Sanzar’s Super 14 quick fix: Too little too late … but Hoskins to the rescue

What is the leadership of Sanzar thinking by announcing a proposed expansion of the Super 14 finals to a Top Six play-offs series next year? This certainly does not address the problematic issues of the tournament.

The problem with the Super 14 tournament, whose charisma and television allure, which started 12 years ago in 1996, has fast waned over the years. It is now out of step and irrelevant to contemporary rugby tournaments being staged in Europe. No amount of re-jiggling the top six teams in the Super 14 will fix that, as the tournament rewards mediocrity amongst the bottom eight. A tournament based on relegation and promotion in all three countries and in the Super 14 tournament factors out the issue of mediocre team performances.

The Super 14 comprising five teams each from South Africa and New Zealand and four from Australia, was created to grow the game in all three countries. It only offers exciting fare in the quarter final stages of the competition, which is why Sanzar think that prolonging this will spice up the tournament, when in fact they should be addressing the qualification of the teams to be in the Super 14 rugby tournament.

The Super 14 tournament has developed into an incestuous and ordinary rugby product, with concerned television sponsors and plummeting gate attendances, as the fans are voting with their feet and staying away from the stadiums. New Zealand has already discussed adding a sixth franchise by splitting the Auckland Blues into two teams and Australia are talking about introducing Melbourne as their fifth franchise. New Zealand’s players are leaving the National Provincial Competition in droves and Australia has suspended their local ARC competition, because it is too expensive to run.

Right here in South Africa we had, or rather have, a sixth franchise in the creation of the Southern Spears, going back to June 2005, that has cost SA Rugby tens of millions and then some, for excluding an entire rugby region and there are more financial liabilities to follow. But, this residual investment can be turned into an asset.

Ironically, if feelings, sentiments and ridicule can be put aside, this past acrimonious experience that SA Rugby Pty Ltd has had with the Southern Spears can actually deliver a master stroke solution, that remedies the problems in South Africa, as well as the ills of Sanzar and inject new life and excitement back into Super 14 rugby in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

It will have fans clamouring to get back into the stadiums by introducing an exciting new formatted Super 14 rugby product/s that can be offered to National Broadcasters to attract new streams of revenue into the game; to grow it for future generations.

Friday’s announcement by Sanzar clearly signals a desperate attempt to salvage the Super 14. The next phase that they will be talking about will be the ludicrous suggestion that Tokyo and Los Angeles become franchise contenders, which is an ill conceived, blue sky notion that will make a mockery of the Super 14.

The answer to all of this, believe it or not, is that the solution is here at home and has been since 2005.

SA Rugby’s President Hoskins is under siege from the 14 Unions to generate revenue and from government to meet transformation timetables, plus the Unions require that he develop a potent rugby inventory that can be commercially marketed to television and sponsors. SABC, with 20 million viewers, broadcasts no live international games of rugby, as SuperSport with 1 million Pay Per View Subscribers has this locked up till 2010.

So now Regan Hoskins is in the unique position of seizing the initiative by presenting to his Sanzar partners, as well as the 14 SA Rugby Union Presidents Council, an innovative, holistic, strategic rugby solution that is capable of remedying these enormous financial and political challenges they all face. And best of all it can be implemented in 2008 with minimum to zero disruption of the Super 14 tournament.

The soon to be dissolved SA Rugby Pty Ltd and its directors is on the skids with its directors having recklessly exposed the SA Rugby Union and its 14 Presidents Council, to enormous financial liabilities. This has resulted in Hoskins commissioning a forensic audit to investigate mismanagement of funds, travel and dubious authorisations by its Chairman Tshume and MD Jonathan Stones, who are presently in Perth with their wives on a R1m junket spree to New Zealand and Australia. This is a smart move by Hoskins as, while the forensic auditors are in the corridors of SA Rugby this week, calling for documentation, travel authorisations and financial reports of dubious expenditure, they are in Perth.

Hoskins’ master stroke can deliver a solution to all three rugby unions of Sanzar. It can heal deep divisions within SA Rugby and make the Super 14 rugby inventory an attractive rugby spectacle by introducing a new revamped Super 14 competition format and commercial sponsorships to a much greater television audience. Not in 2010, but in 2008.

The way forward for the Super 14 should be as follows:

1. South Africa to have six (five plus one) franchises with the fifth-placed South African franchise in the Super 14, to play the sixth franchise in a relegation and promotion Tri-Game Series (home, away & neutral territory)

2. New Zealand to have six (five plus one) franchises with the fifth- or last placed New Zealand franchise in the Super 14, to play the sixth franchise in a relegation and promotion Tri-Game Series (home, away & neutral territory)

3. Australia to have five (four plus one) franchises with the fourth- or last placed Australian franchise in the Super 14, to play the fifth franchise in a relegation and promotion Tri-Game Series (Home, Away & Neutral Territory)

4. The three Sanzar franchises not competing in the Super 14 play a round robin against a wild card northern hemisphere– and wild card southern hemisphere side, which tournament is offered to free-to-air national television and radio broadcasters and sponsors in each of the SANZAR territories.

This has the net effect of immediately slowing the migration of players to Europe by retaining each country’s player asset base and ensuring that the Super 14 rugby product is the optimum television viewing and commercial property in the world, the way it was in 1996. Only now it is a remodeled, commercially viable product.

In one fell swoop SA Rugby’s President Regan Hoskins can display leadership, wisdom and business savvy by delivering an elixir to rugby in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.