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In my last Roar article I alluded, in an off-handed way, to the intriguing notion of the All Blacks representing New Zealand in international Australian Rules.
When I say All Blacks, I don’t mean the star players, but the All Blacks brand, used under licence granted by the New Zealand Rugby Union, with all the prowess and prestige that comes with it (I’ll refer to the team hereafter as “The AFL All Blacks”).
The AFL All Blacks would be run by the New Zealand Rugby Union, in a joint venture type arrangement with the AFL, adding to the stable of teams it operates, such as the Black Ferns, the Maori All Blacks and All Blacks Sevens.
Could the expertise, brand loyalty and outstanding history of success of the All Blacks be transplanted into another code? Before I answer this question, I must first answer, why?
On the face of it, the idea of the All Blacks brand and ethos being used in another code sounds like something out of Frankenstein, especially to the many passionate supporters of New Zealand’s national team.
But the more I thought about it, I wondered if instead it could be the opposite, namely the epitome of professional sports administration and entrepreneurship.
From a purely commercial perspective, the venture has the potential to be a financial bonanza both for the AFL and the New Zealand Rugby Union.
The All Blacks are among Australasia’a most widely recognised sports properties, both within the region and globally.
If Manchester United, for example, entered a rugby league team into the European Super League, there is no doubt that would have a huge economic impact both for Manchester United as a football club, but also for the sport of rugby league in England – and globally given the clout of Manchester United.
While the All Blacks are not Man U, the brand has a significant global following, and the commercial impact would be enormous in the Australasian context.
The brand would win over many tens of thousands new fans and put the New Zealand Rugby Union at the forefront of sports innovation.
The AFL All Blacks would place the brand before a new and lucrative audience in Victoria, and the southern states.
Most Australians know the All Blacks, but this has not translated into revenue or any form of commercial benefit for the New Zealand Rugby Union, mainly because rugby union cannot, and probably never will, break into the AFL dominated states.
From a purely self-centred, capitalist perspective the AFL All Blacks represent an unequivocal message to the ARU that the New Zealand Rugby Union is tired of waiting for it to crack this lucrative market and may as well take matters into its own hands.
The AFL All Blacks would be a vehicle for the New Zealand Rugby Union to generate revenue from a local market in which it has no hope of making money from through rugby union.
On a crude calculation, based on say a three match annual series and other events, the AFL All Blacks could potentially double the revenue earned from the All Blacks in the Australian market, perhaps increasing annual turnover for the union by as much as ten to fifteen percent.
You could conceivably have the original All Blacks playing a Bledisloe Cup in Sydney in front of 80,000 people on a Saturday, while the AFL All Blacks playing the Sunday at the MCG in front of 100,000. The commercial benefits, in terms of shared gate-takings, sponsorship, television revenue and other income streams are obvious.
Of course there is risk involved, but it is good risk that I am sure the AFL and New Zealand Rugby Union could jointly manage. In my view, the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan poses far more commercial risk to the sport of rugby union than any AFL-New Zealand Rugby Union joint venture ever could.
The AFL All Blacks would not damage or otherwise adversely affect the All Blacks image globally because their focus would be Australasia.
The All Blacks have a huge following in France and the UK in particular, but this would be entirely unaffected by a radical and revolutionary re-drawing of the Barassi Line.
Could the mystique and success of the All Blacks organisation translate to another code? Yes it could.
The principles by which the All Blacks achieve their success – respect for the jersey, teamwork, physicality, physical conditioning, strong training ethic, pride, heritage, and technical superiority, could easily translate into success in another code.
I don’t envisage Dan Carter turning out for the team, but whoever does will, like their rugby union counterparts, be willing to die for the jersey and be acutely aware of the responsibility they have as ‘All Blacks’ to succeed.
To many readers the above would be nothing more than a bit of light-hearted, fanciful sports-fiction writing.
But thirty years ago, the idea of a rugby league player swapping codes, or of rugby becoming an Olympic sport, or that rugby would one day pay its players large salaries would have been similarly dismissed. Professional sport is an extension of the business world, and in this world the face of commerce changes rapidly from year to year.
New alliances and entities borne of commercial necessity are being made and re-made constantly as companies strive for economic viability, sustainability and growth. To believe sports organisations are immune to these forces is wrong.
Who knows what the next 30 years in Australian sport will bring, but one thing is for certain, it will be radically different from what we know it is today, so much so, that the notion of the AFL All Blacks might well be quite mundane.
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