Six rugby organisations, 6 CEOs, 6 CFOs, 6 marketing departments etc. Massive duplication of functions and many of them will be poor quality and inefficient. There is a massive opportunity for cost cutting and increased quality. Mind you the Waratahs administration seems to moving backwards from its poor quality standard pre takeover.

Having a fund from the 2027 WC is not a strategy. Twenty years of underinvestment (maybe 30) and our response to a cash windfall is to not spend it. Certainly a lot simpler than coming up with a strategy and being accountable for outcomes. The fund will be whittled down with fees and if capital is lost, it won’t be RA directors fault. Wonderful.

Certainly a few good games but Rennie was saying “now he is a triple threat” 2 years ago. Probably rushed in 2020, like most young players in Australia, but progress has been slow, with some really poor performances along the way.

Absolutely, as I understood it the NRC was far better supported in the other states. Some of the big Sydney clubs are a pain in the backside. The idea of truncating the Sydney and Brisbane seasons also annoys me. Everybody loses games off the season just so a handful can trial for a professional contract. Marketing rugby is a real area of failure, despite the number of “business people” dominating boards and administration.

True but playing at the end of the season when clubs have packed up, and not bothering to market the games does not help. Then televising only one game of each round means no wide interest can be developed in the competition.

It will never succeed unless played during the season on Sunday, assuming club games are on Saturday. Lower ticket prices and pay 50% commission to clubs selling tickets. Players must be playing in the local competition and squads large enough for rotation of players to play a sufficient number of games with their local club.

Local club parochialism has significantly limited the success of the NRC, and creating a national competition with clubs will destroy the local competitions. The easy way is to exclude players from selection where the clubs are not 100% supportive. Problem fixed before the preseason is concluded.

100%. Do they still do that with sports ears? Also where can you get them? They were unavailable to purchase when I last asked (probably five years ago) and I have not seen or heard of them since.

With sports ears I also would prefer to hear the STAN interviews before and at half time. It is frustrating at the ground watching them while listening to some DJ’s music selection.

I don’t know why the broadcast deals are not more sophisticated. I can’t see any evidence of either RA or 9/STAN trying to boost the game. If STAN drives broadcast rates that should result in increased match attendance, and vice versa.

I also do not know why STAN does not try and put its foot on the stream of every game played in Australia. Rugby needs to focus on maximising memberships and STAN on maximising the number of members who have a subscription.

Had to laugh this week, I went to the Waratahs membership website, or tried. I have not heard from them since I joined at the start of the year. I do remember many years ago unsubscribing from the weekly newsletter because I was tired of the ever optimistic recap of the game lost on the weekend. I thought I must have a box ticked for no correspondence.

Instead I was directed to a Rugby Explorer account. Nice to see they still consider the rugby ID from 2003 to be important, they had my current address and phone number, as well as my expired registrations for Easts and Illawarra in 2002.

The administration of the game and its commercial operations are an absolute joke. So much could be done for clubs around support for membership, sponsorship and recruitment strategies and processes, for minimal costs.

The 2016-2020 Strategic Plan did not identify and milestone objectives and what became objectives in the annual reports lacked much quantification. A bit more like how we did in hindsight, leading to a scorecard, curiously always just big enough to pay bonuses. Do you think they were earned?

I am only interested in a clearly documented five year plan, with quantifiable objectives so that RA can be transparently held accountable for performance. RA directors may not be held accountable for failing, but they are also not winning support from the rugby community.

Everyone here on the Roar is tired of the vague platitudes and cliches outlining what RA will do. None of us believe them.

We certainly blew the 2003 windfall, but fundamentally because there was no long term strategy in the build up to 2003 and how the game would grow off the interest generated. The same has happened with soccer, I think, in 2023, and I see no evidence of 2027 RWC being different. I suppose it is “natural” to focus on the running of the event, but it is just that, an event.

The 2015 broadcast deal was similar. Financially on our knees we grabbed the great opportunity coming out of the 2014 SR win and RWC runners up. More teams and more games further boosted the TV deal as well as NH interest in the competition. Old rugby players did not piss the money up against the wall, business types just spent it like water, in particularly turbo charging HO numbers and costs.

No doubt we paid too much for players as well and too many teams diluted the competition and forced a confusing structure on it. To rebalance, two SA teams and one Australian team had to be dropped. That process was completely mismanaged by RA, but was always going to be a massive and divisive disruption. The criteria used to select the Force remain shrouded in mystery, but more likely amounted to it being the franchise that RA could legally chop without question.

Whatever form a domestic competition takes, whether 3rd tier NRC or a 2nd tier SRAU, it must involve significantly lower player salaries. Players will need to win selection for the SR second tier teams, or go overseas, for bigger money.

The NRL and AFL have domestic competitions which are the pinnacle competition for their code in the world, certainly not a template of what would work for rugby union.

I am sure the quality of a game between the best club from each competition would be higher than the average domestic game, but hardly a pathway for Australia to produce a pool of hardened professional players from which a world class Wallaby team could be chosen.

The problem for SR is probably a failure to be competitive, there is nothing wrong with the quality of the games. That failure is due to the vacuum in player and coach development, a problem that will easily translate into whatever competition format you would like to choose.

My best way forward would be to have a domestic competition featuring the existing five clubs paying players less money, similar to the NRC except home and away. The 2nd tier would comprise 60 players across the country in two teams playing international opponents from NZ, Argentina, SA and Japan.

How you manage the logistics of selecting, training bases, coaching teams would be difficult, but that is what RA pays outrageous salaries and consulting fees for. If we want to be competitive than we must fix the player development problem.

McLennan should have gone the 2-3 teams route when offered by NZ. It did not suit his inflated ego, and was probably way too hard for him to contemplate. I commented many times back them that falling standards in NZ and Australia were a huge risk, and it is not surprising that it has surfaced post RWC.

Touché

That is true Doc, but I also see a limited commercial life for a domestic competition. The standard will inevitably fall and we will become less competitive internationally. It won’t take long for the crowd to perceive that a domestic SR is a Mickey Mouse competition.

The problem we have is a 30 year weakness in the development of players and coaches, not the identity of the teams we play. The recent backward step was NZ and RA not fighting to keep SA involved. Hard rugby and hard dollars lost.

If they are not consolidating the foundations of the game to be cash flow positive post RWC then they will be toast. My own belief is that if they are not investing prior to the BIL and RWC then they won’t maximise revenues and exposure either.

Personalities like Sailor do bring something extra though. A shame we did not see him at his best, he would have been sensational in the seasons from 2007.

The players are playing for a club. It’s just the fans who don’t accept it, and the Waratahs who resist treating supporters like members. Being a “member” at the Waratahs is not the same as being a member of a club. That must be fixed, noting that not many clubs are that successful at retaining members. If the economy turns down, it will become a matter of survival.

Western Sydney is not Parramatta and it cannot be limited to Penrith. It must be a district on its own.

I think you have got that right Hog. Same goes for post RWC recruitment, it is too late after the event.

I have always said rugby is a players game, not a spectators game. Walk through any rugby crowd and then guess how many people who are there who did not play the game, or have not been close to somebody who has. The rules, necessary as they are, are complex, and the ethos of the game hard to understand for outsiders.

Western Sydney is a ten year project and we are in the 30th year of not starting. A SS club in Penrith and a SS club in Parramatta is not a western Sydney strategy. They need their own district, the geographic area is much greater than the SS footprint. I would put the Rebels in charge because they have actually grown the game in hostile territory and outside the private school system.

They initially advanced the 2023 RWC subsidy and then a further amount. Following the WC the subsidy would be due for payment and then offset against the loan. I think I read the interest was forgiven? I guess the balance was repaid along with the other loan due to be repaid.

They will have been more concerned about ability to repay $80m. There will be some refinancing capability, and they have security over assets which while of questionable commercial value have enormous value to the rugby population. They will have satisfied themselves to a sufficient buffer but they won’t be guaranteeing the $225m outcome.

I don’t think playing in Fiji the week before has been helpful to teams the following week either.

I do think the Wallabies are going to be closer this year but part of that will be NZ slipping backwards. Not good news for either country.

I would settle for just a five year strategic plan, the post 2003 master plan has not delivered much.
The seeds of destruction were sown in 2003 because we ended up with a bucket of cash, a belief that everyone now wanted to watch rugby (witness 2023 women football WC), and no plan in place apart from ‘play games and they will come’.
The standard explanation for failure, and the promise of why things would improve became that we are an entertainment business and star players and winning Wallabies would solve all attendance and broadcast problems.
There has been practically zero attempt to secure the support of the rugby community, who might have interest in attending/watching games, in preference to the community at large, who don’t. That is the key, as Phil Kearns identified “If you look after the rugby community, the rugby community looks after you”

Like most national rugby bodies RA is not for profit so a value of zero will always be close to the mark. The exception will be bodies that own tangible assets like stadiums or other investments outside of rugby operations.

Note that the high valuations quoted around PE deals are in relation to the supposed value of the revenues attached to commercial rights, when you ignore all of the expenses.

Sorry that was for the Waratahs game on the weekend.
So now I have gone and checked too. You are right, it was nonsense. $50 gets end/corner (gold) seats and $25 GA behind the posts. Seems that there is some science behind the pricing, it makes sense to be charging less than the Reds and even less again than the Broncos.
Not that a corner seat for $50 thrills me, I suppose I would rather pay $65 for platinum seats, assuming there are seats undercover. My days of happily sitting in the rain are passed.
It does beg the question about how low do you have to price the seat to get somebody to the stadium. That said, the Waratahs need to significantly increase the crowds to generate some atmosphere.

Another article without much value or insight. The second in a row which largely depends on reprinting extracts and quoting from other publicly available sources.
Much is made of debts “ballooning” out by $17m? I am not sure that is significant given the offset of the increase in current assets of $8m, leaving an increase of $9m presumably being the loss of $9m in a RWC year which apparently brings in less broadcast and match day revenue, partially offset by WR subsidy. Compounded by the Rennie sacking and the well publicised cost blowouts.
Not much that is unexpected. I was pleasantly surprised by the PEP prediction of $225m revenue although that maybe a RA number not subject to strenuous analysis by PEP. In the context of the article I don’t understand why the debt is so alarming to the author.
It should be noted that the $8m claim on RA in the Administrator’s report is made by the directors. Longley assigns no value to the claim as he considers it complex and has had no time to consider its merits, a statement repeatedly made throughout the report. For his purposes it is largely irrelevant, particularly as he will not be required to fund any litigation.
There appear to be three legs of the claims; reduction in annual funding, RA liable for the costs of players on international duty, and that RA are a party to a JV and are jointly liable for losses. For various reasons I don’t think any have much credibility but also note that if any of these prove true it is likely that RA will also be insolvent.
It is all about what can be achieved in the next two years. I await some definitive statements from RA on what they intend to do, and the outcomes they are pinning their reputations on. That would be a refreshing and encouraging change.

I think it would be great for players, smoothing the way for them to challenge themselves in both games. Precisely why the NRL clubs would never agree to it.

100% Gus with my only proviso that RA now has to step up and lead. There was an unbelievably amateur strategic plan produced for 2016-2020 which RA then diligently avoided reporting against its objectives. There is no current published plan, and it is not unreasonable to guess there isn’t one.

Walking around in circles muttering platitudes has to be replaced by identifying the objective, mapping the journey and leaving Moore Park. RA needs to lead its supporters because ultimately it depends on their money.

A mate in Queensland rang to tell me that seats behind the posts at the Chiefs game cost his daughter $50. Marketing, advertising and pricing strategies do not make sense, although it would not surprise if there are not any.

Some interesting points:
– KPMG paid $1m for advisory fees
– RA notes it has to pay for Rebels but not that it will not be paying $4m to the Rebels company
– Broadcast revenues reduced significantly in 2023 despite the success of World Cup viewing and significant increases in viewing of club rugby
– A contingent liability is noted for the threatened Rebels litigation but specifically noted that they are unaware of any detail which causes a potential liability