- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Roar Rookie
Joined February 2024
0
Views
0
Published
8
Comments
Published
Comments
The Lions Tour and World Cup may be big future money spinners, but RA has already taken out a survival loan, based on hoped-for income from both events.
Once that money’s spent, they are back in the same desperate situation as they are now. But the difference is that there’s nothing comparable in the near future they can offer as security against their next loan application.
Plus you’d have to assume the next TV contract will pay less than the current one, given the state of the game.
Wonder kid offered 3-yr, $1.6m deal to stay in Aussie rugby - and why it could see Wallabies stars leave Ballymore
AFL used to have an Origin. If withered and died from lack of fan interest.
10 reasons league and union should merge to become One Rugby - and give AFL nightmares
NRL plus Rugby Australia = NRL with lots of debt it doesn’t need and (once the small core of talented players are skimmed off) a whole bunch of donkeys on inflated wages.
NRL without Rugby Australia = NRL without any debt hindering their next expansion push, which they may recruit the decent Rugby Union players for anyway.
10 reasons league and union should merge to become One Rugby - and give AFL nightmares
No point poaching someone from the NRL marketing team if your product’s unmarketable, even to Rugby Union fans, who have historically been pretty forgiving of low standards.
What Rugby Australia needs is a time machine, so they can go back at least a couple of decades and spend the money they used to have on the things that matter, rather than willy-waving publicity stunt NRL signings while the club game withered away.
Fantasy footy: How a Rugby Australia and NRL partnership could actually work
The difference this time is that Rugby Australia are taking out a survival loan, using the hoped-for revenue from the upcoming World Cup and Lions tour as security.
That “much-needed revenue” will go towards repaying the loan, leaving the game as broke as they are now, but with nothing outstandingly profitable to offer the next time they beg from the banks.
A far cry from 2003 and John O’Neill swaggering about, boasting about how his little “World Cup War Chest” was going to bring an end to Rugby League in Australia.
Fantasy footy: How a Rugby Australia and NRL partnership could actually work
Perth are one of the more realistic considerations for the NRL’s next expansion, along with a second New Zealand side, a possible third Brisbane one and the politically-expedient but rish Port Moresby.
If the NRL expand back to Perth, a Super Rugby franchise there would be an unnecessary dead weight at best and an obstacle to be eliminated at worst.
Fantasy footy: How a Rugby Australia and NRL partnership could actually work
Rugby Australia seeks ‘sustainable and successful future’.
As the Irish saying goes, well I wouldn’t be starting from here.
Rugby Australia has already bet the farm on the Lions tour and the World Cup making enough money to redeem the loan they’ve taken out.
Which means that, once those events are over, RA will find itself (at an absolute Panglossian optimistic best) in the same parlous position as they are now, but with no big event bargaining chips to offer the bank when they beg for their next survival loan.
CONFIRMED: Rebels fall into voluntary administration as Rugby Australia seeks 'sustainable and successful future'
As open letters go, that’s a fine mix of incoherence, magical thinking and using the word “change” repeatedly without saying at any point what those changes might be.”
'Previous chairman can not be a scapegoat': First salvo fired in bid to spill the Rugby Australia board