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OK, well here's one - the new tv deal won't kick in until 2011 and the full season won't really kick in until 2012 because of the World Cup, right? Well, when it comes to launching a new professional sporting competition from nothing, we should look at what has worked. (I don't count Super 12 because that had been evolving for years - it just needed Murdoch money.)
Some of the most obvious success stories I can think of over the last couple of decades are from soccer; namely the J-League, Major League Soccer and the A-League. All were working from a base of small crowds, zero publicity, crappy player payments and no suitable pre-existing structure. They all found different competition models that worked for them but what they all had in common was that they spent years and a serious amount of money beforehand on market research and stakeholder engagement to figure out what would work for them.
Yes the J-League and MLS had to tweak their systems after a few years (and the A-League will probably have to as well) but at least they had a strong start to work from, rather than a weak one that they had to "build from".
So if you want a suggestion from me that's the best I can do. Rather than pouring money in to a big money pit because "we need to start with something", spend a serious amount of cash (but still considerably less than what the ARC lost) on getting the structure right first. Some people might be unhappy but at least we could be confident of getting the right model to move forward with. We have a couple of years to do it.