SANZAR's Super 14 Quick Fix: Too Little Too Late...................But,
What is the leadership of SANZAR thinking by announcing a proposed expansion of the Super 14 finals to a Top Six playoffs series next year?
This certainly does not fix the tournament.
The problem starts with the Super 14, whose charisma and television allure, started in 1996, has fast waned over the years and is now out of step and irrelevant to contemporary rugby tournaments in Europe and no amount of re-jiggling the top 6 teams in the Super 14 will fix that, as the tournament rewards mediocrity amongst the bottom 8.
The Super 14 comprises of Five Teams from each South Africa and New Zealand and 4 from Australia and was created to grow the game in all three countries.
Instead the Super 14 has developed into an incestuous and ordinary rugby product, its television audiences have plummeted as have gate attendances, as the fans are voting with their feet and staying away from the stadiums. New Zealand have already discussed adding a sixth franchise by splitting the Auckland Blues into two teams and Australia are talking about introducing Melbourne as their fifth franchise. New Zealands players are leaving the National Provincial Competition in droves and Australia has suspended their local competition, because they are out of money.
Right here in South Africa we had, or rather have, a sixth franchise in the creation of the Southern Spears, going back to June 2005, that has cost SA Rugby tens of millions and then some, for excluding an entire rugby region and there are more financial liabilities to follow. But this residual investment can be turned into an asset.
Ironically, if feelings, sentiments and ridicule can be put aside, this past acrimonious experience that SA Rugby Pty Ltd has had with the Southern Spears, can actually deliver a master stroke solution, that remedies the problems in South Africa, as well as the ills of SANZAR and inject new life and excitement back into Super 14 rugby in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
It will have fans clamouring to get back into the stadiums, by introducing an exciting new formatted Super 14 rugby product, that can be offered to National Broadcasters to attract new streams of revenue into the game, to grow it for future generations.
Today's announcement by SANZAR, clearly signals a desperate attempt to salvage the Super 14. The next phase that they will be talking are suggesting that Tokyo and Los Angeles as franchise contenders, which is an ill conceived blue sky notion that will make a mockery of the Super 14.
The answer to all of this, believe it or not, is that the solution is here at home and has always been since 2005.
SA Rugby's President Hoskins, is under siege from the 14 Unions to generate revenue, from government to meet transformation timetables and for the Unions to develop a potent rugby inventory that can be commercially marketed to television and sponsors. SABC with 20 million viewers, broadcasts no live international games of rugby, as SuperSport with 1 million Pay Per View Susbscribers has this locked up.
So now Regan Hoskins is in the unique position of siezing the initiative by presenting to his SANZAR partners, as well as the 14 SA Rugby Union Presidents Council, an innovative holistic strategic rugby solution, that is capable of remedying these enormous financial and political challenges they all face.
The soon to be dissolved SA Rugby Pty Ltd and its directors, is on the skids with its directors having recklessly exposed the SA Rugby Union and its 14 Presidents Council, to enormous financial liabilities. This has resulted in Hoskins commissioning a forensic audit to investigate mismanagement of funds, travel and dubious authorisations, by its Chairman Tshume and MD Jonathan Stones, who are currently in Perth with their wives on a R1m junket spree to New Zealand and Australia. This is a smart move by Hoskins, as while the forensic auditors are in the corridors of SA Rugby this week, calling for documentation, travel authorisations and financial reports of dubious expenditure, they are in Perth.
Hoskins' master stroke can deliver a solution to all 3 rugby unions of SANZAR, and heal deep divisions within SA Rugby and make the Super 14 rugby inventory an attractive rugby spectacle by introducing new Super 14 competition format and commercial sponsorships to a much greater television audience. Not in 2010, but in 2008.
The way forward for the Super 14 should be as follows:
1. South Africa to have 6 (5 + 1) franchises with the 5th placed South African franchise in the Super 14, to play the 6th franchise in a in a relegation and promotion Tri-Game Series (Home, Away & Neutral Territory)
2. New Zealand to have 6 (5 + 1) franchises with the 5th placed New Zealand franchise in the Super 14, to play the 6th franchise in a relegation and promotion Tri-Game Series (Home, Away & Neutral Territory)
3. Australia to have 5 (4 + 1) franchises with the 4th placed Australian franchise in the Super 14, to play their 5th franchise in a relegation and promotion Tri-Game Series (Home, Away & Neutral Territory)
4. The three SANZAR franchises not competing in the Super 14, play a round robin against a wild card Northern Hemisphere and wild card Southern Hemisphere side which, tournament, is offered to free to air national broadcasters and sponsors.
This has the net effect of immediately slowing the migration of players to Europe by retaining each country's player asset base and ensuring that the Super 14 rugby product is the optimum television viewing and commercial property in the world, the way it was in 1996. Only now it is a new remodelled commercially viable product.
In one fell swoop Regan Hoskins can deliver an elixir to rugby in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
EXPAND BELOW THE SUPER 14
BLR -
The Lions are serial losers being the last placed South African S14 side for the past 3 years. That should never be tolerated.
The Super 14 remains with 14 teams. So no expansion there.
However one has to introduce Relegation & Promotion to maintain the teams competitiveness, so there is an expansion in a level below the S14 and the problem then becomes what to do with each of the 3 teams sitting out.
That is overcome with a new competition attracting new players, more television coverage and additional sponsors.
No room for too much democracy in rugby world
A perspective from New Zealand.
No room for too much democracy in rugby world
By DAVID MOFFETT - The Press | Saturday, 19 July 2008
No surprises then with the latest document out of the Kremlin.
The New Zealand Rugby Union hates being referred to as the Kremlin but unfortunately it will have to get used to it if it continues to peddle its centralist strategies. Someone ought to remind them that communism doesn't work and trying to make everyone equal is a recipe for disaster.
It's easy to see the hand of Steve Tew behind this latest offering and yet again brings his management style into question.
On the one hand he trumpets the success of the All Blacks and the franchises, especially the super-successful Crusaders, and on the other says there are problems with distributing financial surpluses, Canterbury's advantages in the Air NZ Cup, and its ability to attract and retain the best players.
Well, wake up and smell the roses, Steve, for these are the very reasons that the All Blacks have been so successful.
It is no coincidence that the All Blacks are strong when a franchise is strong look, no further than the Crusaders and Blues as proof of that. If Tew has his way though, that success will be a thing of the past as he attempts to dumb down the elite in search of the lowest common denominator.
He makes great play of the subsidies paid to the Super 14 franchises. What he fails to explain is that the subsidy is appropriate as the NZRU earns all the revenue from the centralised sale of the broadcasting rights and most of the sponsorships. To make it sound like they are doing the franchises a favour, when they are entitled to the revenue, is disingenuous.
Of greatest concern though is the self-serving tripe that suggests that the franchises should change their governance to allow for a majority of independent directors. If there is any organisation in NZ Rugby that would benefit from an increase in the number of independent directors, the first cab off the rank would have to be the NZRU itself.
I would back the performance of the majority of franchises over the union any day of the week. This is doubly so when you take into account the constraints that the union puts on the franchises and host unions which affect their ability to become self-sufficient. Big Brother is alive and well and living in Wellington.
The major talking point in the UK this week has been the extraordinary claim by John O'Neill that rugby is in danger of being split into two hemispheres playing two different versions of the game. Essentially he was saying to the rugby world fall into line with Australia's vision of the future of the game or risk a damaging split.
Even by O'Neill's standards this was an outrageous claim. The anger in the UK was palpable as a result of O'Neill making his claims in the media and not through the proper IRB forum. Unfortunately O'Neill seems to think Australia is at the centre of the rugby universe.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Rugby in Australia is in trouble, lagging behind Aussie rules, rugby league and soccer in popularity. They have had to turn to a Kiwi in Robbie Deans as coach and many people believe the talent pool in Australia is diminishing.
His comments certainly seemed to bind NZ and South Africa into the same position. I hope NZ rugby distances itself from his views. Just when Australian rugby needs as many friends as it can muster, O'Neill alienates the rugby world with his desire for another headline.
David Moffett is a former CEO of the New Zealand and New South Wales rugby unions and the National Rugby League.
