8 teams. 56 games $1m to the winning team. Teams from NZ (Nth Hbr), team from Western Sydney. Up to 12 marque players signed and they will select the team they play for.
Western Force to be run by Rugby WA. Twiggy and a team of really influential high flyers in international rugby to run the whole competition.
Good rumour. Suck shit and die RA.
Yeah, still think it's a mistake in the long term including them in the comp. Hopefully it's not true.Quote:
Originally Posted by GIGS20
I'm going on like a broken record over this
Quote:
Originally Posted by chibi
I think its inevitable that NZ teams and East Coast Australia teams will be apart of WSR.
Super Rugby is dying. At the end of this Broadcast deal, South Africa will jump ship and send all their teams to Europe.
Fox and Sky will not pay hundreds of Millions of Dollars to Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby for a Series that no one watches.
Therefore they will either try and invent their own series - or come cap in hand to Mr Forrest and beg to be a part of World Series Rugby.
And
As much as we hate the idea. From a business point of view - Twiggy won't say no to RA or NZR.
The TV Rights would be worth more with Tahs, Reds, Crusaders, Hurricanes et al involved.
Twiggy is on record in saying that he is happy to work with the RA sans the Chairman. The boneheads have done nothing to get rid of de Clyne and the morons who appointed him. All we are getting from the RA is stalling tactics, deliberately playing dumb stating that they have heard nothing from Twiggy and we are looking maintaining the status quo.
In any case these teams can't participate in a replacement comp until 2021 at the earliest.
Agree need 8 teams to reach the required gravitas in terms of length of Comp. Force, Hong Kong, Japan, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, plus 2. I think a team from NZ will really help with TV rights, and a team from Western Sydney will really stick it up Clyne! And I bet will get good crowds.Quote:
Originally Posted by UAUdiver1959
8 teams, playing home and away, plus 2 weeks of finals is a 4 month Comp. Start in March (not too early) and finish in late June before the July Test window.
Now teams have to be competitive, but with Australian SR teams needing to downsize, and Wallaby eligibility available, we can easily get a team in Western Sydney. Time zone is obviously good to.
I'm not sure I'd go with those teams, though. Fiji, Samoa & Tonga deserve more exposure, but they aren't big draws in terms of crowd or TV numbers, and can be tough in terms of travel schedules; remember these guys are playing week-in-week-out, so a 48-hour round trip every other week would put a side at disadvantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Transiting
I'd be looking to try and get teams in bigger Asian cities: Singapore, KL, Manila, Beijing, or Shanghai. Improving rugby in those areas would be very difficult for World Rugby to say no to, so you'd get the international pressure to help set things up. Maybe fill these Asian teams with predominantly PI sides (are there any links, eg, Samoans to Shanghai, Fijians to Manila, Tongans to Singapore?) and get the series shown on FTA TV in the pacific, so the population can support 'their' team.
Following on from that, put the pi teams into an eastern australia/new Zealand conference.
Sure a conference containing all the kiwi teams would be stronger than one that it predominantly developing (in rugby terms) nations like Singapore, Indonesia or Malaysia, but that will only be a short term issue unless the competition is a deliberately unbalanced cluster fuck like superficial rugby. Good competition-balancing measures like a draft, marquee player assignment and added grass roots focus and funding to the weaker regions will see the whole region build to a higher standard over the longer term.
I think the immediate requirement would be to define how the whole thing works and get it well established in the Asian region. They have to secure their revenue base.
In the meantime, someone should be having a serious chat with Japan. They will come out of the WC with lots of profile and excitement, and someone should be asking them whether they think a single team in an overseas competition is going to support that? Frankly, they should be looking to engage regionally almost more than anyone, and it would be far more interesting for the support base they are trying to build.
Longer term they should be looking at NZ and PI, but again I think they should be working around SR rather than imagining itself as some sort of replacement. The smart unions (i.e not RA) are looking to diversify, not replace. I don't think SA are going anywhere, they want a second string to the bow. I suspect that is why NZ seems interested in the US as well. So rather than adopt their teams, a regional basis would be better. They already have Singapore, HK, etc, so they should maybe thinking in those regional terms...Honshu rather than Panasonic, Western Australia rather than Perth, South Island rather than the Crusaders, PI rather than specifically Samoa/Fiji. Give them the ability to define it as something different and separate from SR, not opposition to. Economics and management will determine which is the right model, and it could ultimately be both.
Who knows, longer term again and they could be thinking Southern Australia and Eastern Australia for this region. Perhaps it might start and grow to something like...
Western Australia
Pacific Islands
Singapore
Hong Kong
Japan (Honshu)
Malaysia
China (Shanghai)
North Island
South Korea
Kyushu
South Island
Southern Australia
Eastern Australia
Beijing
Often wondered whether the two provincial-sized baseball teams in Japan would be interested in a rugby franchise? Yomiuri Giants vs Hanshin Tigers is the closest thing to state-of-origin they have, maybe the rugby version could be the Kanto Giants vs the Kansai Tigers?