Super RugbySome thoughts for you to chew on…

I was asked yesterday by someone at Sky what my feeling was on the future of SuperRugby and I said, all three Unions of SANZAR have recently released their year end figures and none of them made any real profit. They are all close to borderline break even.

The current number Super Rugby matches per annum is 125, so any reduction of matches would no doubt mean a reduction in broadcast money.

The talk is about South Africa splitting from SANZAR in terms of Super Rugby only. However the South African time zone goes a long way to pushing up the money that is earned from the broadcast deal.

If SA leave, more matches will be played in New Zealand and Australian time zones (according to the reports). This has no global appeal.

No one is going to wake up at 2 or 3 AM in the UK and watch for example the Chiefs play the Force or the Highlanders not to mention South Africans getting up at 4AM. They would get up to watch the Springboks but for a team that they are not involved with like a Trans Tasman tournament,  they won’t get up in numbers. This will kill the South African Audience and the European audience.

I seriously doubt that Rugby-Talk would even put a match like that on the website at 3AM, let alone one of the main channels. In short the potential split will drastically reduce the appeal in terms of broadcasting value and these Unions desperately need the money to keep their players at home.

In years gone by, Europe and in particular France, were the big talent poachers but now Japan have joined and are throwing bigger money than ever before at Super Rugby players.

Six players from the last Springbok team (June) have taken up overseas offers this season (seven if you include the bench). Players are no longer waiting until the end of their careers to go abroad and they are cashing in much earlier.  In New Zealand players like Richard Kahui and in Australia Drew Mitchell and Berrick Barnes have left. They are getting younger and younger.

The only way the SANZAR nations can combat this is to pay their players more. That money has to come from the national unions and they get their money from SANZAR.

SANZAR can’t afford to let South Africa split from them and Argentina are not ready to join in terms of playing skill. The same applies for Japan and the Pacific Islands.

In an ideal world Australia need a Currie Cup style competition and Super Rugby needs an Amlin Challenge Cup style competition for qualification and to develop Argentina, Japan and the Islands. Everyone compares Super Rugby to the Heineken Cup but a tournament played across Europe just isn’t the same as a tournament being played across Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Auckland and Tokyo. There is just too much travel.

The split idea is the most radical of the formats being looked at so it will get the most coverage in the media due to the shock factor. There has also been talk of a Super 16 and a Super 18 of which only the S18 will work. In 2020 things will be very different again.

For the last 10 years I have predicted SANZAR’s “next move” almost perfectly and I just can’t see Australia and New Zealand letting SA split. When the first SANZAR deal was done, Louis Luyt negotiated that South Africa got 35% of the broadcast money and that was renewed in the second deal by Brian van Rooyen. In the third deal Regan Hoskins and Andy Marinos let it slip (R125m) and I feel that it’s more likely that Australia and New Zealand will have to sweeten the deal for SA to keep them in and be quiet about the Southern Kings.

There are some things behind the scenes that SANZAR have done recently which also make me believe that the only change that can happen is a Super 18 with 3 Conferences of 6 teams each, with the 6 SA RUGBY franchises, with the addition of the Argentines and the top Japanese team added to the Australian and NZ conferences, to assist the Japanese prepare for RWC 2019.

This opens new corporate sponsorship opportunities with the Japanese and to grow TV audiences with the Japanese population, bolstering viewership figures to validate increased revenues for a TV deal from 2016-2020.

But what to do about 2013-2015, for the team(s) sitting out of Super Rugby, there is a hole in the financial bucket in SA Rugby and that needs a solution before the end of August 2013.

There are options and these need to be presented to and demanded from SA Rugby now, not at next year’s Promotion / Relegation battle.

Food for thought…

13 Responses to Super Rugby: Looking at it from the inside – the future beyond 2015

  • 1

    Wonderful stuff TonyM, thank you very much for your insights, from the inside out!

  • 2

    No sweat………..I am however particularly troubled at how Alan Solomons has plied his trade like a carpetbagger and need to vent this.

    Solomons denial that he was not going to Scotland a few weeks back was a bald faced lie and a deception that has to be shocking to the Southern Kings management and players.

    To be duped by someone who himself placed contractual limitations on players to NOT go to other unions speaks volumes of the man’s lack of integrity, must make all those around Solomons feel tainted from this dark stain of a lack of character.

    Solomons has left & done nothing for Eastern Cape rugby save for being an expensive cost centre. Now he has become a turncoat extraordinaire and a Judas of the most despicable kind.

    The Southern Kings should have shown him the door last weekend and told him to never cross their threshold again – ever. They did not need him then and they do not need him for this Saturday’s game – he is toxic.

    The same ugly stench reared its head years ago and tainted four peoples rugby careers when Solomons was an understudy to Nick Mallet and persuaded Mallet to demote the most successful Springbok rugby Captain ever – Gary Teichmann – and replace him with Bob Skinstad – stuffed all four of their careers. I however believe that Teichmann showed such integrity and character that spoke volumes of his leadership and qualities as an icon of rugby and made one proud to be a South African.

    Contrast that with the deception and duplicity of Solomons and one can be thankful that he has imposed an exile on himself to go to Scotland and be with his wife who lives there.

    What a lame excuse and why was this not a consideration 3 years ago? This is what destroys rugby careers as men like this shatter young men’s dreams of rugby sportsmanship.

  • 3

    @ TonyM: Very interesting to read the ‘other side of the coin’

  • 4

    Living in the UK, however unrealistic it may be, I would love to see SA franchises playing English and French sides.

  • 5

    2 @ TonyM:
    Very interesting and insightful take on Alan Solomons!

  • 6

    @ Just For Kicks:

    That will be a reality sooner than you think.

    With BT’s cash in the Premiership – bumping Sky’s TV broadcast deal Mark McCafferty is on this and more with the allure of money markets supporting franchises.

  • 7

    I love rugby but have honestly found S rugby to be quite boring in the most. The 3/4 N is just the same players doing the same old thing.
    There is too much rugby being played, simple as that. Look at how much interest was shown in the Lions Tour.
    I would say keep the Currie Cup, have an inbound PROPER Tour and then a PROPER EOYT?

  • 8

    Oh, and Solomons is a lawyer, what do you expect?

  • 9

    Thank for this inside info, I always WAS a fan of Solomons…

  • 10

    Loosehead wrote:

    I love rugby but have honestly found S rugby to be quite boring in the most. The 3/4 N is just the same players doing the same old thing.
    There is too much rugby being played, simple as that. Look at how much interest was shown in the Lions Tour.
    I would say keep the Currie Cup, have an inbound PROPER Tour and then a PROPER EOYT?

    I think most people are longing for just this but these days everything is about money and I don’t see that changing anytime soon

  • 11

    Interesting ideas TonyM but would a Super 18 not mean even more matches to be played and even more travel if the conferences include Argentine and Japanese franchises? Also am not sure why SANZAR must be used to help prepare Japan for World Cup 2019, Japan put their bid in and won it and so must make it work. Really a bug bear of mine that (since readmission) a true rugby super power has only hosted the World Cup once… in 1995. But I guess that’s not really Japan’s fault but more down to the powers that European big players have in the IRB. If memory serves me correct – 1999, 2007, 2015 that will be 3 times Wales will get to have World Cup games in the time SA has none.

  • 12

    2 @ TonyM:
    Puts things in a different light. I was very quick to announce how delighted I was that Solomons was coming to Edinburgh as think he can offer a lot from a rugby coaching point of view as last season’s coaching team really seemed to struggle. But a bit later did question the timing of the announcement, whether they could maybe have waited until after the promotion/relegation match to make it public. Didn’t know exactly what transpired with the Skinstad and Teichmann incident but was unhappy that Teichmann was dropped and have generally held that against Nick Mallett as the man in charge at the time. Surprising to read your take that it was Solomons doing, would have thought that Mr Mallett wasn’t the kind of person to easily be persuaded. Also at the time reading between the lines I felt that Skinstad’s inclusion for the 1999 World Cup was perhaps due to a certain sponsorship arrangement, but maybe that was just my cynical view.

  • 13

    was interesting at last night’s press conference after the game to hear Solomons lamenting the treatment that the Kings had received from SARU.

    Pointed out the amount of acadamy players (from the area) in their CC side and who have come through to the the SR side.

    In a way I agree with him.

    When one looks at EP, Border and SWD CC, U13 Craven Week, U16 Grant Khomo Wek, and U18 Craven Week sides, all of ther sides were / are demographically representative of what’s going on in the country, and by and large are competetive.

    SARU, please do something. You’re collectively messing up Rugby at development levels.

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