All Blacks could miss 2015 RWC

circos

Anyone else find the article below a very bad statement to make during the world cup? Especially to the minnow nations who work with a shoe string budget!

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,16024_7207375,00.html

All Blacks could miss 2015 RWC - Tew


Tew: Delivers a dire forecast



New Zealand Rugby Union CEO Steve Tew has warned that New Zealand might not play in the 2015 World Cup under the current financial conditions.

In an interview that is sure to garner dismay from the International Rugby Board, Tew told the Guardian that the NZRU would not be able to send a team to the World Cup unless the current financial model is changed.

Tew estimates that the All Blacks' ruling body will lose £6.7million from the current event and that in a volatile economic climate with costs on the rise, they could not afford to suffer similar losses in four years time.

"We think we are at a really important juncture," Tew told the newspaper.

"We want a couple of things taken very seriously around the IRB table. One is the money that flows through and out of Rugby World Cup. It is well publicised that the major unions lose a significant amount of money net by participating in the tournament and that makes absolutely no sense.

"We lose NZ$13.2million [£6.7million] worth of revenue after income from Rugby World Cup and costs are adjusted. It cannot carry on. We said at the last board conference that we needed a full review of the IRB's financial model, Rugby World Cup commercial rules and RWC money flows. We are waiting with some anxiety what the IRB are going to do about it.

"The IRB did put an extra £1m on the table for the major unions six months ago which helped and which was appreciated, but frankly the prospects of us going to England in 2015 under the current model are very slim. We cannot continue to sign on for an event that costs us so much money.

"We need to have serious discussions and some creative thinking to help us approach the next World Cup in a positive manner. I am not saying we will not be involved in 2015, but you either reform things through an evolutionary process or you plant a flag in the ground and say it's time to change."

Sponsorship seems to be the biggest stumbling block between the two parties with tournament regulations preventing teams from making use of sponsors that conflict with the official competition sponsors.


"The World Cup issues are multifaceted," he explained.

"The commercial rules for the tournament for participating unions are, we believe, far too tough, much tougher than FIFA's. If this was a soccer World Cup, the All Blacks' hotel would be decked out with our sponsors until Thursday [before a weekend match]. In a Rugby World Cup, our sponsors do not get a look-in. They are very excluded.

"All we want is what is best for world rugby. New Zealand and Australia tend to have to bang the table pretty hard at times to get people to listen. Our approach has always been to do things by negotiation and discussion and try to reach collaborative decisions, but ultimately you have to get something."

"The current programme is £150m between 2009 and 2012 with approximately 50% of the revenues going to the tier-one nations. There are significant benefits for participation at rugby's showcase sport, including brand exposure to a broadcast audience in more than 200 countries worldwide.

"There are also huge benefits of hosting, ranging from stadia upgrades to participation increases. We will continue to work with our unions to ensure that the tournament continues to balance the strategic needs of our unions with the global development of the sport."

tolosenc

Good for them.

castie

Similar losses?? Are they planning on hosting it again??

thomond2006

CatFromHue

I believe the SANZAR teams were looking for compensation before the tournament started.

If you take Ireland for example we wont be playing any November internationals this year. Usually we play three games and if you take an average ticket price of 55euro x 55,000 is 3,025,000 a game so if we play 3 games were we'd have two full houses at least and a fair few for the other game it's 3,025,000 x 2.5 is just over 7.5 million. Thats a lot of money and is probably on the conservative side too.

I can't see any team droping out of the World Cup though as I don't think they'd make much money from playing friendlies against half strength teams who are going to the Worlc Cup. In a September World Cup no Nothern Hemisphere team would go on tour in June nor would they play many games in November. In saying that Wales have organised a friendly with Australia for December. I'd like to see how much of a success that is!

justsomebloke

CatFromHue wrote: »

If you take Ireland for example we wont be playing any November internationals this year.

But we had home friendlies against England and France instead before the world cup

CatFromHue

That's true but the tickets were much reduced on what would be charged against a Tri Nations team. Maybe that's why we played so many warm up games...for financial reasons!

I think only New Zealand of the Tri Nations teams played a warm up game against Fiji which was very poorly attended.

justsomebloke

CatFromHue wrote: »

That's true but the tickets were much reduced on what would be charged against a Tri Nations team.

Not really I think the reduced prices for the forth coming 6 nations indicates that they would of had to reduce prices for sanzar, as NZ would probably be the only team that would be able to draw as many as an England game

CatFromHue

Actually I just found this link that gives the prices for the recent games in the 6 Nations against England and France:
http://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/2010/1129/irfu.html

A game against NZ, SA, or Oz would be charged at the same prices, if not slightly more in NZ's case.

Schoolboy/Schoolgirl: €15 X 1,800 tickets in North Stand = 27,000
Category 4: €50 X 2,500 in East and West Upper Stands /Touchlines = 125,000
Category 3: €65 X 5,000 in East / West / South Upper Stands
and portions of North Stand = 325,000

Category 2: €80 X 4,500 in East /West/ South and portions of North Stand = 360,000

Category 1: €90 X 13,000 in East / West /South Stands = 1,170,000

Premium Level Tickets: 3,200 will continue to be available for sale at €125 = 400,000

In total the extra revenue generated is 2.4million.

A game against NZ, SA, or OZ would be a sell out or very close to one so if we play two games, as we usually do, thats an extra 4.8 million plus what ever you'd get for a game against a minnow team.

JustinDee

Oh for gods sake, will Steve Tew ever stop moaning??
Cherry picking revenue streams, ignoring others then pleading poor-mouth is just getting tiresome.

Clearlier

CatFromHue wrote: »

I think only New Zealand of the Tri Nations teams played a warm up game against Fiji which was very poorly attended.

I seem to remember the Aussies losing to Western Samoa not too long before the world cup - could have been a warm up for the tri-nations I suppose.

This is just posturing by NZ to establish a negotiating position. Their commercial deals would be an awful lot less without the prospect of the world cup. Not playing in the world cup would marginalise them and cause them to lose sponsorship.

This isn't to say that they mightn't have a valid gripe or two but in the end this is a position they'll be forced to abandon the moment any pressure is applied. A PR stunt at best.

CatFromHue

Clearlier wrote: »

I seem to remember the Aussies losing to Western Samoa not too long before the world cup - could have been a warm up for the tri-nations I suppose.

This is just posturing by NZ to establish a negotiating position. Their commercial deals would be an awful lot less without the prospect of the world cup. Not playing in the world cup would marginalise them and cause them to lose sponsorship.

This isn't to say that they mightn't have a valid gripe or two but in the end this is a position they'll be forced to abandon the moment any pressure is applied. A PR stunt at best.

Yeah you're right about the Aussies and I agree with everything else. Imagine if they don't win this World Cup and then don't play in the next one!

JustinDee

Pedantic point:

The team is just called Samoa. They haven't been called Western Samoa since Bill Clinton was in office. Their team was called Manu Samoa for a while but Manu is a pretty common name for 'Warrior' in a few polynesian countries so it was dropped.

Not giving out. Just love being a smartarse

CatFromHue

ManuSamoa???? Sure doesn't he play centre for England!

:pac::pac:


(That's Manu Tuilagi's first name)

Legion2008

His argument is flawed ..... he's basically saying that NZ might pull out of the 2015 world cups due to the lose of revenue by not being able to play friendlys .... fine, let them pull out and play friendlys but who do they think they'll be able to play against ... ? I doubt games against the likes of Spain, Urugary, Portugal would be crowd pullers

zinzan

Interesting article. Bit of bull in it though I reckon. It does cost a fortune to host the rwc - you in essence have to front up to buy the rights, but then again most countries will give grant aid because of the perceived tourism boost from hosting.

It's bluster though I think. Nzrfu have to compete to keep the game alive as they are facing increased competition from other sports, and as the all blacks haven't won a world cup in a while, the public are losing interest too.

They got caught out badly too on costs of replica jerseys- adidas had a huge mark up on all blacks shirts in nz compared with rest of world.. so they'll be trying to recoup cash in other ways now!

But they need the exposure of the RWC to maximise their revenue streams so they'll be there.

As an aside, World cup jerseys look way better without big sponsor's logos I think!

Thud

CatFromHue wrote: »

That's true but the tickets were much reduced on what would be charged against a Tri Nations team. Maybe that's why we played so many warm up games...for financial reasons!

I think only New Zealand of the Tri Nations teams played a warm up game against Fiji which was very poorly attended.

They didn't have time to play any warm ups because they were still playing the Tri nations.

Anyone know what the format of the Tri/Four nations will be with the Argies in will be? Will they play more or less games?

CatFromHue

True but they would usually play a few, usually 2 or 3, warm up international games before the Tri Nations. Also this year's Tri Nations was a shortened version with only home and away games as opposed to the last 2 years where they played 3 games against the other two nations.

The new 4 Nations will begin in August next year after the Super 15. There is also a 3 week window in the Super 15 for the June internationals.

See below:
http://www.superxv.com/fixtures/

irishh_bob

entering the world cup every four years is nesscessery alone for new zealand as a country to remind the world that they actually exist , thier is as much chance of ireland being debt free by 2015 as thier is the all blacks going AWOL for the world cup in japan