Further proof that the NZRU aren't playing with the full deck

[Jethro]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

Canty posts another big loss

By RICHARD KNOWLER - The Press

With the Canterbury Rugby Union expected to report a heavy financial loss this year, the region's clubs have resigned themselves to not receiving a dividend for the third consecutive season.

Despite Canterbury leading the Air New Zealand Cup competition, the union has been unable to translate its success into performances off the field, with the recession, a drop in match attendances, and reduced donations and sponsorship support among the reasons for a big hole being hacked into the union's balance sheet.

The demise of clothing and textile manufacturer Lane Walker Rudkin, which was a major sponsor and which went into receivership earlier this year, has had a major impact on the union, along with the drop in attendances at Crusaders and Canterbury matches.

The reconstruction of the Deans Stand and the easterly wind that whistles into AMI Stadium have been cited as reasons for the reduced ticket sales, but there appears to be widespread apathy among fans in the country's major centres â€" especially at Air New Zealand Cup matches.

Canterbury will also not receive a full bonus from the New Zealand Rugby Union for the test between the All Blacks and Italy at AMI Stadium on June 27 after only 18,500 of the 26,000 available tickets were sold. This meant the union did not meet all their key performance indicators.

Just how much that figure granted from the NZRU is remains uncertain. But in 2007, when the All Blacks played the Springboks in Christchurch, the maximum amount on offer from the NZRU was $142,000. Although Canterbury did not receive the full amount, it is understood to have aimed to receive about $125,000.

Although the Crusaders did well to overcome the loss of All Blacks first five-eighth Dan Carter and a large number of injuries to advance to the Super 14 semifinal against the Bulls in Pretoria, the stadium â€" even with a reduced capacity â€" was never sold out. This is expected to result in a reduced profit for the Crusaders with a smaller dividend for Canterbury.

Attendances this year have again been below expectations, following last year's trends when gate sales dropped by 33 per cent and resulted in gate takings dropping from $1.139 million in 2007 to $713,133 last year.

Last year Canterbury admitted it would have recorded a loss if not for a one-off land sale and a lease payback. It declared a $397,000 profit after making a $799,000 gain from a piece of land in Wilsons Road and selling back its lease on the Stevens Street offices as part of the AMI Stadium development.

Earlier this year the union laid off several staff as the credit crunch continued to bite.

In previous seasons Canterbury has also been able to fork over a grant of up to $300,000 to the province's clubs, but there is no chance of any money being sent the clubs' way again. Instead clubs will have to resort to either raising fees, fundraising or discovering alternative revenue streams.

Canterbury is not the only union to struggle financially and the NZRU, recognising the effects of the recession, earlier put together a special assistance package totalling $3.9 million for the country's 26 unions.

Canterbury chief executive Hamish Riach could not be reached for comment this week.

Meanwhile, embattled province Tasman has already announced it hopes to break even or make a small profit. Although they are expected to be chopped from the NPC competition when it is reduced from 14 teams to 10, Tasman, currently fourth on the competition table, hope to make life as difficult as possible for the NZRU board by continuing to string together wins and prove they deserve to remain in the top echelon.[/b]

So let me get this straight, the big five are losing support and are over spending, Tewbacca wants to dump four of the provinces with growing support bases and all of which are going to announce a good result in 2009 :huh: Exactly how does this work? The NZRU are a mad hatter's tea party at best.

 

[William18]

Yeah, lets drop the top team in the competition! The team that produces many of our great All Blacks. When the NZRU makes its decision I'm sure this will be taken into account but Canterbury have plenty going for them..

Let's take the four unions that everyone thinks will be dumped: Northland, Manawatu, Tasman and Counties Manakau. As at the end of Round 8, one of them have seen a fairly large increase in crowds, two of them have seen minor increases and one of them has seen a major reduction in fans. People all seem to be going around saying what great support the provincial teams are getting. This is true in some places, like Hawkes Bay, Southland and Manawatu. Both Tasman and Counties have seen small increases this season by about 500 fans or so per game. Counties still average less then 4,000 which is not good enough. Northland only average 4,375 this season last year that was up at 6,320. It is true that crowds are increasing but the increases are not as dramatic as have been claimed.

How do you know they will all announce a good result? Apparently 7 of the 14 unions will make a loss. Any of course Tasman will break even, they were given a 250,000 loan. There income and expenses may look good but you should check out their assets and liabilities.

The big 5 are spending too much and losing support are we? How do you know finances of the other 4 unions? Also three of the big 5 have seen good crowd increases, in Wellington our crowds have gone down by about 200 and Auckland's have plummeted.

At the moment my real problem is that there is no accountability. People say: so what if teams lose money? So what cares if they stay on the bottom of the table for 5 years? So what if no one turns up to support them? These mismanaged teams will just continue posting losses and expecting the NZRU to keep them afloat. If you make someone race a bull they are going to run faster. That is what this is doing, making the unions work harder so that they are all well run. Right now I don't believe the unions are all working at the top of the game. Soon they are going to have be at the top of their game, if they want to survive.

 

[Nickdnz]

Noone is suggesting dropping Canterbury...

 

[Jethro]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nickdnz @ Oct 7 2009, 06:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Noone is suggesting dropping Canterbury...[/b]

Exactly, people are just wondering with the Canterbury Union failing on all levels fiscally how far the NZRU will further move the goal posts. BTW Canterbury are top of the table due to spending a lot more cash than they can afford to do, unlike the four unions that are clearly going to get it in the neck. It also helped that through the first few years the Cantabs used the Makos as a feeding club to circumvent the salary cab. Hence why I always refer to Cantab as the Evil Empire.

If BOP can get their finances in order there is no reason the Cantabs can't, and if they are unable to operate under a budget like the rest of the ANZC franchises then they should sack their board.

All anyone is asking is for a level playing field and Tewbacca and his shock troops not to keep changing the requirements to suit the top five.

We already know Tew at the very least mislead the public over all Unions agreeing to a reduction to ten teams, and gosh it wasn't the unions that tabled the idea. What other information is he being free and easy with.

 

[smartcooky]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jethro @ Oct 8 2009, 02:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

We already know Tew at the very least mislead the public over all Unions agreeing to a reduction to ten teams, and gosh it wasn't the unions that tabled the idea. What other information is he being free and easy with.[/b]

Exactly right! Tew has mislead the public about what was agreed to. He said the Unions wanted;

- everyone plays everyone else
- the whole competition in a 12 week window
- no midweek games

This is what they wanted in an ideal world, but what Tew neglects to tell the public is that each of these points was NEGOIABLE.

Some Provincial Unions were prepared to accept that midweek games might be necessary, or that perhaps the competition might take longer than 12 weeks, but NOWHERE in what the Unions agreed to was any suggestion that 4 teams would be expelled from the competition. That was the NZRU's solution.

The four unions expected to be culled contain over 1.2 million Kiwis* What the NZRU is going to is to render between 1/4 and 1/3 of New Zealand's rugby fans irrelevant. They will have NO representation in the top light, and instead will be playing the the meaningless Micky Mouse Division.

I think its time we got over this need we have to require everyone to play everyone else every year. The greatest Club Rugby competition in the world, the Heineken Cup, does NOT have everyone playing everyone else. We shoudl take a lead from them

Tewbacca and his retard buddies at the NZRU are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and are too stupid to see it. Instead of throwing out teams from the comp, they should be doing what is necessary to make the competition fit within the financial constraints set without consigning 1/3 of New Zealand's Rugby supporters to the scrapheap.

Lower the salary cap
► Stops teams like Canterbury and Auckland buying up the best players
► a salary cap exemption for home grown talent will help keep resources in their own provinces

Split the competition into two pools
► As I outlined in THIS post
► Its not ideal, but its a lot better than culling four teams!!!





*(earlier in another topic, I posted that it was just under 1 million but that was wrong, I was using out of date data)

 

[Nickdnz]

Good idea Smartcooky, however one problem I have is this rule here "Each Provincial Union is limited to no more than twelve Super 14/15 contracted players on their playing roster. This limit does not include players in the Super 14/15 Franchise's wider training squads" Would that mean if a team have more then 12 players in a provintial team, that are from Super franchises, then those players would have to find other provinces to play for?