Why Qantas-Wallabies deal fell over: we needed a cash sponsor, says Rugby Australia

Rugby Australia wouldn’t accept a contra-only deal and is betting on a new sponsor. Will we see the Zoom Wallabies?

With the logo on the jersey, Qantas has been intrinsically connected to the Wallabies

The doomsayers yet again are predicting the demise of the game but senior Rugby Australia officials Hamish McLennan and Rob Clarke believe several international blue-chip firms will step forward to fill the void created by the loss of the Wallabies’ $5 million naming rights sponsor, Qantas.

A phone call from Qantas CEO Alan Joyce to RA chairman McLennan, and another from Qantas chief customer officer Stephanie Tully to Clarke on Tuesday night broke the not-unexpected news that the airline would have to part company with Australian rugby at the end of year, with which it has been associated for 30 years.

Qantas had offered rugby the same arrangements it had brokered with Cricket Australia, Football Federation Australia and the Australian Olympic Committee, to continue its sponsorship but in contra only.

But with the COVID pandemic playing havoc with international rugby fixtures, the cash-strapped RA scarcely could rely on little more than contra air travel.

“The bottom line is that we don’t know what the travel scene is going to look like for the balance of this year, let alone next year and so even the contra component of any deal, it is difficult to see how it is going to play out,” Clarke told The Australian.

“It was a significant cash sum as well and we need to ensure that we have what we need, the resources we need where we need them, to run the game. From that point of view, it was reasonably straightforward notwithstanding the emotional element of it. Sadly, COVID is the gift that just keeps on giving.”

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It’s another complicating factor for RA, which is still to negotiate a broadcast deal in grim economic times. But with a Bledisloe Cup series to be played in New Zealand next month, followed by The Rugby Championship held as a mini-World Cup here in Australia over November-December, officials believe the tide in turning for the game.

Throw in the likelihood of a trans-Tasman competition in 2022, a British and Irish Lions tour in 2025 and a likely World Cup in 2027 and the prospects do appear brighter. But in order to reach a potentially prosperous future, rugby must first survive a hazardous present.

Certainly there is no ill-will towards Qantas, with RA recognising that no airline could continue to sustain a major sporting sponsorship at the same time as it was forced to lay off pilots and cabin crew.

That said, McLennan was his usual upbeat self in predicting that RA would ride out the storm.

“The Wallabies are iconic and I am confident we will get a replacement and I’ve already had inbound calls, so we will find our way through this,” he said.

Clarke went further. “We believe that after 30 years a property like this, coming free into the market place, is a golden opportunity. I think if you reflect on the Wallabies’ brand cachet in global sport … there is significant value for a corporate with an international dimension to their organisation to associate themselves with that brand. I’m very optimistic, actually,” he said.

“We are very confident that there are some very significant blue-chip brands that will be interested in this property. There is really only cricket and rugby that operate in the dimensions that we do globally. But a property like this is very rare to find. I’d like to think we will come out of this with a good result.”

RA has been through some incredible upheaval in recent times, with jobs being slashed both at Moore Park headquarters and throughout the provinces. But Clarke does not see the Qantas’ withdrawal causing additional problems in the short term.

“You know we have been going through significant restructuring anyway. Those decisions are totally separate to this.”

The bust-up with Qantas, however amicable, will surely give RA pause to consider how closely they should align themselves to individual sponsors and their values in future.

There was a meeting of minds during the Raelene Castle years when RA and Qantas CEO Joyce both strongly pushed the inclusiveness agenda, but the game was put under unimaginable pressure when the Wallabies’ best player, Israel Folau broke ranks – not once but twice – to attack homosexuality.

In the end it was not so much the issue that forced RA to sack him but rather the fact that, having given his word he would not venture down this path again, he then did precisely that. Still, in the year of a World Cup, the dispute cost Australia its best player, untold fan disengagement and several million dollars in an out-of-court settlement, money that RA could ill-afford to pay out.