Force travel east for opening Super Rugby Pacific Rounds

[Alison]

The background to my comment is simple - the WF is a business, a business needs money to survive, a business that is a sporting franchise gets a big portion of its money from local sponsors and (to a much, much lesser extent) local people who pay for memberships and tickets. In the age of professional sport I think it naive to believe that the main reason a CEO wants to get 7 home games is for the sheer enjoyment of its fanbase. It’s as much (and in my opinion, more) about the financials as it is about the poor old bums-on-seat fans. That’s the point I was making. Nothing sinister or snide or cryptic.
As for Andrew Forrest, I’m sure he’s extremely keen for this business to turn a profit as soon as possible so he can turn off the tap. That’s not a criticism, by the way.

[andrewg]

The background to my comment is simple - the WF is a business, a business needs money to survive, a business that is a sporting franchise gets a big portion of its money from local sponsors and (to a much, much lesser extent) local people who pay for memberships and tickets. In the age of professional sport I think it naive to believe that the main reason a CEO wants to get 7 home games is for the sheer enjoyment of its fanbase. It’s as much (and in my opinion, more) about the financials as it is about the poor old bums-on-seat fans. That’s the point I was making. Nothing sinister or snide or cryptic.
As for Andrew Forrest, I’m sure he’s extremely keen for this business to turn a profit as soon as possible so he can turn off the tap. That’s not a criticism, by the way.

Thanks Alison, I thought I must have been missing something, as my impression is that Tony has been working hard to look after the Sea of Blue during some very tough times.

His background is building a franchise from nothing.
But surely 7 games - or 8 in some seasons is a reasonable expectation from the Sea of Blue.
(If RugbyAu would give us our fair share every other year).
I for one would be crapped off if it was only, say, 5.

But you've now raised another matter.
My comment is that we should never take AF's $$s for granted.
When has he stated that he's keen to "turn off the tap"?
I've always gained the impression that he's in for the long haul.

I'm used to such negative unuendo on The Roar or RG&G but not on TWF.
I'm rapt that we still have a professional team to watch and an organisation that is also keen on supporting local rugby.

[Alison]

Sorry you took it as negative innuendo, Andrew. It wasn’t meant to be. I guess life has taught me never to take anything at face value, that there are two sides to every story and that balance is important. And I’d be really surprised if a tough, battle-hardened businessman like Andrew Forrest wasn’t interested in seeing Sea of Blue Pty Ltd stand on its own two feet financially sooner rather than later.

Anyway, let’s draw this conversation to a close and hope that we do get 7 home games to watch this season.

[GIGS20]

I can't remember when I heard it, but one of the CEO's told a story about af writing a couple of targets on a piece of paper, stuff like best team in Australia, best team in the comp and so on. As the story goes, that list included self-sustaimable by (I think it was) year 3.

Now I don't know whether that was grr or whether the story is even accurate, but I wouldn't be surprised if af has set a timeframe for any venture to become viable as a business.

Despite the passion of the way fans, if the force cannot ever become a viable business, even with extended success, surely it's right for it to fold.

I mean the tahs have sucked pretty much forever, but the business is still running without a billionaire benefactor.

I would also think that af wouldn't have listed a timeframe as something rigid more of a "here's a target" and covid would have blown a big hole in the likelihood of getting the job done.

Regardless of all of that, I don't see af simply turning his back,

[.X.]

I can't remember when I heard it, but one of the CEO's told a story about af writing a couple of targets on a piece of paper, stuff like best team in Australia, best team in the comp and so on. As the story goes, that list included self-sustaimable by (I think it was) year 3.

Now I don't know whether that was grr or whether the story is even accurate, but I wouldn't be surprised if af has set a timeframe for any venture to become viable as a business.

Despite the passion of the way fans, if the force cannot ever become a viable business, even with extended success, surely it's right for it to fold.

I mean the tahs have sucked pretty much forever, but the business is still running without a billionaire benefactor.

I would also think that af wouldn't have listed a timeframe as something rigid more of a "here's a target" and covid would have blown a big hole in the likelihood of getting the job done.

Regardless of all of that, I don't see af simply turning his back,

I believe that the targets were from Andrew Forrest himself from maybe 2 years ago when he was guests on a couple of Rugby Podcasts. Although I am sure the targets were

* Best Australian Team
* Best Southern Hemisphere Team
* Best Club Team in the World

[shasta]

New Zealand to (not really) reopen borders starting at the end of February

Has Jacinda just moved all Trans-Tas home games to Australia for 2022??

Vaccinated New Zealanders in Australia can travel home quarantine-free from February 27...............no-later than July the country is expected to open up to non-citizens from visa-waiver countries – like Australia, the USA, and UK.


https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceania...03-p59tg5.html

[Sheikh]

I can't remember when I heard it, but one of the CEO's told a story about af writing a couple of targets on a piece of paper, stuff like best team in Australia, best team in the comp and so on. As the story goes, that list included self-sustaimable by (I think it was) year 3.

Now I don't know whether that was grr or whether the story is even accurate, but I wouldn't be surprised if af has set a timeframe for any venture to become viable as a business.

Despite the passion of the way fans, if the force cannot ever become a viable business, even with extended success, surely it's right for it to fold.

I mean the tahs have sucked pretty much forever, but the business is still running without a billionaire benefactor.

I would also think that af wouldn't have listed a timeframe as something rigid more of a "here's a target" and covid would have blown a big hole in the likelihood of getting the job done.

Regardless of all of that, I don't see af simply turning his back,

I don't think that the Force will ever be truly self-sustainable. If you assume that the organisation costs $10 million a year to run, and we have only 7 home games a year, then even is we filled Optus Stadium for every home game (~60,000 tickets, so ~420,000 home attendances) the ticket price would be an average of $238 per game.

All professional sports need money from TV, which gets collected and distributed by, for us, Rugby Australia. The best the Force can achieve is that the money from RA plus the income from gate receipts, sponsorship, etc, covers the costs and we can be in the black. But that's not self-sustainable because we are reliant on the RA hand-out, and as we've seen through Alison's analysis of ARU finances we consistently received the lowest hand-out of the five SR clubs.

[.X.]

I don't think that the Force will ever be truly self-sustainable. If you assume that the organisation costs $10 million a year to run, and we have only 7 home games a year, then even is we filled Optus Stadium for every home game (~60,000 tickets, so ~420,000 home attendances) the ticket price would be an average of $238 per game.

All professional sports need money from TV, which gets collected and distributed by, for us, Rugby Australia. The best the Force can achieve is that the money from RA plus the income from gate receipts, sponsorship, etc, covers the costs and we can be in the black. But that's not self-sustainable because we are reliant on the RA hand-out, and as we've seen through Alison's analysis of ARU finances we consistently received the lowest hand-out of the five SR clubs.

With love and respect buddy. I disagree.

In my humble opinion, I believe that Sponsorship dollars and our share of TV Revenue is a very well earned part of our income stream. It is reliant on the talent that we produce exciting content that continues to attract 1. A worldwide TV audience and 2. Full stadiums no matter where we play. IF we are able to do this. Our sustainability is always within our grasps and completely possible.

A hand-out from RA would be non-existent at the moment - I assume, thanks to our favorite benefactor. But TV-Rights is something we contribute to so, therefore, should receive a share of.

[AndyS]

I agree Ex, but the flip side is that so long as the professional game consumes everything it generates, there will never be any money for community rugby. Perhaps the middle ground that the sport should be aiming for wouldn't be far removed from the NH model, where SR is accounted separately and that money returned entirely to the teams, but none of the money generated by the Wallabies. At the moment Sheikh is right, that would mean a haircut as the Wallabies are subsidising SR.

[GIGS20]

I don't think that the Force will ever be truly self-sustainable. If you assume that the organisation costs $10 million a year to run, and we have only 7 home games a year, then even is we filled Optus Stadium for every home game (~60,000 tickets, so ~420,000 home attendances) the ticket price would be an average of $238 per game.

All professional sports need money from TV, which gets collected and distributed by, for us, Rugby Australia. The best the Force can achieve is that the money from RA plus the income from gate receipts, sponsorship, etc, covers the costs and we can be in the black. But that's not self-sustainable because we are reliant on the RA hand-out, and as we've seen through Alison's analysis of ARU finances we consistently received the lowest hand-out of the five SR clubs.

When I said self-sustainable, I meant to count all the various distributions from grants, broadcast deals etc in the calculation.

I think Twiggy is interested in the Force being able to control their own destiny and that means they need to be in the black, if not year by year, at least in overall terms.

[GIGS20]

I agree Ex, but the flip side is that so long as the professional game consumes everything it generates, there will never be any money for community rugby. Perhaps the middle ground that the sport should be aiming for wouldn't be far removed from the NH model, where SR is accounted separately and that money returned entirely to the teams, but none of the money generated by the Wallabies. At the moment Sheikh is right, that would mean a haircut as the Wallabies are subsidising SR.

I already see (and I think most of the club stalwarts would agree with me) that professional rugby is pretty nicely removed from grassroots rugby. X has mentioned multiple times that NSWRU and SRU don't give a cent to subbies rugby, The Force is organisationally removed from RugbyWA and sure, players and some money crosses over, but substantially the Professional arm operates fairly independently nd provides benefit to the community game where it suits the professional arm.

That seems to work OK in WA, where the Force fund things like the schools comp and the academy, taking that cost off RugbyWA (not sure if that deal is 100%) and they do make players available for clubs. I think the way the Force are approaching it looks pretty sustainable and community minded from the outside, but you'd need to speak to somebody embedded in the club scene to get a clearer call on what it actually means in the real world.