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Thread: Rugby Australia fiddles while the code burns

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    Rugby Australia fiddles while the code burns

    Rugby Australia fiddles while the code burns

    Roy Masters
    Sports Columnist
    June 4, 2020 — 11.32am

    SANZAAR is imploding; the Kiwis are plotting to control what is left of Super Rugby in the Pacific; Rugby Australia has just announced a 40 per cent cut in staff after staving off insolvency, yet interim chief executive Rob Clarke says that now is “a nice opportunity” to resurrect the game in this country.

    It’s difficult not to think of Nero. After all, the immediate past RA chief executives Bill Pulver and Raelene Castle, together with their chairmen, Michael Hawker, Cameron Clyne and Paul McLean, have all fiddled while the code burned.

    Rugby has descended from a position where it had won two World Cups by 1999 to the Wallabies now ranked seventh; headquarters once sat on a war chest of $35m, yet incurred a $9.8m loss last year; rugby wooed NRL internationals, such as Lote Tuqiri, to the Waratahs - once ranked fifth in Australian sporting franchises, behind the Broncos and Collingwood – and now faces a player exodus; three franchises, Brumbies, Waratahs and Reds, either won Super Rugby titles or were finalists, yet last year Australia had one team (Brumbies) in the top 10 of the 15-team SANZAAR.

    Clarke has been quoted saying “Rugby Australia has a bright future”, although the code’s incoming chair, Hamish McLennan, is far more measured.

    “We are going through a difficult period but rugby’s core is very strong and, while we have a lot of work to do, I wouldn’t have taken on the job if I didn’t think I could have made a difference.”

    Some believe McLennan, 54, was drafted onto the RA board only after newly elected director Peter Wiggs, having been endorsed as chair, admitted he would like to have two-time successful former CEO John O’Neill join his board.

    This would have reunited O’Neill with Matt Carroll - Wiggs’ choice of his former Mosman teammate as CEO – putting the St Joseph's College old boys in control, while the McLennan/Clarke pairing are former Shore rugby players, as was the Hawker/Pulver duo.

    Yet McLennan gives no hint that old school ties will influence his decision making in his new role, nor that his chairmanship of the REA Group, a digital advertising real estate company operated by News Corporation, will drive the game back to its quarter-century broadcaster, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Sports.

    Any suggestion that his close association with the Murdoch family will extract a generous rights deal from Fox is as meaningful as interim CEO Clarke sailing on Sydney Harbour with Fox boss Patrick Delany.

    “I know all the media players,” says McLennan who is also a former boss of Channel Ten. “I’ll do what is right for rugby and Foxtel will do what is right for them.”

    McLennan is also deputy chair of Magellan Financial Group, a global equity fund. It's financial savvy the code needs right now.

    “We are addressing the cost base and making the tough decisions and looking to create a sustainable structure going forward,” he says.

    A $14m advance from World Rugby – a pre-payment on the 2023 Rugby World Cup - has strict conditions and a loan has been taken out with HSBC.

    But given COVID-19 has shut down gate revenue and Fox is in the last year of RA’s contract, what type of competition can he sell to a broadcaster to pay the bills?

    COVID-19, with its travel restrictions, has kicked away what has underpinned international sporting competitions.

    SANZAAR has unravelled, with the Rugby Championship – Test matches between the southern hemisphere nations – all that seems guaranteed long term. South Africa is positioning to join Pro 14, a competition embracing UK teams and two former South African teams who were jettisoned from SANZAAR’s fundamentally flawed 18 franchise iteration. It is inevitable countries will have domestic competitions in what is left of 2020 and maybe 2021 as well.

    New Zealand sources, where rugby union is almost a civic religion, suggest the Kiwis are seeking to control what is left in the Pacific, aiming for a provincial competition with perhaps one Japanese team, together with a Pacific Island nation. Australia, it seems, may be fortunate to have only one franchise included, if invited.

    McLennan will only concede that “Super Rugby isn’t working and we need to figure what to do. The pathways from club rugby to the Wallabies don’t currently work. My focus will be around ensuring the grassroots right through all competitions is the right structure”.

    Yet funding for grassroots was Clyne’s justification for sacking Western Force from SANZAAR. He said the Perth based franchise “has greatly affected our capacity to invest in community rugby”. RA’s funding of Community Rugby continues at the paltry level of only 3.6 per cent of revenue.

    Nevertheless, McLennan says, “The schools and Under 20 teams are showing real talent, which gives us confidence that over time, under a new leader in [Wallabies coach] Dave Rennie, we will have a more competitive team.”

    He is confident a five-team Australian competition, embracing the existing four Super Rugby franchises, plus the recall of the Western Force (for 2020 only), will rate better with more friendly time zones and local derbies. But will Foxtel pay for a competition which doesn’t meet contractual obligations and provides minimal content?

    An alternative suggested is NSW and Queensland’s semi-professional Shute Shield and Hospitality Cup club competitions. However, they are not a commercial proposition for broadcasters, generating average free-to-air TV audiences of 20,000 and 10,000 respectively.

    These ratings would need to be 15-20 times larger to justify a broadcaster paying for production and rights fees.

    To put this in context, Super Rugby local derbies on Foxtel (behind the paywall) average 71,000, which equates to 165,000 on FTA TV.

    Meanwhile, the Kiwis are investing in “Aratipu”, the Maori word for “growth”, which is code for the survival of their game at the possible expense of a Trans-Tasman competition.

    Global Media and Sport’s Colin Smith, who wrote the 2014 report for RUPA warning of the flaws of SANZAAR expansion, says “RA must get their transformation on and off the field absolutely right this time, otherwise their fan base will disappear”.

    Asked why McLennan would succeed when so many Nero’s have failed, Smith said, “He is a credentialed chairman and if he is supported by a leading sports administrator as CEO, he could become the Emperor Constantine to revitalise the code.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-u...04-p54zdv.html

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  2. #2
    Legend Contributor Alison's Avatar
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    McLennan talks the talk. Can he walk the walk or will he be beaten down by the old vested interests of the past? Interesting times for RA.

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    Immortal GIGS20's Avatar
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    He's already appointed old school chum Clarke to the role of interim ceo, what do you think his chances are of resisting the vested interests?

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    Legend Contributor Alison's Avatar
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    Good point, GIGS! I fell for the old silver tongue and forgot about the usual forked one.

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    Immortal GIGS20's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alison View Post
    Good point, GIGS! I fell for the old silver tongue and forgot about the usual forked one.
    Easy to do, believe me

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