Mitre 10 Cup Attendance
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@SammyC I'd be ok if they did like they are in the RWC, delay the live coverage...
This conversation comes up every other year, yet the solutions are not really workable in the current environment.
I actually dont mind the crossover matches, and think the current format is the best one they have had since the changes made in 2008 (or was it prior when ANZ Cup was shit too)...as I have long said, bin one of the crossover matches removes the need for storm week (although dont think they had that this year?)
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@Stargazer I would say most people already pick and choose which games they watch. I do.
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@Stargazer said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
I think playing and televising two or more games at the same time will reduce tv viewership as most people prefer to watch games live and are less inclined to watch recorded games or replays.
I wasn't talking about the survey, I was giving my own opinion.
I seriously doubt television viewing numbers are very high anyway. It would be extremely low number who watch every game live on TV.
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@taniwharugby No storm weeks anymore, this year. No more Wednesday games. It has been a lot better this year than previous years, because the competition could start earlier (due to SR finishing earlier).
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@Stargazer for me, the Wednesday/Thursday night games are not designed to get punters to go to them, if they were, k/o would be 6pm...these are for TV viewers
It's ok now with TR Jnr being older, but a couple of years back, 7.30 k/o was too late to take him on a school night...
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@Number-10 said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
They did not happen because the same three unions have been against it both times - Northland, Manawatu and Southland.
Northland also led the charge against a move to a single tier system early in Tew's tenure.
Ta$man were also part of that cull, but to their credit they got their act together - although a large part of their failure at that point was due to being used as a contract holding pen for the Crusaders - the changes to the Super catchment system fixed that.
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@rotated it was a single tier comp for a period, I dont recall us having issues with that (nor can I see why we would) only getting culled, to which they were pretty vocal and anti.
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@taniwharugby said in Mitre 10 Cup Attendance:
@rotated it was a single tier comp for a period, I dont recall us having issues with that, only getting culled.
I don't believe the proposal was to cull Northland entirely from NZRU competitions - simply remove them from the top division due to mounting annual losses and poor on field performances.
Naturally no team wants to be the one that goes, but for the betterment of the competition there has to be rationalization and contraction, just as there was in the NRL and other competitions.
I'll be the first to put my hand up and say I was wrong about 2008, I thought Ta$man should go too due to the mismanagement and bailouts (far worse than Northland to be fair), but it wasn't entirely obvious how the catchment system was being used to where they were a shelf company fielding a first XV.
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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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