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ARU to announce record loss
AAP - March 28, 2008, 12:02 am
The Australian Rugby Union is expected to announce a record deficit next month of $8.48 million for the 2007 calendar year.
The Australian Newspaper reported the ARU had suffered a significant downturn in gate takings and corporate hospitality during last year, with weakened touring Welsh and South African teams impacting on sales figures.
A strong Australian dollar also affected the numbers and there was a rise in commercial operations costs and corporate services expenditure.
The Australian Rugby Championship, which new chief executive John O'Neill has scrapped, cost the ARU $5.48 million.
His predecessor, Gary Flowers, was paid out $898,000.
Even licensing revenue - which would be expected to rise significantly in a World Cup year - fell from 2006.
The newspaper also reported the International Rugby Board had given the ARU almost the amount of money it lost last year as its slice of the World Cup pie.</p>
So sack the current ARU board and replace them withmanagement!
Or just have the othe runions run at a million dollar a year profit like we can!
C'mon the![]()
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i dont think the ARU loss is a suprise to anyone, that figure has been thrown around for 6 months now.
I am incredibly pissed that Gary Flowers got a $900'000 pay out! what a load of shit.
LOL!
idiots...
Maybe they need a new CHIEF Financial Officer.....
Any recommendations?
Code in crisis takes $8.5m king hit
By Wayne Smith
March 28, 2008 THE Australian Rugby Union next month will announce a record deficit of $8.48 million for the 2007 calendar year, this despite receiving nearly that amount from the International Rugby Board as Australia's cut of the World Cup pie.
Documents leaked to The Australian paint a grim picture of a code in crisis, with gate-takings and corporate hospitality both taking a huge hit as a result of Wales and South Africa sending below-strength teams to Australia to rest their top players for the World Cup.
The other home Test last year was against Fiji, no great drawcard although performances at the World Cup were to showcase the Fijians as the most entertaining side in the game.
ARU boss John O'Neill has identified the Australian Rugby Championship as the biggest burden to the organisation, scrapping the competition on the basis of its $5.48 million cost, but 2007 was literally a red letter year for the ARU for a lot of other reasons.
The strengthening of the Australian dollar against the greenback saw revenue from the broadcast licence fee plunge from $25.3 million in 2006 to just $21 million, gate-takings plummeted from $18.2 million to $14.71 million, while corporate hospitality revenue dipped from $5 million to $3.9 million.
But perhaps the most alarming statistic is that licensing revenue actually fell last year, only marginally perhaps from $2.18 million to $2.01 million, but this was in a World Cup year when expectations were that the sale of New South Wales merchandising, particularly jerseys, was expected to double or even treble.
It is a bellwether stat, one that points to a worrying decline in support for Australian rugby's flagship team, although clearly the days of the Wallaby jersey being the de facto uniform of local sports fans are in decline as cricket, soccer and even rugby league have moved aggressively into the apparel market.
A rise in commercial operations costs from $12.3 million to $14.8 million and a jump in corporate services expenditure from $8.5 million to $10.2 million point to the staffing turmoil within the ARU.
Chief executive Gary Flowers departed with a payout figure of $898,000 that includes bonuses for dramatically lifting participation numbers, along with the marketing and commercial managers.
Flowers' replacement, O'Neill, clearly has not come cheaply, with the annual report to reveal that the accomplished sports administrator was paid $454,000 for six months' work after re-joining the organisation on June 28 last year.
There was one modest saving for the ARU. Where Ron Graham drew $44,000 for his work as chairman in 2006, current chairman Peter McGrath was paid only $36,000 last year.
Key management personnel disclosures, however, testify to all the upheavals that have shaken the ARU board in recent years.
Of the 2006 board members, only three, McGrath, Mike Brown and Bob Dalziel drew full directors' fees in 2007.
The ARU's financial situation does not appear overly depressing when contrasted against the 2006 deficit of $6.3 million. The trouble is the 2006 deficit includes a significant dispersion of the 2003 World Cup windfall for player development. But otherwise the organisation recorded an operating surplus. Indications are that the ARU finances are set to turn around dramatically this year. There are windfalls of two Bledisloe Cup Tests in Australia and the extra non-Bledisloe Test against the All Blacks in November in Hong Kong.
The one-off clash with the Barbarians at Wembley on December 6 to celebrate the centenary of the 1908 London Olympics will raise more revenue, but there still could be further shoals for the organisation to negotiate.
Next year it has to renegotiate its sponsorship with Bundaberg Rum, reputedly one of the biggest in Australian sport at $30 million over four years. Rumours continue to circulate that the company, which lodged a protest with the ARU against McGrath over an incident at the World Cup last year, is considering withdrawing its support of the code.
* Queensland Rugby Union chairman Peter Lewis has called on Australia to follow the lead of the New Zealand Rugby Union to convene a summit of the game's main stakeholders to plot the future of rugby in this country.
New Zealand held a two-day forum in Wellington this week to consider a response to the financial plight of the country's 26 unions and five Super 14 teams.
"I'm no advocate of talkfests but if John O'Neill was to convene a similar summit, it would have my support," Lewis said.
Code in crisis takes $8.5m king hit - Rugby - Fox Sports
I guess the two biggest losses there are $4million from the $AU performing so well against the $US, and almost a $4million drop in gate takings.
I know Im stating the obvious, but this isn't good for Rugby Union, it will be just something else for the other codes to whinge about Rugby.
But thankfully Force are making a profit, so maybe they should just be the National Rugby Union body?!![]()
a bit funny isn't it the previous year they make a profit last year john o'niel comes in (parden the french) f***ks over the code and were half way down the pipe !!
Have a look what he's done since he's come back :
1) - Starts APC at the same time as the Rugby World Cup, cause there is going to be no supporters, apart from our army as we have "SPIRIT"
and then says "oh we haven't made money" we will close the door on our juniors and development of other players"
2) - Sticks his nose into the EWF about outside payments...and now we find out we have double the profit to any other RU franchise in Australia (and probably S14)
nice one John !!
It's a bit tough to blame JON for the ARC timing. It was organised before he started back. A bit hard to blame him for last years losses too - he only took the job back towards the end of the year.
How about we defer judgement for a couple of years and see if he can right the ship or not?
i liked the bit about the wussytahs merchandise.....a world cup year and they expect tahds jerseys to be hotcakes ......were the tahds at the rwc?? i thought we were represented by the wallabies
But if we didn't have o'neil we would still have the APC for the juniors and fringe players...
Okay he put Soccer on the map in Australia, cause he had the backing of Frank Lowie (the third richest business man in OZ) he has no one backing him in rugby, so he's on the blame. ....