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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.