Calamity threatens Rugby Australia’s broadcast cash cow

The Wallabies’ performance at the Rugby World Cup was a manifestation of the off-field problems facing the game Picture: Rugby AU Media/Stuart Walmsley

It is unarguable that this dysfunctional nonsense about Australian Rugby will only end when the administration is replaced in its entirety. We cannot go on the way we are.

We learn this week of the latest fiasco that Raelene Castle has had to apologise to World Cup organisers for the behaviour of the Wallabies and the coach during the recent World Cup.

Surely it continues to be reasonable to ask that, when Raelene Castle was a candidate for the job of chief executive, who rang the Canterbury Rugby League about her previous sporting administrative role? Name the person.

To whom did they speak at Canterbury? Name the person.

Put simply, when you have a dysfunctional organisation that knows nothing about the business it is supposed to be running, there will be tensions on the shop floor, in this case reflected in the performance of the Wallabies. These tensions have been there for months and months.

This has led to a feeling, within the workers, namely the Wallabies, that they did not have the support based on rugby knowledge, from their own people. Rightly or wrongly, that leads to frustration and anger and I have no doubt we had an unhappy team in Japan.

That is a consequence, as I have said many times, of leadership. It is all very well to call for Cheika’s head. That is past history. He is gone; but he, and the Wallaby results, are the symptoms not the disease. The disease is at the top.

Chairman Cameron Clyne and Castle and the whole Rugby Australia board should go. They will try to hang on.

READ MORE: Kids still choosing rugby | Support for director to take over | Castle: I’m not going anywhere

Let’s go back a bit.

In August 2017, for financial reasons, the Australian Rugby Union axed the Western Force from Super Rugby claiming it had no alternative. The culling of the Force came soon after the announcement, in December 2015, of a broadcast deal with Fox Sports and Channel 10 that would generate around $55 million dollars a year.

This, we were told, was a 148 per cent increase on revenue rights from the previous deal.

At the time, the then chief executive, Bill Pulver, said the incremental revenue from the new media rights arrangements would enable Australian rugby to revitalise the game at all levels, “with these new media rights arrangements in place, the ARU will have the surplus funds to reinvest in the game from grassroots through to the Wallabies and to address strategic priorities to grow the game including community rugby, women’s rugby and our development pathways.”

That was 2015!

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Then 2017 comes along and even though the Australian Rugby Union — as Rugby Australia was then known — had just received a massive boost in revenue, they decided to cut the Western Force.

It is now 2019 and media reports suggest that Fox Sports have vacated the broadcast field and Optus are currently bidding to take their place in 2021.

The numbers will be nowhere near what they were in 2016 — perhaps as low as $20 million.

If the broadcast rights drop from $55 million a year to $20 million, say $30 million, Rugby Australia will be hit by an economic tsunami.

The last time Rugby Australia said they had to cut costs, they axed the Force. Which franchise will go next? Don’t tell me this isn’t a consequence of the way the place is being run.

It is one catastrophe after another; unacceptable results on the field and unacceptable results off the field. But Cameron Clyne hangs on and is making decisions that a new administration will inherit. He says he will stand down next March. He has already been told he has no support. He should go now.

His credibility and capacity are being called out by some big hitters around town.

The former Channel 9 and Channel 7 boss, David Leckie, who knows about sponsorship deals, has been scathing in his evaluation of the administration. “Make no mistake, rugby in Australia is in a very precarious position right now. The Rugby Australia board has sat back and allowed this to happen.”

The World Cup-winning captain Nick Farr-Jones has questioned the thinking of Rugby Australia, saying Clyne was “crazy” for not embracing Andrew Forrest’s offer to save the Force and inject $50 million dollars into the game.

Andrew Forrest has called for others to take over Australian rugby.

When asked about his interest in taking charge, he said, “I am a busy bloke, but I am a passionate supporter of rugby … I’ll be barracking for others to take over. I put everything down to leadership.”

Let me tell you something. Ask Andrew Forrest, in this crisis, he will say yes.

The Foxtel chief executive, the very able Patrick Delany, said it was time governing bodies “got realistic about the value of (media) rights”.

This is shorthand for saying rugby is not worth, in 2019, anything like it was worth in 2016.

Who is responsible for that? The way we play the game and the way it is administered cannot attract audiences. People have given up and left.

Super Rugby matches played in New Zealand or South Africa have averaged a lamentable 23,000 viewers per game. For games played in Australia, that picks up to 70,000. It still doesn’t pay the bills.

In metropolitan Australia, more people tune into the A-League than they do to Super Rugby.

In comparison, there are about 500,000 viewers per game watching the AFL or NRL premiership matches. The AFL TV broadcast revenue is $500 million a year; the NRL, $360 million a year; Rugby will struggle to get $25 million.

Media analyst Peter Cox has said that if Rugby Australia decided to partner exclusively with Optus, simply because they had no other offer, it could spell the death of the sport in Australia.

He cited the company’s recent decision to become the exclusive rights holder of English Premier League football as a case in point.

“I think we have seen, with the Premier League out of the UK, that there has been a drop in interest since it has been on Optus because people don’t have access to it … I think this is a worrying precedent for what could happen to rugby,” argued Cox.

Common sense would tell you that if broadcast revenues are cut by up to 50 per cent there will have to be major changes to the game. We are talking about a loss in revenue of effectively $30 million dollars. How is that replaced?

Of course, we could start with a bloated administration. What in God’s name do 140-plus people at head office do 12 months of the year? But even if you send them to Centrelink, you won’t save anything like $30 million dollars.

So do we then axe another Super Rugby franchise?

No wonder Cameron Clyne is heading for the hills. What a magnificent legacy! His banking experience has translated into rugby. We look like a ship destined to be shipwrecked.

But, of course, they turned their backs on the billionaire philanthropist, Andrew Forrest, with a love of the game. It might be time to listen to Nick Farr-Jones and get Andrew Forrest inside the tent. But then, why listen to Nick Farr-Jones?

He only brings a brilliant rugby career and successful business experience to the formulation of his ideas — an unwanted combination by those at Rugby Australia.

Then there is the issue of coaching. How does a discredited rugby administration ram through the appointment of Dave Rennie? He has no international experience.

We love our Kiwi friends, but two of his compatriots have just bailed out of the game in our country because the going got too tough.

Both Daryl Gibson and Andrew Hore were with the Waratahs as head coach and chief executive respectively. Both were under contract. They left, the coach to be replaced by another Kiwi coach. It gets worse!

Scott Johnson, the director of Rugby at Rugby Australia, is represented by the Kiwi-based rugby agents, Esportif.

So too are Daryl Gibson, Rob Penney and Dave Rennie. If it all sounds a bit incestuous that is probably because it is. And who oversees all this? Another Kiwi, Raelene Castle.

There are good Australian coaches and administrators out there. They cannot get a look in. Raelene Castle had the hide to say, “We didn’t have an Australian candidate.”

My question remains unanswered. Was the job advertised to invite the best from all over the world? And who interviewed the candidates if, indeed, there were any?

If so, how many? Was this a captain’s pick?

Transparency? As I have written before, you can’t get in this rugby tent. It is locked.

None of these, and other questions that have been asked in this column, will ever be answered. But it seems someone has given the car keys to Scott Johnson and he is piling all his mates in the back seat to go for one hell of a joy ride.

I said last week that I am tired of people feasting on the carcass that Australian rugby has become. And now they have invited more to join in the feast.

I said, “I can remember when our Wallabies were world-class; when the world tried to emulate our success … these days, we have become a laughing stock in the world of rugby, as the Clyne, Castle and Johnson circus rolls on.”

Since I said that last week, the situation has worsened. No wonder people are giving up on the game. If this keeps happening, at the rate it is happening now, there will be no game.

It is beyond appalling that Clyne and company can witness all of this and not admit that they are its architects, incapable of turning back the tide of failure that they have created.

Decency alone should require that they go and go now.