ had 6th, 6th, 6th 8th.) Even your cherry picked period indicated too many teams. It's the same story when the Lions were doing well. So even using the years you cherry picked, the conclusion is that four teams was ok, five and six their depth couldn't cope. And you only looked at the minority of years when one of five or six teams did well, the overall record was much worse.

Yes Exeter and Racing have these side businesses funding their clubs, but you are cherry picking one team in each league. Not everyone has that sort of opportunity even in England and France's big economies, let alone smaller economies like New Zealand. You can't expect to finance a whole league like that. And why not mention Wasps who had a similar model and went bust? With regards to commercialising players, you do realise that the big money even in South Africa is for test players? NZR does commercialise their players, you can see them in commercials in Japan and elsewhere. They have also spoken about how younger generations identify with individuals and recognise that they need to monetise this far more. One of the things you don't seem to grasp is that Silver Lake has been brought in because they have the expertise to maximise these sort of commercial opportunities. That's a big shift in thinking, from an organisation that's hardly sticking its head in the sand.

Of course it's speculation. You haven't mentioned a single financial amount and have no idea of how much is being paid per game or overall.

" it struggles to provide depth of talent for five SR franchises" I have seen this argument numerous times on the NRL tab. So called experts there were calling for the game to be culled not expand because there isn't enough talent so I will say now what I said on that tab. Codswallop Talent will only emerge once there is sufficient opportunity with sufficient reward and it needs to exist now not some future promise. Without that very real opportunity, talent will remain unrealised and go off and sat behind a desk or fill shelves in Coles somewhere. Kids are not going to put themselves through the daily grind of training etc unless they can see the very real possibility of a job at the end of it.

1996 Top 4 Oz1, NZ1, SA2. 1997 all 4 SA placed 4-8. 1998 only sharks finished 3rd and other 3 made the bottom 4. So when powered by the CC all 6 CC teams had made it into the S10s but by 1998 when they moved away from the CC and finally followed the NZ and Oz model they had their worse years. For most season in S12 they had two teams in the bottom 3. They add a 5th team and surprise surprise we get get SA SR winners as they now have more places to bring through people. Same with going to 6 teams we have the Lions nearly seasons. Its east to say SA didn't have the strength but the problem was they didn't have the playing places to bring the younger players through.

Exeter have the Conference centre and Racing the concert venue and that is how these teams are growing while Oz and NZ teams are still trying to run like they did in the amateur days. If you want to know what SRP could have done, look no further than the Sharks in SA. The Private group is losing money (though 20k last few games attended) from the Rugby games side of things. However they are commercialising the players and are making money off them hence why they can bring back EE and why Stormers offered Kolbe alot of money which he turned down to stay at toulon (who themselves paid 2m to buy him out of Toulouse). URC have stated their strategy is Star power but SRP is not making an effort to commercialise their players, only WB and AB stars. Stick your head in the sand or look at how the URC has been able to sell a previously unsellable product. As long as NZR and RA only look to commercialise the national team they will get poor deals for SRP.

It's not really speculation. As of Sept 22 FLO is now able to show over 450 (470 if all shown) extra games from Sept 22 - Jun 23. At the end of this weekend they will have shown well over 250 more games which weren't there a year ago. The SRP entire season is only 91 games and 18 weeks while FLO have already showed about 20 weeks of NH club games. If you think FLO have more than tripled their purchasing power good for you but I see it as FLO looking to fill their secedule year round which NH can nearly do and SRP can't, and casual fans of rugby will have to remember SRP is coming on. Its now only 29% of T1 club rugby FLO is now showing compared to 100% 12 months ago.

The NRC worked well everywhere except NSW.

I can't believe some of the nonsense you spout. South Africa only wanted four teams as they knew that they lacked the depth for any more. It was never a question of what they were given. They were proved right, the more teams added the worse Super Rugby became. When there were only 12 teams it was the best club comp in the world.

Exeter and Leicester are very different from what you portray. Exeter got by because of its conference centre business. Leicester I felt really sorry for, best supported club in England but couldn't keep up with the sugar daddy clubs financially. No kidding sponsorship isn't losing money, so long as it's on a genuine commercial basis. The hundreds of millions of losses are AFTER sponsorship income.

All that is very speculative. The values haven't even been released.

With only 12 teams and no sign of adding any more it would seem logical as it helps the finances. But SR has never been about itself its about making sure 50 players are ready for the tests matches and who cares about the other players or fans. With SL looking to buy a share of Oz and has of NZ I can't see the focus changing any time soon

Where do you think FLO have got the money to but all the US rights to T14, URC and EPCR. At renewal of SR/NPC the pie FLO has is now taken up by the NH deal. Let's see if SR/NPC get the same value as last time. FLO only have so much income to to get the NH deal was a substantial increase and made it their main rugby content product. SR in 2000s had a sizeable fee coming from NH deals, now it doesn't as it has a very small product to sell compared to the NH combined package. Prems issues is they tried to limit growth and not join forces and so now struggling as CVC get about 10m of their TV income each year but CVC can't grow it because of PRL burning bridges

Not sure I agree with that. Community funded teams like Exeter and Tigers that were supported by a "golden circle" seemed to manage fine. The problem for SR is no one can tell the money men exactly how much the teams make or what the commercial value of the league is. URC teams could do it and over half the teams are either owned or supported by private funding. Losing money is subjective. Sponsorship is losing money but it pays back in other ways. Business are getting into rugby in SA now because they see value for their investment. Racing have a great stadium paid for by their owner because he can sell rugby and concerts there. Everyone in NH rugby know it as the disco and so Racing is essential a way for the owners to sell more concerts. Altrad may have lost money on local team but rugby people now know the French building company and he used his money to get better NZ players via his sponsership of the AB so he can build fans there over the long term.

It's easy to ask other unions to cut teams when they have had 5 teams since it started. Giving NZ 5 teams and SA 4 when all the money was coming from SA and up to that point their teams had been much stronger was one of the many mistakes of SR.

They don't. The top 15 or so players get central contracts and each team gets the same handout for each season. Connacht have about 30% of the inheritance three so the revenue it generates is much smaller than Leinster who get over 40k to about 4 matches each year. Leinster and Munster use their fan base to raise private money for extra wages hence better teams. When Munster produce better players they will get more central contracts. When Ulster tap private funding they will have more.

Couldn't agree more, sheek. Hear, hear.