Is it worth starting discussion about an "Even Playing Field"?

[Nipper]

Great post. The Tahs are the best Super Rugby team money can buy.

As you said, some teams are more equal than others - quite a joke, but not really funny...

[Nipper]

In Queenslands case having a crap load of international experience won't help when you have a moron as coach.

Testify, brother!

[shasta]

The best way of creating an even playing field is to get rid of this screaming communist mentality of salary caps. Pay the players more and it will stop them going overseas.

Just when I thought more of your posts seem rational than not, you come up with a howler like that! Almost as ridiculous as Chiselhead's rantings about the big end of town building a rectangular stadium for us.

Pay the playes more. Bloody simple, ay. Must be billions in spare cash floating around the big end of town in the current business climate. Wonder why nobody thought of that. That will dead set do me.

[Rex Messup]

Just when I thought more of your posts seem rational than not, you come up with a howler like that! Almost as ridiculous as Chiselhead's rantings about the big end of town building a rectangular stadium for us.

Pay the playes more. Bloody simple, ay. Must be billions in spare cash floating around the big end of town in the current business climate. Wonder why nobody thought of that. That will dead set do me.

Typical small thinking screaming lefty. have you been reading the various communist rags like the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning herald? This country will be like Greece in 20 years.....dead set

10 years ago, nobody gave a flying fark about French rugby, let alone wanting to play in it. Now it is arguably, the premier rugby competition in the world. The English system has gone down a similar path. The wheels are falling off Stupor 15 because of small thinking. All our players want out. 3rd party deals have been tampered with/blocked/adulterated. The reality is, it works. Big money brings the talent. Think EPL. IPL. Think French rugby. Think Japanese rugby.

Several trillion dollars is exchanged world wide everyday. Money is just a problem to be solved. There is no shortage of it. Sh1t, the yanks and Europeans and Japanese started printing the stuff as a quantitative easing strategy.

The Gladiator bought the Bunnies.........and turned them into the champions after 40+ years of dead brained Lefties keeping the club broke, last and talentless. Many EPL clubs are "owned". many Japanese rugby clubs are "owned". Hey, owning a professional sporting team is the new "cool" in the big end of town.It's small change to them. Purchases are ego driven. They could buy a 3rd world country or an professional sporting team. They get off on getting their photo taken in the corporate box and having their kid photographed with the stars.

Take the farking blinkers off Shasta ya mungo belter. I bet you have a tattoo of Julia Gillard on your arse?

[shasta]

Still dribbling the same shit all these years later and it's just as irrelevant to the Southern Hemisphere situation as the dribble about privately funded stadiums. If the money and interest was there it would already have happenned. But don't let that stop you. Dribble on.

[Rex Messup]

It could never happen in Australia...our country is diphrunt or sumphink. Sowf Sidney just kept their juniors. Made all the diffrunce.

[Rex Messup]

We wont change anything though. We'll keep thinking small because we are a 3rd world southern hemisphere country with no connections to the Asian economic and social revolution. We'll just all stand around with our hands on our dicks and watch Ben McCalman go to the Tahs before heading overseas...like every other player with talent...because "its different" over there. Rugby clubs have lots of money there 15 years after the game went prodessional. They charge more for beer or sumphink. And while we're all humping the neighbours dog because the rugby is so talentless and shite to watch in the southern hemisphere, the broadcast dollars will go to Europe. We can all buy a Stormers or Bulls jersey because the Saffers will be playing in Europe. Rugby in Perth will fold coz wr are just a southern hemisphere country. Lucky some big thinkers thought of live television via satellite so all the Lefties could watch live rugby from Europe.

[Rex Messup]

Oh yeah...the stadium. Otago, with a population of 3000 people, a few thousand domesticated sheep and surviving on small change from penniless students and controlled by a virtually bankrupt government with a 20% of Australias tax revenue and virtually zero interest from the big end of town built one of the best rugby stadiums in the world...with a roof 'n all. No humans were involved in the drafting, planning and construction of the stadium God did it.

[palitu]

Immaculate Construction

[The InnFORCEr]

Yes you can barely see a screw in it

[GIGS20]

with no connections to the Asian economic and social revolution. We'll just all stand around with our hands on our dicks and watch Ben McCalman go to the Tahs before heading overseas...like every other player with talent...because "its different" over there. Rugby clubs have lots of money there 15 years after the game went prodessional.

It might have something to do with the fact that all our money is still generated by selling our raw materials to other countries who buy it at a great price, add value to it and then sell it back to us at a premium markup.

I think in lots of ways it IS different over there and the Australian business and public sector are the ones who need to stop the short sighted thinking before the entire country goes broke, not just our sporting codes.

But by all means Rex, go and have some meetings with the movers and shakers and secure the funding for your model to work, it sounds so easy I'm sure you could do it in your spare time.

(BTW I',m aware it's all a fishing trip, but there's only so much shit I can put up with)

[Herbasimplex]

the stadium. Otago, \]

The stadium is one of the best I have watched rugby in. Close to the action, the noise and atmosphere great and perfect conditions inside unlike the usual dross outside.

When NZ won RWC11 they mooted the idea a new stadium and asked ratepayers in Otago for input and they poo-pooed it on the basis of cost for half of the one that was eventually built. NZ government decided it was too important and funded it from a public-private partnership. It is still being payed off and from memory does not generate enough revenue to pay the interest payments! Whoever is holding the kitty at the end of the day will take a massive bath and probably preclude those funding arrangements from ever being used to fund this infrastructure again.

Anyway if it is a fiat economy and money is being created out of thin air, why not whack a new stadium up? the problem can be someone else's on 10/15 years time when the bills come due ala Greece and we can just blame the money lenders as greedy sharks for giving us the ways to live well beyond our means. Moral of the story - be less responsible.

[Rex Messup]

It might have something to do with the fact that all our money is still generated by selling our raw materials to other countries who buy it at a great price, add value to it and then sell it back to us at a premium markup.

I think in lots of ways it IS different over there and the Australian business and public sector are the ones who need to stop the short sighted thinking before the entire country goes broke, not just our sporting codes.

But by all means Rex, go and have some meetings with the movers and shakers and secure the funding for your model to work, it sounds so easy I'm sure you could do it in your spare time.

(BTW I',m aware it's all a fishing trip, but there's only so much shit I can put up with)

This mindset is why Australians are considered the stupid white trash of Asia....and why our country is heading for ruin. The reason we export raw materials and buy it back as products Gigs is because Australian business cant afford the labour costs and the oppressive taxation and the paralysis of Australian IR. The country is headed for the rocks. We cant all "work" 35 hour weeks for the government and get 15% super and a years worth of redundancy every time we change department. Someone has to pay the millions of public servants in this country.

Meanwhile back at the rugby debate... I think you missed the point. It is very simple to restructure our rugby. It does require a different attitude and belief system.

[agrugger]

Can someone explain the "blocking payments from 3rd parties"? American athletes can make as much money putting their name on a product as their salary. Why aren't there a line of Honey Badger shoes, or Hodgo Nike Tshirts, etc?

The Super 15 does have to compete with other elite leagues. There Americans don't have to worry about an NFL player going anywhere, or a legit basketball player going to Greece. So why wouldn't they let the local business help pay the players to keep them local (either Perth or AU in general)?

[andrewg]

As I understand it each team is allowed to pay up to $500k/year in 3rd party payments which is not included in the cap.

So the salary cap is $4.5 million.

However, in the case of the top 25-30 Wallabies under contract with the ARU payments from 3rd parties can make up the ARU's agreed salary but not increase it above the agreed level.

I assume that's the 'block" to which you are referring.??