The future of NZ Rugby
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Much more info in this article:
It is believed that NZR's broader vision sees provincial unions in a new role where they will mostly drive participation and administer the club game at a local level, leaving Super Rugby sides with greater responsibility to manage talent identification and development of elite players. There is some suggestion that one of the recommendations will be that provinces change their priorities and see growing participation as their primary goal and more important than producing a successful Mitre 10 Cup team. A raft of concepts and new ideas will be proposed that will impact across areas such as talent identification and development, competition structures and administrative functions at provincial and national level. Effectively New Zealand is poised for a system reset where the respective roles of schools, clubs, unions, Super Rugby teams and the national body will be redefined to better achieve the common purpose of growing the sport and delivering success at the professional level.While driving down costs is part of the goal, NZR is aware that the current landscape creates conflict in areas of player development which can also act as barriers to player retention. They are also aware that an overhaul of development pathways may be required to help attract new players, with participation rates having stagnated for the last decade amid changing social patterns.What the unions are likely to hear, then, is that NZR believes there is a need for elite player development to be streamlined. That may lead to provincial unions having to abolish their own academy programmes in favour of regional centres of excellence. Currently unions and Super Rugby sides tend to compete for the same players, which drives up costs and has also led to teams targeting athletes at a younger age – often when they are in Year 12 at school – to secure their services.NZR is wary that unions could feel they are being asked to give up their identities, but the national body is understood to be conscious that the historic tribalism of the provincial game needs to be restored not destroyed. To that end, it is understood that the review will recommend that the Mitre 10 Cup continues with 14 teams, although it wouldn't be a surprise if there is subsequent discussion about whether the major unions in particular should be continuing to use major venues to host games given the vastly reduced crowds and interest in that level of rugby.https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12312298
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@Godder and a local club focus on growth and participation. Better alignment with schools etc. Hmm wonder if 1st 15 TV coverage will keep growing while npc dies off. Maybe taking a page from college sport in the US?
Is super rugby the only viable TV content? What happens to our top tier nz-only domestic comp if its no longer viable as a broadcast product.
Big changes. Real big changes.
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@Paekakboyz NPC is already dead as a TV product, it is only aired as NZR insist on it as part of the whole rugby package. It's a massive loss, taken in isolation, for sky
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@Machpants yeah I guess I'm musing on whether it gets canned or ??
I tell you what though. I love grassroots rugby - lower quality but real club rugby from all round the country. Plus a bit of history about the clubs and stuff is cool.
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@Paekakboyz said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
@Machpants yeah I guess I'm musing on whether it gets canned or ??
I tell you what though. I love grassroots rugby - lower quality but real club rugby from all round the country. Plus a bit of history about the clubs and stuff is cool.
Me too, I'd rather have more of that, and the one camera angle, than more NPC multicamera overly costly for the support it gathers coverage
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Steve Tew could see the writing on the wall...
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I'd be furious if they canned the NPC (I don't think that will happen). To me, it's the best comp to watch on tv, especially my own province's games (of course). I like to watch our local boys make the step up to the next level. I think a lot of players will be lost to the system if there's nothing in-between club/schoolrugby and Super Rugby. They'd also lose me if I can't watch my province's games because the games are no longer broadcast on tv. I have no interest in going to games in Wellington, unless Wellington plays Hawke's Bay, which is at most once game a year.
They should move the games out of the big stadiums in the main centres to smaller venues though .
I'd like to see the Canes (and Blues, Chiefs, maybe Highlanders) follow the example of the Crusaders and establish an academy in their smaller provinces. With Hawke's Bay schoolboy rugby dominating in the Hurricanes region for years, but little representation in Hurricanes and NZ school and age grade teams, there's reason enough for a Hurricanes academy in Napier.
If Sky is no longer broadcasting NPC games, I hope sideline.app or another streaming service will be allowed to step in. I rather pay for that than for Sky.
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@Stargazer said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
I'd be furious if they canned the NPC .
You realise that doesn't matter right? What actually matters is implementation of a product(s) that aren't loss making. NPC died years ago despite a handful of passionate supporters.
I just hope that the decision they make is a good watch as I haven't watched NPC properly in ten years
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Interesting article which pointed out something I didn;t know, that the Crusaders run Canterbury's and Ta$man's Acadamies - ie like suggested in this report. Hasn't done saders, Cant or Tas any harm!
How the Crusaders continue to nurture the best athletes in the world
The Crusaders are the best team in Super Rugby - there's no doubt about it. But what's been the recipe to success for a region that's punching well above its weight class?
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@Hooroo said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
@Stargazer said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
I'd be furious if they canned the NPC .
You realise that doesn't matter right? What actually matters is implementation of a product(s) that aren't loss making. NPC died years ago despite a handful of passionate supporters.
I just hope that the decision they make is a good watch as I haven't watched NPC properly in ten years
I realise that, yes. Nothing what people on the Fern, or fans generally, want matters. That doesn't have to stop us from expressing an opinion on it though, does it?
Money does matter most, because "rugby is a product". And it's sponsors that pay for the production of the product. Never mind that the number of fans buying the product might decrease even further, at least outside the main centres.
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@Stargazer said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
@Hooroo said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
@Stargazer said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
I'd be furious if they canned the NPC .
You realise that doesn't matter right? What actually matters is implementation of a product(s) that aren't loss making. NPC died years ago despite a handful of passionate supporters.
I just hope that the decision they make is a good watch as I haven't watched NPC properly in ten years
I realise that, yes. Nothing what people on the Fern, or fans generally, want matters. That doesn't have to stop us from expressing an opinion on it though, does it?
Money does matter most, because "rugby is a product". And it's sponsors that pay for the production of the product. Never mind that the number of fans buying the product might decrease even further, at least outside the main centres.
Again, that doesn't matter either so long as the main centres increase the purchase of the product. Then in time the little outliers start supporting too.
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@Stargazer said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
@Hooroo Knowing Wellington, there won't be an increase in the purchase of the product.
We don't even know what the product is. Back in the day the Hurricanes and Lions were really well supported.
I would say the hardest market to gain growth in again would be Auckland purely due to competition of competing sports and events
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The current NPC structure is a jumbled mess created by trying to keep everybody happy, and in the end pleasing nobody. The whole comp is mainly based on nostalgia, but it will never be what it was, no matter how much people wish for it.
The whole NZ structure is screaming out for reform. Hopefully this time the NZRU actually sack up and do what it is best.
It seems like a lot of what was written there relies on Super Rugby continuing for the foreseeable future?
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NZ rugby deserves a dreadful outcome. They got handed a great product and have tried to ruin every level of it outside of the All Blacks. This is the only organisation stupid enough to try to run two levels of provincial teams, and in a tiny country. When professionalism came, two of the top four teams were in the major population centre. They responded by putting a North Harbour's franchise in fucking Dunedin. It's almost like they are trying to go broke. Rugby is dead in Auckland now.
Fuck the NZRU. They're completely incompetent and deserve to go broke. It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of provincial morons.
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@Tim said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
NZ rugby deserves a dreadful outcome. They got handed a great product and have tried to ruin every level of it outside of the All Blacks. This is the only organisation stupid enough to try to run two levels of provincial teams, and in a tiny country. When professionalism came, two of the top four teams were in the major population centre. They responded by putting a North Harbour's franchise in fucking Dunedin. It's almost like they are trying to go broke. Rugby is dead in Auckland now.
Fuck the NZRU. They're completely incompetent and deserve to go broke. It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of provincial morons.
rant of the week
a lot of truth there though
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@Tim said in The future of NZ Super Rugby teams & the NPC:
NZ rugby deserves a dreadful outcome. They got handed a great product and have tried to ruin every level of it outside of the All Blacks. This is the only organisation stupid enough to try to run two levels of provincial teams, and in a tiny country. When professionalism came, two of the top four teams were in the major population centre. They responded by putting a North Harbour's franchise in fucking Dunedin. It's almost like they are trying to go broke. Rugby is dead in Auckland now.
Fuck the NZRU. They're completely incompetent and deserve to go broke. It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of provincial morons.
Didn't the Harbour franchise go to Waikato?
