Mark Gasnier chased by all and sundry, the Melbourne Rebels starting to sign up Australian players and Sonny Bill Williams's name keeps getting mentioned. It all sounds as if Australian rugby is one big goldmine and that any player of note with Wallabies ambitions can just wander into the ARU's offices and load up a wheelbarrow full of cash.
Think again. Rugby is going through a reality check.
A conflict is looming between players and their agents, who are seeking healthy salaries, and the ARU, which seems determined to dramatically lower its salary bill. To the extent it is advising well-known names who come to them with ''crazy'' demands that it would be smarter to head overseas.
Already several players have discovered in recent negotiations that the ARU is not keen to throw away money and the days of ''naming your own price'' are long gone.
It will get even tougher, especially next season in a World Cup year, when the ARU's revenue will drop significantly. A reduced Tri Nations tournament and no inbound tours mean there will be four or five fewer Test matches in Australia next year, dramatically affecting gate-takings and sponsorship revenue.
The reduced schedule is forecast to deliver an $11 million hit on the ARU coffers.
To overcome this shortfall, Australia will, like many other leading countries in a similar situation, be expected to call on the International Rugby Board to increase the funds they receive for participating in the World Cup.
It also seems to be pretty tough in the Shaky Isles, with reports that last year's Super 14 cost the New Zealand Rugby Union and its five franchises $NZ7 million ($5.36m), with the main outlay being player wages.
Many Australian rugby players deserve what they receive, but some would have to concede they are on easy street. As Roy Masters explained in his Show Me The Money column in the Herald's BusinessDay pages last week, the average 2008 player salary for Australia's four Super 14 franchises was $238,738, which was on a par with the AFL, and well above the NRL.Masters wrote: ''The Wallabies are the highest-paid elite squad of the three football codes, averaging $380,000 a year in 2008, while the average for those who play Super 14 and finish the season playing club rugby is $130,000.''
Rugby officials also argue that as hardly any of their players are lured to the league ranks, it is a strong indicator they are ''on a good wicket''.
And while the 2011 World Cup seems to be hitting those who administer the game, it is also hitting the punters. The 2007 World Cup in France was blight on the game with a glut of negative football showing off all that was wrong with the code, and the 2011 World Cup may also struggle to be the right advertisement with overseas spectators having no option but to stay away.
As anyone who has attempted to attend a Bledisloe Cup match in New Zealand knows, if you don't start trying to find accommodation at least a year in advance, you will probably end up on a park bench. For a World Cup held in a country that has too few hotel beds, finding somewhere to stay is looming as a nightmare.
Eighteen months out from the first World Cup game, travel groups are complaining about exorbitant New Zealand hotel price rises. Some are even contemplating having northern hemisphere fans based in Sydney and the Gold Coast, and flying them in and out of New Zealand on match days.
Recently, the New Zealand World Cup 2011 chief executive officer, Martin Snedden, said about the tournament: ''We'll create something that no one else can replicate.''
Those words could easily come back to bite.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald. The Melbourne Rebels' plan to shortly unveil Adam Freier as their first high-profile Australian signing has hit a snag . |
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