Well, one thing that you can bet your house on is that SA Rugby will not be sending any teams back into SR. Not only was the relationship irreparably damaged by the NZR but all the franchises want to play in Europe and would rather not play than go back to SR.

Brendan, three is also a broadcast revenue offset on top of what SA Rugby are paying directly out of pocket.

Blik, the answer is C, it was a blackmail attempt.
SANZAAR was kept up to date on SA Rugby’s 8 Franchise model and to put the Cheetahs, Kings, Griquas and Pumas into Celtic Rugby. NZR, backed by Silver Lake, tried to blackmail SA Rugby and force them to completely withdraw from Celtic Rugby participation and to stick with SANZAAR. They knew that by NZR breaching the SANZAAR & broadcast agreements, that it would leave SA Rugby & UAR without any source of revenue and basically bankrupt. It backfired badly and now NZR have to live with the consequences.

Something you missed was the NZR’s strategic timing of their release of the Aratipu review report, that was planned to be done after securing money via a NZ Government bailout. For reference, the NZR received 25% of the total government bailouts in NZ so they had financially security.
The NZR leaked the Aratipu to the media in NZ within days of receiving their government bailout (total of $28.16 million over 2 years), leaving SA Rugby to find out the next day via the media that they had been summarily kicked out of Super Rugby. The worst thing about the whole debacle is that the NZR refused to even pick up the phone or talk to SA Rugby for 2 weeks, and only did so after some serious intervention from the ARU, Sky and SANZAAR. NZR had breached the SANZAAR broadcast agreements effectively rendering them cancelled so everybody was taking a massive financial knock not just SA Rugby. By that time, it was obvious what the NZR were doing and what their goal was. From what I heard the folks at SA Rugby and Super Sport were as angry as bucket of cut snakes with the NZR which is understandable given the financial impact.

The relationship has and never will be the same again & whatever eventuates in the future will not be on anybody’s terms other than SA Rugby’s that is for certain. They have also had to suffer the consequences for their shenanigans in various ways to date, like when SA Rugby skipped the 2020 RC, SA Rugby pulling the Currie Cup broadcast rights, that were previously bundled up with Super Rugby and the RC to from the SANZAAR broadcast package, resulting in SANZAAR not being able to sell the rights for the next 2 years. Have you noticed yet that Japan is in WR’s newly launched Pacific 6 Nations… You get the picture?

In SA both codes fall under SA Rugby so no prizes for guessing which gorilla got all the bananas.

This explains why the ARU have moved on from supporting the club to wanting to liquidating it.

Hi Phil, not on something like this. In my line of work, it’s been bankable feasibility type studies for large corporations and World Bank projects. Only one I did with some similarities is on high-speed rail related project where the market feasibility was the crucial component.

Phil, the problem I see for rugby in both Australia & New Zealand is that nobody has done a feasibility study on it. If they had they would know that a cross border competition won’t work, and an Australia based competition is the only feasible option.

Reasoning is based on 2 factors, 1 being Aussies are staunchly patriotic, similar to the US with NFL, so an all Australia based competition and teams is a non-negotiable, and 2 population density that NZ & PI nations just don’t have.

A high population equates to better odds of higher match day attendance and tv viewer counts. Patriotism is measurable by looking at the other locally based competitions like US NFL, Aus NRL & AFL, and the CC in SA before Super Rugby.

The SRP product it is today is not marketable to broadcasters and advertisers who want lots of bums on seats and eyes on the tv.

I will go one further and suggest a type of merger between the ARU & NZR, rooted in the need for survival more than anything else, to set up a competition with privatized clubs, with partial joint NZR & ARU ownership, to be able to implement it successfully. Would require a bidding process for club licenses to PE investors and all the NZ & PI players to relocate and be integrated into the now all Australian clubs.

Product will be an amalgamation of PI, NZ & Aus players, coaches and support staff and similar to the international flavored French Top14.

This is then a high-quality product that can be marketed to advertisers and broadcasters. PE investors would drive the broadcast & advertising revenue bus and for the rights to be bundled up with other broadcasting packages, typically like the RC or in the current bundle with the English Premiership, URC & EPRC.

As I mentioned above, broadcasters want lots of eyes on tv so expanding the range will be the next important move, organizing a Southern Hemisphere EPRC type competition with Japan, South American clubs and the SA Currie Cup teams to start.

This gives a broadcasting base of 125 mill from Japan, 60+ million for Argentina, 30 million form Aus & NZ and the 1.4 billion sub-Saharan Africa region that every broadcaster and advertiser is falling over their feet to get into. US Major League Rugby and European T2 clubs like Georgian Black Lion also not off the table and could be looked at including.

CPM, I think they saw how successful the SABC was with doing the Top14 on FTA in SA and want to try something to increase viewership.
Here is an interesting article ; https://www.sabc.co.za/sabc/media-statement-sabc-sport-performs-strongly-in-rugby-ratings/

My take on this is that the national airlines are the drivers behind the Gulf states moving into rugby because advertising with rugby is cheap compared to other sports. Qatar are sponsors of the URC & EPRC, and Emirates long time sponsors of the Johannesburg based Lions. The Saudis & Emiratis were interested in the Stormers but ended up walking away because of the internal BS. English Premiership has similar problems so will be interesting to see how this goes.

Definitely could sweeten the deal!!!

You guys have millions of camels roaming the outback that you could trade so what’s taking so long to make a deal?

Thanks mate. Unfortunately, can’t edit my previous comment.
IMHO, Private Equity investors is the way for rugby franchises to go. Lions & Bulls in SA have had PE investors for a long time and neither of them would exist today if not for their considerable investment.

I think you are right that they have done well against all that competition for supporters. Maybe the best way to save them is to move to a less competitive and more rugby friendly location like Sidney.

Two Franchises playing in the same stadium could also be way to increase support, similar to what the Welsh do with their double header days where spectators watch back-to-back matches.

My bad, it’s been a while…

From the outside looking in I get a sense that people have come to their senses and want to cut the Rebels to preserve the ARU’s already limited funding.
This is a sorry situation, but you must ask why the Rebels were brought back in the first place?

Rebels were rightfully axed from SR back in 2017 because they were proven to be unfeasible and were a burden on the rest of the competition.
As I recall back in 2008/ 2009 there was a big spat between SA Rugby and the ARU & NZR after they ganged up to include the Rebels instead of the Kings.
The then president of SA Rugby Brian van Rooyen said something to the effect that it was all out war after that.
Main arguments from SA Rugby were that the Rebels were not feasible, as had already been proven with the previous inclusion of the Force, and that SANZAAR could get more broadcast revenue with the Kings, which they later did when the Kings were included in SR.

I mean no disrespect with the following guys, I am just looking at the Rebels in terms of financial feasibility over their past 12 years in Super Rugby:
In the sport & entertainment industry, bums on seats and eyes on the TV is what advertisers & broadcasters want to see and what ultimately pays the bills, but if you look at the Rebels attendance figures in their past 7 seasons: 2017 – 25,338 / 2018 – 78,566 / 2020 – 11,029 / 2021 – 2,575 / 2022 – 18,854 / 2023 – 15,282, you start questioning their feasibility as a sports team.
In 12 years of Super Rugby their total attendance is a meagre 747,000, which can indicate either the location of the team or a lack of spectator interest.

A comparison with the Kings franchise form Port Elizabeth in SA where they have a captured audience with no competing sports like soccer that has a big following in other major cities in SA.
The Cheetahs are in a similar position, but the local soccer team has better support in their region.
The Kings had an average of 31,500 attendance (252,000 total) in their first season of SR when they replaced the Lions for the 2013 season.
That was just their first season in SR that paved the way for their inclusion in the Super 18.
After the Kings & Cheetahs, both of which were and still are feasible sports teams, were cut from SR, they were snapped up by the Pro14.
Something that was an eye opener to me was that the addition of 2 SA Franchises to the Pro14 drove the increasing in their broadcast deal from £11 to £25 million a year.
That’s a £14 million a year increase for adding, what we in SA would call back-water franchises, so there will always be a question mark over the decision to cut the Kings & Cheetahs from Super Rugby and not the unfeasible franchises?

You guys down under know better than me, is the Rebels problem a location issue and if so, would it not be more prudent to move them to Sydney?

Rumored that ex Highlanders coach Tony Brown will be joining the Springboks.

Very good team HJ.
From watching a lot of NH rugby these past couple of years, Ciarán Frawley is the best 10 I see coming out of Ireland. IMHO Ireland should bet the house on Ciarán Frawley and stick with him at 10 from this year onwards. Then he will be able to be backup to Russell and Marcus Smith can go as utility back covering 10 & 15.
All Blacks supporters should be thankful the Lions are not playing them in 2025.

If it was inferior then why did New Zealand lose the home series against Ireland and why did they also lose to France in the opening match of the RWC?

You ever stop to think that maybe its the other way around for a while already?

Not so Jake. South Africans are generaly purists that enjoy the tussles and also have a very different view and preference on the game to floks down under. We prefer a total rugby approach where every facet of the game is a contest. The constant law changes have been seen in SA to make the game more like league and also to only favour kiwi teams with less of a contest and more helter skelter running. This is the exact reason why attendance and viewership in SA dropped so radically the past 10 years.

Attendances and viewership are now picking back up because we are playing in a more like minded league where the fans prefer the contest to kiwi/ league type running rugby.

Phil, he has never lived in the UK. Wit kant, watter kant, watse kant, wiese kant all sound very similar to English. Even blinde kant has upset referees thinking they are saying his is a blind c…t.

Talking about cultural context, it’s nice to hear the opinion of a soutie living with the old enemy. I always said somebody had to go over there and class the place up a bit so might as well be the Saffas 😁

UK English & swear words are languages they have to learn when they get there. Find a Saffa mate and learn some Afrikaans from them to spice things up a bit. You would be amazed that just calling somebody “English” can be an insult.

Moral of the story is don’t wear a white jersey when playing any Saffa team 😂

No. It’s his 3rd at best but most probably his 4th. English would be his last language.

Some referees have been known to get upset when Saffas talk about attacking the blind side… There was a recent incident in the URC just this last season where one got a bit upset but calmed down after the explanation.