Super Rugby Mailbag: 'Just hurry up and get a draft'
PLUS: The Week That Almost Wasn't and The Weekend That Will Be
You came to the Super Rugby ideas party, and I thank you for it.
On Monday, having been momentarily wowed by the Chiefs victory over the Crusaders, I put out a call for thoughts around how to make the competition more like that and less “missable and instantly forgettable”.
The response has been fantastic, and instructive. I’ve had comments from dedicated rugby fans and from those who have become gradually disengaged from the sport. I’ve had emails and strictly off-the-record calls from those involved at the pointy end of the sport’s administration.
It goes without saying that a sports newsletter will have an audience that is invested in sport, though not necessarily rugby, but even so I was mildly surprised by how many people care about having a high-functioning, captivating Super Rugby competition, and how many people believe it is right there to be had if Sanzaar/ New Zealand Rugby/ the clubs would just listen to them.
There are a couple of you who think that Super Rugby has no real viable future, probably best articulated by Todd: “The harsh reality is that there is not enough money in NZ rugby to fund a top professional competition. There are many other more attractive competitions in Australian sport, while the South Africans have followed the money and gone north. The inevitable outcome is that NZ’s best players will play their club footy in Europe or Japan. A global window - as we see in football - is the only way forward.”
While I’d agree that the expenditures involved in running a Super Rugby team have probably outstripped the revenue you can squeeze out of the local market - especially if the clubs can’t access 100 percent of the broadcast money from the Super Rugby portion of the deal with Sky - I’m not sure the north is quite the threat it once was, particularly when you see the English clubs collapsing under the weight of their costs.
Most readers, however, believe in the viability of a southern hemisphere club competition, just not in its current format.
After conversations with a couple of stakeholders in particular, it is clear there is a bigger story to tell here, particularly around ownership, governance and administration of the clubs.
One source who has been intimately involved in the running of professional rugby said there needs to be a truly independent competition board - not a shoulder-tapped group of rugby insiders - whose task is to return Super Rugby to the entertainment matrix. To do that effectively they will need to have marketing and digital innovation skills. He said, to paraphrase, that it was time for people like him, “rugby lifers”, to step aside and let a new breed of administrators, those unencumbered by tradition and the at times peculiar social mores of the sport here and in Australia, to take the game forward.
This is a big, weighty topic that I want to do justice to at a later date, but one thing that was mentioned by more than one rugby administrator was the urgent need for a draft that would serve the twin purposes of creating storylines away from the 80 minutes and inject a measure of parity.
This independent commission and the idea of a draft, was touched on in Stuff.
The idea of a NFL-styled draft was mentioned by more than one punter too, so it must be a good idea!
Here’s a collection of some of the other correspondence (most of it is edited and abridged for length and clarity). Apologies to those whose thoughts didn’t make it, but where similar thoughts were expressed, I just went with the one that was simpler to edit. Your thoughts are in italics, mine are in normal text.
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Make it more like the NPC and less like Super Rugby. More tribal. Then have a best-of-three North v South (Island of origin) as a proxy All Black trial. - Northland Pete
I’d watch that, but try squeezing three more brutal games into the calendar.
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Two eight-team separate conferences - NZ and Australia - that don’t meet until the finals, so the regular season is all derbies. And just hurry up and get a draft. - Martin
Yep, don’t mind this idea at all.
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There is a well-known axiom that applies to test cricket. “One always bats first, except on that odd occasion when circumstances demand further consideration, and after reflecting for 15 minutes you bat.” Or words to that effect.
Super Rugby has developed something similar. At the start of each season when predicting the winner, one always selects the Crusaders, except on the rare occasion, such as when the Chiefs beat them mid-season, one ponders for about 15 minutes, then picks the Crusaders.
That is the problem!
If Super Rugby continues with its current 12 teams, then it needs management that does all possible to ensure a genuine 12-team race. Look at the NFL and their very clever draft system. One that sees the lesser performing teams having first pick on the best players available.
The other key issue is the lack of focus and accountability for Super Rugby. It needs its own separate entity, complete with board, management and responsibility for all Super Rugby issues across all 12 teams. NZR has always looked at Super Rugby as primarily a feeder system for the ABs. That has to stop. - David
As I mentioned before, the theme of a draft came through heavily in both the public and private correspondence. More than one person mentioned how it wasn’t an even playing field for the Highlanders, which has a low population base and difficulty attracting the best players. A draft would mitigate that.
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I’d split the comp into two divisions with promotion/relegation. You’d have top six in Div 1, and bottom six in Div 2 with each team playing home and away round-robin within their division.
The minor premiers would go straight to a grand final while second and third would play off to find the other finalist. The bottom three of Div 1 would face relegation with fourth, fifth and sixth playing off against third, second and first respectively of Div 2, with the Div 2 teams getting home advantage. - Rich
NZR has recent history with creating jeopardy in the form of a two-division NPC and it was deeply unpopular. Would fans stay away if their team was playing an entire season with only the possibility of promotion to play for?
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History/local derbies
I do applaud what the Super Rugby teams have done recently to develop a more tribal following. For starters, dispatching the term “franchise” and adopting the word “club” has helped. It seems as though the idea of the region is disappearing. (Players and fans from Taranaki or Tasman have no more allegiance to the Chiefs or Crusaders than any other team.)
We have to stick with what we have in terms of the teams that exist in New Zealand. Moana Pasifika have shown how difficult it is for a team to be competitive early on and we don’t want to be patient with more weak teams entering the competition.
Competitive but fair competition
The elephant in the room is that the Australian teams are too weak and five of them is too many. It is hard to see that watching your team [in Melbourne or Perth] getting thrashed by New Zealanders every other week is going to hold more appeal than the plethora of other sporting options available in those cities.
The Fijian Drua are worth persevering with, although I am unconvinced whether it is better for a country to have one professional team than none at all. Argentina seemed to do better when French oligarchs were paying their players than when the Jaguares existed and Japan are much better off focusing on developing their competition than they were with the Sunwolves.
Next we get to the ridiculous competition structure. Since the Australian teams are so rubbish, we’ll let them play each other more often (hence avoiding the New Zealand teams). That won’t quite help them enough, so we’ll put two-thirds of the teams into the playoffs anyway.
I would be happy with a ten-team, one-round competition with a longer playoff setup. Less games is better for player welfare. Enough bye rounds means there is no need for compulsory rest breaks.
Exposure/family friendliness
The blend of night and afternoon games could sway more [but not totally] towards the afternoon games.
The “match of the round” should be played free-to-air every week. (Maybe it could start live, with ad breaks to give Sky a point of difference.) Restricting live rugby to those willing or able to pay for it diminishes its egalitarian roots and the idea that it is the game for all New Zealanders. - Matthew V
Very comprehensive Matthew. The only point I’d argue with is the notion of regionality disappearing. I’d still suggest the vast majority of the clubs’ support comes from those traditional NPC ties. Others, too, have suggested regenerating interest among young fans with daytime rugby.
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Fourteen-team NPC. Full round-robin. Champions League-style competition with Aussie, Japan, MLR teams after the competition finishes. FA Cup style games during the year which includes Heartland. Embrace tribalism. All Blacks play and the comps - NPC and Heartland - run at the same time as club rugby.
I also believe academies should be nationalised and we should have a draft system for NPC. Bottom team gets the first pick. - Tommy L
This was the most radical suggestion that pointed back to New Zealand’s NPC history while casting forward to a global future. To be honest, I was surprised more people didn’t opt for an all-NZ Super Rugby (which would just be a re-tooled NPC) and a Champions League-type postseason. There are elements of this I really like, but 14 is too many teams by at least two and probably four. At the risk of getting hate mail from certain regions, I’d look at basing two teams in Greater Auckland (one possibly based on the Moana Pasifika concept), Tauranga/ Mt Maunganui, Hamilton, Napier/ Hastings, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch and Dunedin.
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This is not competition focused but I’ve always found it curious that there is no official Super Rugby app. A good app with real time highlights and midweek content would surely boost fan interest. The ESPN app does a great job of this for fans following overseas competitions. -Bob
The poverty of Super Rugby’s digital offering has long struck me as nothing less than a dereliction of duty.
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I don’t watch rugby - but this approach might interest me. Bring in free agency and a hard salary cap. Use the NPC (and Australian/Pacific equivalents) to supply a draft every year. High school players need to spend at least 1-2 years in NPC - will make the comp a proving ground for young superstars rather than having the cream just get picked straight for Super Rugby/All Blacks and mostly skipping NPC. NZ, Pacific teams can pick Aussie players in free agency and the draft and vice versa. Would need a change in contracting approach to achieve this, but let’s make it happen. Player movement would keep the comp in the news year-round. Storylines will develop organically this way and talent would be shared more equitably across the competition. People like it when games are close! - Aidan
I like a lot about this suggestion, but I wonder if a mandatory (and presumably low-paid) stint at the NPC would encourage many schoolboy stars who might consider themselves long shots at best to play for the All Blacks and Wallabies, to go straight to MLR (or the NRL).
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Get South Africa back, include Japan and the US and Canada. Keep Fiji and Samoa/Tonga. Get Australia down to three teams. And include all these countries in the Rugby Championship. - Lindsay
Would South Africa want to come back? They’ve gone where the money is. Given the inherent coasts and time-zone issues, are there any fan-engagement reasons for a reconciliation.
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I’m going to suggest something quite shocking. Could we possibly look at getting the sides 8m apart? - Peter
Spoken like a true leaguie! There were a few style suggestions, another popular one being banning the try straight from a lineout drive.
There was a lot more, including a 12-point plan from Naki Pete that I didn’t have the heart to cut to fit (but it can be seen in the comments section from Monday).
THE WEEK THAT WAS
Not a heck of a lot caught my eye this week. More The Week That Wasn’t, but this column about Team New Zealand’s decision to take an America’s Cup pre-regatta to Saudi Arabia landed just in time. This is the key line:
America’s Cup officials have followed the exact playbook of other sports - issue a statement full of meaningless phrases in like “unprecedented sustainability projects”, talk up the social reforms in the region, and whatever you do, don’t mention oil.
The other key part of the playbook is, behind the scenes, to brief stakeholders with trite ‘whataboutery’ lines like “if we didn’t do business with every country that we didn’t like, we wouldn’t do business at all…”
So instead of this (from the release)…
“We have a unique chance to grow sailing and create new connections with the unprecedented sustainability projects within the Red Sea that can transform lives through sailing and the technologies associated with it…”
Just say it for what it is.
“WE WANT THE ARAMCO/ SAUDI PUBLIC INVESTMENT FUND CASH BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS GETTING A SLICE.”
There, it wasn’t so hard.
Like Bryan Armen Graham, I, too, have watched baseball at the Oakland Coliseum and I too found it a strangely enjoyable experience - margaritas straight to your seat! The Oakland Athletics are following the Oakland Raiders (pictured above), who also played at the Coliseum, and are leaving for Las Vegas in 2025, while the Golden State Warriors have already left Oakland for San Francisco. Sad.
Among the problems that have beset the Coliseum in recent years and pushed it beyond preservation: at least four delays due to malfunctioning stadium lights; a colony of several dozen feral cats that “invaded” the ballpark; dead mice in a soda machine; the postponement of a game for more than three hours while crews pumped four inches of untreated sewage out of the visitors’ dugout; and, most recently, the opossum that has taken over the visiting team’s press box.
It will be mourned, however.
“It’s a giant concrete toilet bowl,” former A’s outfielder Eric Byrnes said. “But it’s their toilet bowl and it’s a special toilet bowl.”
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
A quick guide to what I’ll be tuning into, or attending, this weekend.
This weekend I’m going to watch a Super Rugby game live and floodlit! Not being a fan of accessories like scarves, beanies, mittens and thermals underwear, I’m pleased to report the game is under a roof.
In the second game highlighted here, I’m intrigued by the crowd number more than anything else.
Highlanders v Chiefs, Dunedin, tonight 7.05pm, Sky Sport 1
Blues v Moana Pasifika, Auckland, tomorrow 7.05pm, Sky Sport 1
Given how understrength they are - just three of tonight’s starting XI, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell and Matt Henry, would likely make the team if it was a World Cup final - the Black Caps have done OK to hang in with Pakistan even if they’re 0-3 down. Losing two set batters - Will Young and Tom Blundell - to needless run outs when faced with a gettable chase yesterday wasn’t ideal, however.
Pakistan v NZ, 4th ODI, Karachi, tonight 10.30pm, Sky Sport 1
“Hey Siri, who would be the worst team to play when you’re coming off two poor losses in a row, including being held to zero points at home?”
“OK, I’ve found this on the web…”
Warriors v Penrith, Brisbane, Saturday 5pm, Sky Sport 4
It might be premature and it might also be a case of personal bias, but there are a lot of signs pointing to the winner of the series, which is locked at 1-1, being the team to lift the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy next month.
Philadelphia 76ers v Boston Celtics, Gm 3, Philadelphia, tomorrow 11.30am, ESPN
On the advice of the Mairangi Bay Netball Oracle I promoted an absolute shocker of a match last week, with the Mystics’ superiority over the Tactix turning it into a snoozefest. They might fare better against the other team from up north. It’s third v second, too, so there’s plenty on it.
Canterbury Tactix v Northern Stars, Christchurch, Sunday 4.10pm, Sky Sport 2
The Premier League season for the most part feels over. It’s hard to see a scenario where Manchester City drops enough points for Arsenal to overhaul them, and the top four is pretty much decided barring an epic Manchester United collapse. That just leaves the relegation dogfight to salivate over but there are no classic “six-pointer” games this weekend - that comes in midweek, when Nottingham Forest and Southampton meet. For argument’s sake, this looks like the best match of the weekend.
Newcastle v Arsenal, St James’ Park, Monday 3.30am, Sky EPL
Running Heartland alongside club rugby would kill club rugby in some regions. Here in Wairarapa clubs are struggling to pull together teams each season. Taking 23 players out each week would make that worse. Also likely to reduce the crowds for both products.
Coming at this from the angle of a (nearly) lost rugby fan. The game has just lost its appeal for me. There's a few factors at play but perhaps the biggest one is how rule heavy and unintelligible it is. the rules change every year and are so subjective, and there's so many stoppages. My 9 year old son plays and the games have so many stoppages. The kids can't understand what's going on and if he wanted to drift over to football or basketball I would understand. I couldn't tell you who's in the ABs anymore and I'm not lying awake at night worrying whether they'll win the RWC or not. This is not who I used to be - I played rugby into my 20s, religiously attended NPC games through the 80s and 90s and wallowed when we got knocked out of RWCs. Against all this I didn't renew my Sky Sports subscription some time ago. Maybe I was just lucky to be introduced to rugby at a time I look back on now as possibly a golden age, as it was going professional but before professionalism stole its soul? Rugby had some cultural issues to address for sure - although a First XV player at my school I felt the culture wasn't entirely healthy and not aligned with my values - but I cringe at some of the over correction going on at the NZRU and Sky broadcasting, it pushes me further away. I also look at Super Rugby now and there's nothing "super" about it at all. NZ is now playing with a bunch lightweights, and from a pure player development and standards perspective we'd probably be better off reverting to a domestic competition now that South Africa has dropped out. Over the years the constant adding of teams to the competition in the name of "expanding the game" has been truly naive from a business perspective and to me, as a business person, fundamental to the watering down and eventual collapse of the SANZAR model.