Super Rugby needs a change, but make the decisions based on merit and fact, not on accommodating one of the parties pathetic internal politicking says Tank Lanning in his Sport24 column this week.
There will be more people at the promotion / relegation match between the Lions and Kings at Ellis Park this Saturday than there were at the Super Rugby quarter final between the Bulls and Brumbies at Loftus last weekend.
There were also many more people at Newlands to watch what was for the Cape fans a meaningless Super Rugby league game for their team against the Bulls than there were at the quarter final.
According to Repucom, of the 20 most watched Super Rugby games on DStv this year, 14 were local derbies, including the top 3. Every game involved a South African side, while only 6 were games against either New Zealand or Australia opposition. Amazingly, only 2 of those six games were against Kiwi sides!
Last year, 18 of the 20 most viewed games were hosted in SA, 19 included an SA side, and 13 were SA derbies. New Zealand sides were involved in 6 of those games, while Australian sides played in only 3 of the top 20 most viewed games.
In 2011, the cumulative average audience of live broadcasts on DStv reaching a massive 36 831 694 viewers, which represented 67% of the total SANZAR audience. The Kiwis (via Sky Sports) brought in 22% of the audience, while the Aussies (via Fox Sports) managed a meager 11%.
The current TV rights deal, which runs from 2011 to 2015, is believed to be worth a total of US$400 million. Which is then split three ways … Meaning that South Africa (via SuperSport) will undoubtedly be paying the most for the rights (based on delivering 67% of the TV audience), yet taking home only a third of that, given the SANZAR agreement.
Based on the above, it’s no wonder that one of alleged proposals being discussed among the SANZAR nations, this one from SARU, with input from Argentina, involves South Africa splitting from the current Super Rugby tournament to form its own competition with at least six teams and, potentially, an Argentinian side. The Australian and New Zealand provinces would then form a second grouping and potentially welcome an Asian side to their competition in future seasons.
Super Rugby is unfair in that not all sides play each other even though it based on a league, unfair in that every region is guaranteed a quarter finalist no matter the performance, includes too many teams, is badly structured, is killing the players, and takes too long to complete …
And is thus in desperate need of a complete overhaul, but is the split from Australia and New Zealand the right way to go?
Seemingly bullied into the current format, even while holding plenty aces in their hand, SARU have now decided to stand up for themselves. Not because of the aces up their sleeve, though, but because they want to accommodate 6 franchises.
This while the 5th franchise has been the bottom feeder on the log in 4 out of the last 5 seasons!
All parties are believed to be in favour of working out a solution that includes South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, but SARU’s domestic political environment is proving the sticking point.
The future structure of any tournament, which might or might not include the likes of Europe and their Heineken Cup (which, despite its obvious appeal, is also poorly structured and less comparable to Super Rugby than one might think), Argentina and Asia, is an exciting discussion, and one that I will fuel in a future column.
But it is deeply troubling to see SARU fighting for their “Due rights” when the numbers do not stack up (it is impossible to argue for a 6th franchise on merit), yet were seemingly happy to sit back and be bullied when all the economic numbers suggested they should be fighting for a bigger or better slice of the SANZAR pie.
The Kings / Lions debacle, and it can only be described as such, is quite clearly politically motivated, and is a blight on the South African rugby landscape. Yet SARU are seemingly happy to roll away from Super Rugby unless SANZAR change their tournament structure so as to help SARU clean up their mess.
Super Rugby needs a change, but make the decisions based on merit and fact, not on accommodating one of the parties pathetic internal politicking!
Hi Tank,
I do agree with you on this one – am copuing some attendance stats here, you most probably saw them.
2013 2012 Verskil +/- %
Stormers 33 545 41 025 7 480 18.23 6
Reds 31 837 32 699 862 2.64 13
Kings 31 783 24 562 -7 221 -29.40 15 Lions/Kings combined
Bulls 29 134 37930 8 796 23.19 4
Blues 20 354 23 378 3 024 12.94 9
Cheetahs 19 986 22 215 2 229 10.03 11
Sharks 19 491 26 210 6 719 25.64 3
Waratahs 17 036 20 646 3 610 17.49 7
Crusaders 14 908 16 333 1 425 8.72 12
Brumbies 14 290 13 936 -354 -2.54 14
Chiefs 14 081 17 576 3 495 19.89 5
Highlanders 13 334 19 205 5 871 30.57 2
Force 12 240 14 051 1 811 12.89 10
Rebels 11 947 14 051 2 104 14.97 8
Hurricanes 10 934 18 740 7 806 41.65 1
296913 342 557 45 644 13.32
Average attendance at home in 2012
Tank, I think this is just two parties spinning the news to duck the blame. Australia want us out, they get nothing from our participation, the SA match times are no use to them and people don’t attend Australian grounds when SA teams are playing. They do like playing the NZ teams though.
SA “need” to get 6 franchise regions playing. They also want Argentina inside the tent to even up the west/east imbalance of the competition, but Australia counter by throwing in red herrings like Asia and North America as somehow having equal merit to the Argentinians, or indeed the 6th franchise. They did this for years regarding the Tri-Nations until the IRB had to put a boot in and tell them to stop messing Argentina around.
Australia have played this well. I bet they even have the press release ready: “SA wanted to expand to 6 teams and explore the European options, we’re sorry to see them go of course but we’ll make do with the next best thing and start a Trans-Tasman NPC competition.”
I sense that SARU and Supersport are working together more closely than they have ever done. SARU know how much money Supersport currently put into SANZAR (via Newscorp of course), they know how much they could stump up for the alternatives. With that information, they should know when it becomes preferable to walk away rather than to extend SR.
The big TV prize would be a SA/England/France competition. The TV numbers of those three dwarf anything that you think might be comparable. It would be huge. It’s a tough one to achieve though, and the distraction of trying for it might just cause the next best option to fail.
“they get nothing from our participation”
You mean, other than the fact South Africa doubles the amount of revenue they get?
With ZA: Aussies get 33c in every rand.
Without ZA: Aussies would get 50% of the 33 cents that remain when ZA pulls out it’s 67% viewership, = 16.5c.
(Assuming viewership stats translate directly into revenue)
Ha ha. I actually thought about writing it as “they get nothing from our participation apart from the money”, but I decided it sounded too pompous.
They don’t get Australian viewers. SA teams are not a drawcard for the Australian audience, who have the competing options of NRL, AFL and soccer. That worries the Australia rugby admin. They must believe that they could soak Australian TV for a lot more money if it was a Trans Tasman competition, played only at TV friendly times. NRL and AFL each get around eight times as much (from Australian TV only) as Australian rugby gets from the SANZAR pot.
Your figure of 67% is an assumption, as you say. I can’t believe Supersport would bid as high as that. They’d be better off buying the whole thing and selling it on to Aus, NZ, Asia, France, Italy, UK/Ireland, N.America like Newscorp do. With the biggest viewership, I’m sure it’s more than 33%. More than 33% and less than 67% is a wide range. Supersport and now SARU know what it really is so they can finally negotiate with more certainty.
Hi Tank,
Please could you give me your views on the continual player purchase by The Stormers year on year from the days of Rassie Erasmus till now that Mr Coetzee is chasing Lionel Mapoe. Lions player were reportedly rubbish by all SA media when we were booted out of Superugby however our players have been sought after and purchased by local and International teams. How good is the outside purchase of players for development in the Western Cape. This cannot be very good in the Stormers camp when they begin loosing players Like Marcel Brache a decent youngster who will be plying his trade for the Western Force Next Year.
The format sucks.
I’d prefer a straight league, with every team playing everyone else once. Top of the league, wins it. Simple.
Then there should be a “Super Cup” format where the top 2 or 4 play the top 2 or 4 from Europe, in a knockout/cup format.
Not sure how to accommodate an extra team for ZA or Argentina, though…
Something has to give / the SR bubble is to big now and is going to pop.
How about two leagues? One league of 8-10 teams drawn from SA and South America and another same-sized league drawn from Australia/ NZ/ Asia.
Everyone plays everyone in their league, like a proper league should, fighting for a top four position.
The top four from both leagues meet each other in a seeded knock-out competition.
Everyone wins. More derbies. High level experience for Asia and South America. And high viewership knock-outs at the end