Mitre 10 Cup Attendance
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@rotated that isnt what you said, you said we opposed a single tier comp, I was referring to being culled from the top flight of NZ Rugby...
As above, problem was, NZR had created some contrived criteria to keep Southland up, despite their numbers not stacking up against Northland, Manawatu, or Counties, 3 of the other teams supposedly in the cross hairs...obviously Ta$man had thier issues in the early days, but have had a better relationship with the Crusaders than the others and thier franchise partners which has played its part in seeing them where they are today.
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@taniwharugby said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
@rotated that isnt what you said, you said we opposed a single tier comp, I was referring to being culled from the top flight of NZ Rugby...
As above, problem was, NZR had created some contrived criteria to keep Southland up, despite their numbers not stacking up against Northland, Manawatu, or Counties, 3 of the other teams supposedly in the cross hairs...obviously Ta$man had thier issues in the early days, but have had a better relationship with the Crusaders than the others and thier franchise partners which has played its part in seeing them where they are today.
This is the framework that was widely posted ahead of the season and fairly agreed to by all parties? And so contrived by Tew that it resulted in his former franchise losing one of only two provincial partners? Why were Northland in the crosshairs?
I understand that it would be a bloody bitter pill to swallow for a province to go down, but if you place NZ Rugby first it was the right thing at the time (and would be still) and by my maths given Northland are the only of the 14 provinces yet to play Premiership rugby since the split (I may be wrong?) so there isn't much evidence that a birth in top flight provincial rugby is warranted.
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@rotated said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
I understand that it would be a bloody bitter pill to swallow for a province to go down, but if you place NZ Rugby first it was the right thing at the time (and would be still) and by my maths given Northland are the only of the 14 provinces yet to play Premiership rugby since the split (I may be wrong?) so there isn't much evidence that a birth in top flight provincial rugby is warranted.
Ooof, that is rather damming if true.
Get rid of them!! (Southland(although I would find it tough to see them go), Manawatu and Hawkes as well)
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@rotated said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
a birth in top flight provincial rugby
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@rotated the contrived figures was based on player numbers, income etc and the way NZR weighted them.
At the time, Northland had 6th or 7th highest player numbers, we were 6th or 7th in a few other of the criteria, Southland were 14th on a number of factors, but the ones they featured better, were given heigher weighting...there was no signing up at the start of the seaosn to anything, and this was where NZR had created issues for themselves as it appeared all contrived to keeping Southland up.
I think you are correct, Northland have been consistently in the bottom 3 or 4 and the only one not promoted...mate, read the Northland thread if need to get to sleep, Northland fans are fed up with the way things have gone, go back 7 or 8 years, we got all our finances sorted, and it seemed our on field was slowly heading in the right direction, but we simply havent made that next step up, yet fans still turn up, shit, if we won the shield or managed to win something, I reckon we'd get the best crowds in NZ...unlike other teams who have managed to do shit.
But not sure that is a reaosn to cull a team, we have been in the black for a long time now, were never in the hole that Ta$man or Southland were.
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I totally accept we'll never see current ABs in the comp again, but there are other things that can be done to spice it up a little.
The finals this year will be on the weekends of 18th - 20th and 25th - 27th of October. This is a pretty traditional domestic season completion window, going back 20 years or so at least. But there's no reason why we can't play on for a couple of weeks into even better weather, while the All Blacks are still touring (the now yearly NH tour doesn't finish until late November normally). Better weather = better crowds, while November is still light on international cricket normally, and this might allow a merger of the two upper tiers of the competition and a much more palatable proper round robin.
The NZRU needs to recognise the provincial base is being eroded, and a little too dramatically. With that goes star power and bums on seats also. One leak they can plug is guys playing in Japan in lieu of provincial rugby. If they're at that level, then they're at SR level and we need those guys playing domestic rugby here. I know they let them go and still come back and play SR rugby in order to not lose them to our game completely, but it's counter-productive. Their presence in SR helps overseas players develop as much as our own, whilst also inhibiting the development of our replacement provincial players by not being around in the domestic comp. So either pay them more to play both levels for NZ teams, or simply block them from going to Japan when it clashes with the NPC. Again, these guys put bums on seats while contributing to player development.
Schedule more afternoon games even if there are clashes, especially in August and September when the weather is shit to average. Televise them all live across Sky's channels, but maybe this is where a 'Red Zone' kind of show comes in so the casual fan can keep on top of over-lapping games (I'd say generally three games) on another channel. Save the genuinely signficant clashes or simply those between the larger market teams for feature games in prime time ala the NBA TV schedule and don't give us Manawatu vs Southland (just a random example) at 7.30 on a Friday or Saturday night.
Add some fucking hype. Lack of hype in SR is bad enough but the NPC may as well be in a casket. Better trailers, better coverage packaging inc music and graphics (eg the music on the Sky intro is boring and hasn't changed for years), more exciting/funnier hosts and I'm gonna say it, find a couple of female hosts who a) know the game or at least appear to and b) have some sex appeal (they're on TV and trying to draw viewrws for FFS). The latter certainly ain't PC, but it's marketing 101 and the Aussie channels who cover the NRL and AFL seem to find female hosts who fit that bill by the spade, so why can't we dredge up a couple?? Create a show about the game that has some genuine humour to it. Again, why are the Aussies so good as this and we're so horribly terrible?
Just a few ideas.
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As far as I can tell, M10 Cup does two things: Decide who the best provincial union in NZ is (including Ranfurly Shield) and act as a professional pathway for retention and development of players and coaches. Ideally nobody loses money on it, and if it makes a surplus to be invested into grass roots, great.
Northland don't lose money and provide at least some competition (certainly more than a training run), as well as being a union for the retention and development of 25-30 semi-professional players, coaches and administrators, and presumably there are TVs and SKY up there and punters paying money to watch, so why not leave them in the pro comp?
If Northland leave the professional ranks, the top talent will land on their feet but the rest of them and the union will sink to amateur status, and ticket sales and TV rights will drop in the area. This is not a matter of zero-sum where all the losses (whether players, coaches, administrators, ticket sales or Sky subscriptions) will be made up elsewhere - it will simply be lost.
Run that over the 14 unions, and it's basically the same thing - as long as they don't lose money year on year, there's no compelling reason to drop them because the total simply gets less.
On playing times, surely 2 byes and 1 game Friday night at 7:30pm, 3 on Saturday (12:30pm, 2:30pm, 7:30pm) and 2 on Sunday (12:30pm, 2:30pm) is the answer. If 0 byes and 7 games, add a 4th on Saturday or a 3rd on Sunday (4:30pm in either case). 7:30pm could be 7pm, and 4:30pm is also available if preferred.
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@shark said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
I totally accept we'll never see current ABs in the comp again, but there are other things that can be done to spice it up a little.
The finals this year will be on the weekends of 18th - 20th and 25th - 27th of October. This is a pretty traditional domestic season completion window, going back 20 years or so at least. But there's no reason why we can't play on for a couple of weeks into even better weather, while the All Blacks are still touring (the now yearly NH tour doesn't finish until late November normally). Better weather = better crowds, while November is still light on international cricket normally, and this might allow a merger of the two upper tiers of the competition and a much more palatable proper round robin.
In most years, still a few players - who didn't make the ABs for the TRC - have been picked for the ABs end-of-year tours. Also a lot of provincial players end up in the Maori ABs for their EOYTs. Your scenario would:
- achieve that some provinces who play finals will (still) have to miss one, or maybe more, of their players for those finals. Think Canterbury and Richie Mo'unga in 2017;
- Maori ABs tours in November won't be possible, if NPC gets priority. Or provinces playing finals will also lose these players for the finals.
So, I'd say there is a reason why we can't play on into November.
The NZRU needs to recognise the provincial base is being eroded, and a little too dramatically. With that goes star power and bums on seats also. One leak they can plug is guys playing in Japan in lieu of provincial rugby. If they're at that level, then they're at SR level and we need those guys playing domestic rugby here. I know they let them go and still come back and play SR rugby in order to not lose them to our game completely, but it's counter-productive. Their presence in SR helps overseas players develop as much as our own, whilst also inhibiting the development of our replacement provincial players by not being around in the domestic comp. So either pay them more to play both levels for NZ teams, or simply block them from going to Japan when it clashes with the NPC. Again, these guys put bums on seats while contributing to player development.
The Japanese Top League has been moved to the first half of the year, so maybe players won't leave for Japan anymore during the NPC season? Anyway, NZR doesn't have the money to pay the more experienced players more, and if you'd stop them from increasing their income via short-term stints overseas, you'd lose them for SR as well. I think the priority should be to keep them in NZ for as long as possible, so I'd be against stopping them from going for short-term stints, even if they miss NPC. I don't like it, but I'd rather have them in SR, than lose them completely.
Add some fucking hype.
Yes. You lost me with rest of that paragraph.
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@Hooroo said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
@rotated said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
I understand that it would be a bloody bitter pill to swallow for a province to go down, but if you place NZ Rugby first it was the right thing at the time (and would be still) and by my maths given Northland are the only of the 14 provinces yet to play Premiership rugby since the split (I may be wrong?) so there isn't much evidence that a birth in top flight provincial rugby is warranted.
Ooof, that is rather damming if true.
Get rid of them!! (Southland(although I would find it tough to see them go), Manawatu and Hawkes as well)
Why would you suggest getting rid of a union that is probably the most financially stable of all in the NPC, beat glamour team Waikato this year, and supplies the best AB to the national team (not to forget has provided a finalist in the schools rugby Top 4 for the past four years). Those clowns must stay!
Plus we help keep the traffic up around this place.
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@Stargazer said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
@shark said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
I totally accept we'll never see current ABs in the comp again, but there are other things that can be done to spice it up a little.
The finals this year will be on the weekends of 18th - 20th and 25th - 27th of October. This is a pretty traditional domestic season completion window, going back 20 years or so at least. But there's no reason why we can't play on for a couple of weeks into even better weather, while the All Blacks are still touring (the now yearly NH tour doesn't finish until late November normally). Better weather = better crowds, while November is still light on international cricket normally, and this might allow a merger of the two upper tiers of the competition and a much more palatable proper round robin.
In most years, still a few players - who didn't make the ABs for the TRC - have been picked for the ABs end-of-year tours. Also a lot of provincial players end up in the Maori ABs for their EOYTs. Your scenario would:
- achieve that some provinces who play finals will (still) have to miss one, or maybe more, of their players for those finals. Think Canterbury and Richie Mo'unga in 2017;
- Maori ABs tours in November won't be possible, if NPC gets priority. Or provinces playing finals will also lose these players for the finals.
So, I'd say there is a reason why we can't play on into November.
The NZRU needs to recognise the provincial base is being eroded, and a little too dramatically. With that goes star power and bums on seats also. One leak they can plug is guys playing in Japan in lieu of provincial rugby. If they're at that level, then they're at SR level and we need those guys playing domestic rugby here. I know they let them go and still come back and play SR rugby in order to not lose them to our game completely, but it's counter-productive. Their presence in SR helps overseas players develop as much as our own, whilst also inhibiting the development of our replacement provincial players by not being around in the domestic comp. So either pay them more to play both levels for NZ teams, or simply block them from going to Japan when it clashes with the NPC. Again, these guys put bums on seats while contributing to player development.
The Japanese Top League has been moved to the first half of the year, so maybe players won't leave for Japan anymore during the NPC season? Anyway, NZR doesn't have the money to pay the more experienced players more, and if you'd stop them from increasing their income via short-term stints overseas, you'd lose them for SR as well. I think the priority should be to keep them in NZ for as long as possible, so I'd be against stopping them from going for short-term stints, even if they miss NPC. I don't like it, but I'd rather have them in SR, than lose them completely.
Add some fucking hype.
Yes. You lost me with rest of that paragraph.
It's a decent point about the larger AB squad taking out more guys from the latter games if the NPC raged on into November. Less so re the Maori squad as that's not annual. But yeah, this might defeat the intent of the later finish. We only need 3-4 more weeks in order to create a full round robin and six team finals series though, so we could potentially finish at labour weekend still (Sunday final for mine if on labour weekend) if we lessen the gap between SR and the NPC and/or throw in a couple of storm weeks (the players love them as they can play more and train less).
The Top League has only been moved this season due to the RWC hasn't it? So that point may be moot and the problem returns in 2020. I think we need to draw a line in the sand and if a mid tier player wants to chase the money then let him go. I'm not into a bunch of guys being paid by NZ to play SR but not contributing at the next level down. The benefit they offer at SR level may be outweighed by the money being thrown at them despite not playing NPC.
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@Yeetyaah said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
Add some fucking hype.
All you had to say. I agree. From the teams, from the broadcasters, from the players.
I'd love to see two really good 'support shows'. One along the lines of the Matty Johns shows and if we don't have footy players who are creative enough to come up with the comedic content then hire Jono and Ben as the Fletch and Hindy types with a footy side kick, and a footy host. Chuck in some eye candy and funny segments.
Then a 360 style show. Really good analysis and some challenging of the establishment which has always been sorely missed.
The shows we do have are all in between these two in genre and just not good enough at what they do. They're all similar and a bit mundane.
There's got to be some kind of glamour applied to our footy scene. I mean a lot of the players must have enviable lifestyles, so show this as it creates star profiles and creates hype. I don't wana see George Bridge, Mitch Hunt and Mitch Drummond do their weekly shop at Fresh Choice Merivale for spag bol ingredients but people may want to see a cool car or some fresh gear and a cafe lifestyle, that kinda thing. Put them on a pedestal to a degree, show some of the trappings of being a well paid, possibly trendy 25 year old rugby player FFS. HYPE.
Better music, graphics and ads around the coverage would help. I never see an ad hyping up a particular game. All you see are 15 second basic voice-overs telling us what this weekends' games are. Wow.
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@shark said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
It's a decent point about the larger AB squad taking out more guys from the latter games if the NPC raged on into November. Less so re the Maori squad as that's not annual. But yeah, this might defeat the intent of the later finish. We only need 3-4 more weeks in order to create a full round robin and six team finals series though, so we could potentially finish at labour weekend still (Sunday final for mine if on labour weekend) if we lessen the gap between SR and the NPC and/or throw in a couple of storm weeks (the players love them as they can play more and train less).
Most unions don't want the club rugby season to clash with NPC rugby, which means you can't start the NPC much earlier than it is now. If the provinces are removing their best players from club finals it doesn't say much about the importance of their club rugby. I know that already happens for pre-season games.
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The current timing makes a lot of sense - Club and Super overlap because there's not much overlap in player base, while Club building into NPC is the obvious pathway, and Super players who don't make international rugby can still get a game or 3 at a decent level to be ready for next year and any late call-ups.
International rugby obviously has to take precedence but NPC is better than Super if there must be a clash.
I'm also not sure that the answer to common concerns around player welfare caused by too much first class rugby is even more first class rugby.
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@SammyC said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
We've talked about this quite a lot this season amoungst our season ticket group.
Essentially we have 7 season tickets in a group, most NPC games only 3 or 4 of us show up and it's bloody hard to give away the seats.
I reckon all NPC games should be held on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, I doubt it's going to make a huge difference to the numbers watching on TV if you play 2 games at the same time. Afternoon rugby is a far better schedule and better for those with young families.
I agree with that in-principle and it worked well back in the day for the VFL/AFL here in OZ with all games on Saturday and the one live TV match was built as the āmatch of the roundā. Crowds were excellent and it did build the foundations of the great tribalism that footy has.
But if the comp is heavily reliant on TV money to survive then the TV stations are going to want as much content as possible and being able to advertise āLiveā content is all part of their marketing strategy.
What difference that makes for viewers is arguable, but if they are forking out big coin they will want it accessible as possible.
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@ACT-Crusader said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
@SammyC said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
We've talked about this quite a lot this season amoungst our season ticket group.
Essentially we have 7 season tickets in a group, most NPC games only 3 or 4 of us show up and it's bloody hard to give away the seats.
I reckon all NPC games should be held on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, I doubt it's going to make a huge difference to the numbers watching on TV if you play 2 games at the same time. Afternoon rugby is a far better schedule and better for those with young families.
I agree with that in-principle and it worked well back in the day for the VFL/AFL here in OZ with all games on Saturday and the one live TV match was built as the āmatch of the roundā. Crowds were excellent and it did build the foundations of the great tribalism that footy has.
But if the comp is heavily reliant on TV money to survive then the TV stations are going to want as much content as possible and being able to advertise āLiveā content is all part of their marketing strategy.
What difference that makes for viewers is arguable, but if they are forking out big coin they will want it accessible as possible.
Eek, no way that would work ... do people not remember pre-pro rugby and the one game a week on TV One. Although I do understand where you're coming from.
Also, haven't we been bemoaning the lack of crowds in the NPC for about the past 10 years. Most teams now work within the limitations of the competition (lower crowds. x share of the tv money) and budget accordingly. If we can ensure all teams break even (hopefully) and NZR are happy for the comp itself to run at a loss (assuming it does) and is propped up by the ABs and Super then I don't see an issue with that. It's a cost of the business (the business being NZ rugby as a whole).
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@rotated said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
Ta$man were also part of that cull, but to their credit they got their act together - although a large part of their failure at that point was due to being used as a contract holding pen for the Crusaders - the changes to the Super catchment system fixed that.
As I recall, the thing that mainly put Ta$man into the red was the NZRU's requirements for ground upgrades.
Though I heard some hair-raising stories about fringe players being contracted for hefty payments and some horribly optimistic revenues being budgeted. Much of which was laid at Lee Germon's door- fairly or not.
I read somewhere that Ta$man is currently making a lot of money from it's high performance academy/programmes, though I'm not sure how or who is paying.
