I am looking forward to seeing the upcoming broadcast deal and finding ways to get more quality games on the streaming service, especially since the fall of the Levels has left us with one less Australian team on the pitch.
Australian rugby is in dire financial straits, so this plan is a bit radical and will upset many, but if Rugby Australia (RA) doesn’t take this route, we’ll be like a bunch of Pied Pipers.
So let’s get started. Now we all want a revamped 3rd division NRC type competition and of course we rugby fanatics want better quality Australian rugby on our screens. So here’s an idea you might want to ponder, especially when reading Rugby Australia. ~ in Friday’s Roar Article “… insiders said: Growling Nine Entertainment and Stan want quality, not quantity.”
Consider the cost of broadcasting the various club games in Sydney and Brisbane and the number of viewers who actually watch Stan every week. I dare say that Stan has had very low viewership throughout the season, which has cost them a lot of money. Most people, except for club fans, will not watch club rugby on television because it is inconsistent and often poor quality. It is just not appealing. These 15 or so club games are basically played at the same time as Super Rugby Pacific, competing for viewership.
Brumbies’ Corey Toole is tackled by Waratahs’ Tane Edmed. (Photo: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
I may watch a replay or two of a local club game on a Sunday during a season when there is no SRP, but that is about it. I also cannot see a club competition across Australia being successful or beneficial to the game. The idea seems to have caught on with many of the big clubs (Sydney University and Randwick) as a way to become the “Leinster of the South”. In addition to bankrupting many clubs due to entry fees, such competitions would turn the Shute Shield and Hospital Cup into a joke competition where the two big clubs suck up all the good players and 7-9 scapegoats. Who would pay to see something like that?
So I would suggest that RA suggest Stan show less club games in order to show more NRC type games. Stan would change the system to show only one Shute Shield game and one Hospital Cup game per weekend and use the savings to cover a new 8-9 week NRC style competition with 8 Australian teams playing from late August to late October. The result would be Stan promoting and showing 4 decent quality rugby games per weekend after SRP and club rugby. But nothing in life is free so Stan would have to dig into his pocket and spend some of the aforementioned savings on broadcast time.
Also RA needs to find deep pocketed sponsors/naming rights as RA cannot afford to start and run these competitions themselves. The benefits are obvious. More players, coaches, trainers and referees can learn and play higher level rugby. I still remember most of the Super Rugby AU players from the successful Reds and Brumbies teams were introduced to high level rugby by the NRC between 2014 and 2019. Our golden era began but RA and fans were not able to see it and Covid killed it.
The ARC and NRC matches did not attract good crowds and fans, mainly because people could not relate to the teams. So let’s wait for more rugby after August and try to capture the Shute Shield/Hospital/Dent/Dwyer Cup fans there.
I suggest that each team should be named after a specific geographical area of ​​the club where most of the players are from, and that this should be actively promoted in name and match discussions. Each team name should resonate with the fans living in that area, and not be something stupid and mysterious like Sydney Rays, Wombats or Rising, which means nothing to the average punter.
Take for example a team called Sydney North (or something similar) that is supported by people from Kirribilli to Hornsby and perhaps beyond. their As the team all know, “If you ain’t born in the Northern Suburbs, you ain’t born!” The team will be made up of players drawn from suit clubs in the area. Each team will also be able to select around 30% from the Junior Academy’s full roster, Junior Wallabies, Super Team bench players and possibly Wallabies squad players who might not make it to the 23rd.
Thane Edmard and Angus Bell. (Photo: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
The ARU lost over $4 million running the inaugural ARC in 2007, one of the costs being paying the ABC to broadcast the event. The event was poorly run, the Sydney club was lukewarm (if anything) and the promotion and coverage were Z-grade. The Melbourne team played at the expensive Olympic Park Stadium and lost a ton of money (even then the Rebels were blowing their budget).
The NRC, which ran from 2014 to 2019, was a much better product, funded primarily by Foxtel, with several sponsors involved in the deal. The Sydney clubs seemed reluctant to play again, with Sydney teams dropping out of the competition and receiving little publicity outside of Foxtel. After another Sydney team dropped out, Fiji’s Drua took over in 2017 for the final three seasons, which was a breath of fresh air for the competition as a whole.
Get a Ziggy BBQ on Grand Finals day thanks to Barbeques Galore! Enter here.
The key issue to address is getting clubs, especially the SRU, to join the new competition. The clubs will obviously need something sweet to persuade them to change the start and end dates of the competition. Instead of ignoring them, get them on board with the prospect of hosting matches at their club stadiums and generating revenue. To reduce this and other costs, I have suggested using club stadiums instead of expensive ones. Also, make it clear to the clubs that playing at a higher level is beneficial to the players, so that more players will return to the clubs as better players.
The first eight teams will come from NSW, ACT, QLD and Victoria. All games should be played on Saturday or Sunday afternoon or early evening to be fan friendly. I know our brothers west of Uluru will be burning oil, but for the first few years it is just a matter of cost. Include Perth when the competition starts and increase to 9-10 teams after a few years. Or include Perth if Twiggy or WARU pay for flights etc. I excluded Fijian Drua for the same reason – to keep travel and accommodation costs down. So how will this competition be structured?
Let’s say there are 4 teams in NSW, 3 in Sydney and 1 in Canberra. Let’s say one team is called North Sydney Harbour (or Northern Sydney or Sydney North Rugby) and has 23 match day players, junior or senior Wallabies set up, selected from Northern Suburbs, Gordon, Manly and Warringah Shute Shield clubs and Tahs and/or Junior Academy.
Now these six extras have to be somewhat loyal to one of the clubs in that group. This way, you get a much higher quality game than a club game and all the players have a close relationship with the geographic area they represent. Assuming a crowd of 3,000 to 5,000, each of the above clubs can host a game for a season as long as the stadium can sustain that number without any problems with television coverage. Even if it’s just a fraction of the $10 to $15 entrance fee, the clubs get a nice cash return, plus beer and barbecue money.
The other team could be NSW South Sydney Harbour (or Sydney South Rugby) drawn from Sydney Uni, Randwick, Eastern Suburbs and Southern Districts, again with an additional six players from Tass etc. who are loyal to one of the clubs. The third team would be Sydney West Country (not sure of the name) with players drawn from Eastwood, Hunter (Newcastle and Districts), West Harbour, Western Sydney plus players who grew up north of the Great Western Highway (even if they play for another Sydney club) plus the aforementioned six additional players. Finally the fourth team would be Canberra South NSW with players drawn from Dent Cup, Wollongong plus players who play or grew up south of the Great Western Highway (even if they play for another Sydney club) plus six additional players drawn from the Brumbies, Academy and/or Junior or Senior Wallabies.
I am sure Queensland could field 3 teams in a similar way. Two more from the Brisbane club competition and one from the Brisbane West and North. I don’t know anything about the geography of Brisbane suburbs and rugby clubs so I can’t really break it down into club teams. The 8th team could be Victoria (Rebels?) with players from Dewar Shield or Victoria and 6 more players from SRP clubs (since RA cut the Rebels) or the Academy, Junior or Senior Wallabies.
Tate McDermott. (Photo: Bradley Canaris/Getty Images)
The tournament is semi-professional, but it costs a lot of money to attract players. Eight squads of 30-33 players each means about 260 players. So if you pay just $900 a week per player, that comes to $2 million. Add in staff salaries and other expenses, and the numbers get scary. The rubber-like beer coaster numbers come to $5-8 million on a shoestring budget. Even if you charge 10,000 people per game and charge $15, you can only make $4.8 million in admission fees, and you can’t expect to make $10,000 per game. Realistically, you could average 4,000 per game in the first year. Some teams will go over that number, some won’t.
Does Rugby Australia have the know-how or determination to host this tournament? Money is a sticking point, but the power base within the states and clubs would also be fiercely opposed to it.
Club rugby is great for meeting friends, having a beer in the sun and watching some decent rugby. But any club that wants to be the “Leinster of the South” is just a pipe dream. The money invested in the above eight-team, single-round game is desperately needed to make professional rugby viable in Australia. I personally don’t think RA has the knowledge or courage to start one, and I don’t think the stans and sponsors are willing to invest that money.
The outlook for rugby has become even more bleak. Super Rugby Pacific is not popular with fans at all and is losing millions of dollars a year, and club rugby is not playing quality rugby or making that kind of money. Another semi-trailer that will hit rugby hard is the expansion of the NRL. Our TVs will be full of the men’s NRL and the Nine Network will also have to cater for the expanding women’s NRL. If we continue as we are now, Australian rugby will be dead on the road in a few years.
Perhaps some of the pessimism I’ve read is correct. Just scrap SR altogether and remake professional rugby into what I’ve described, but with Perth added in and a full home and away round robin format with 8, 9 or 10 teams competing.
The squad will be bigger. Players will play 14-18 games a season, plus a semi-final and a grand final. Call it ‘Fun in the PARC’, professional Australian rugby. I dare say Stans (and most of us) will want to watch five Australia vs Australia games every weekend, and it’s possible that local matches will see attendances grow to the levels of the early 2000s.
The downside is that we have to accept that Australia will struggle to remain a top-tier rugby nation as our skill level is likely to decline further as the best players head to the sunnier northern hemisphere climates. There is no telling where NZ Rugby, TRC and Bledisloe Cup will be positioned.
So are there any Roar readers out there who are too lazy to throw $5 million at rugby every year? Anyone?
