The case for Silver Lake spearheading NZR+

PLUS: The BYC and the curious case of Colin Munro, the highly charged US Open tees off, and clickbait hits the Midweek Book Club ($).

Why can’t I watch the 87 RWC final right now - and buy the replica jersey? Photosport

After highlighting Duncan Greive’s scoop around the imminent introduction of a digital content platform, NZR+, The Bounce raised a number of questions after speaking to industry experts.

The flashiest takeaway was that New Zealand Rugby should not have needed Silver Lake capital or expertise to make such an obvious direct-to-consumer play¹. Using its own relevant executives and outsourcing technical support, it would have been a lot cheaper in the long run than, by using a very crude economic measure, basically giving away 8c in every dollar made by the platform to the US private equity giants.

There is a counter argument to this, which says that although streaming and digital tech is easily understood and applied in the year 2023, it is also easy to get it wrong, particularly in the “live” streaming and product marketing space.

And, as a well-credentialled observer noted, “there’s just so much NZ Rugby consistently botches in terms of its product and marketing that I think it was worth the big swing [with Silver Lake]”.