Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?
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The shareholders of NZ Rugby are the clubs and the provinces - selling ownership is forever and my starting position is I hate it, but of course I don’t know the detail.
As soon as you put the short term profit motive (as businesses do) in front of longer term goals you will ruin the sport. I can just see the cost cutting discussions now.....Rugby in NZ has always been about participation in a team sport that’s a lot of fun. From that inclusiveness and its support you get an egalitarian sporting model - from club to provincial to S15 to the ABs. The All Black legacy is nothing without Clubs and Provinces. For me the ABs are just the cherry on top of NZ Rugby. If the English and French want to bankrupt themselves buying players they can’t afford let them - we should implement transfer fees though.
They can rationalise to their hearts content Super 15 rugby (or whatever it is now) but they should just leave the rest alone. Provinces are not just some branch office in a banking network.
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Sounds a bit like my old team, Wycombe Wanderers, who have a long history of supporter ownership but have also work closely (and successfully) with businessman like Ivor Beeks. The club has just negotiated a 75% sale to an American businessman but the supporter-owned trust still owns the ground and physical assets.
It has a phenomenal record of producing top flight managers too - Martin O'Neil, John Gregory & Lawrie Sanchez all cut their teeth at the club.
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@kev said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
The shareholders of NZ Rugby are the clubs and the provinces - selling ownership is forever and my starting position is I hate it, but of course I don’t know the detail.
It CAN work (some football clubs have done it successfully) but needs the right partner and risks need to be managed.
Wonder if this is Covid cashflow-related - hope not as there could be dangers with a short-term view.
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@Victor-Meldrew is not covid related, it was talked about before. NZ rugby is totally unsustainable with the current structure, so they need to do something about it if we want to stay a world power
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@Machpants said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@Victor-Meldrew is not covid related, it was talked about before. NZ rugby is totally unsustainable with the current structure, so they need to do something about it if we want to stay a world power
Covid certainly didn't help (NZRU had a bit stashed away for a rainy day) but yes I do think that they need to restructure the business model. Profits mean players ultimately. Selling part of the business to private enterprise though...not convinced.
This is a bit out there, but I wonder how they would go with an IPO and a share of the business was distributed to the NZ population. I would buy in even knowing that I would get little or no ROI but I would get to keep my rugby team.
The odd thing about the finances is the NPC seems to be a major drain on cash and yet it is where our player base comes from as well as a lot of the fan support. All very difficult.
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@Snowy yeah I think WR had offered cash to the Unions, but NZ opted not to take thier's just yet?
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In fern tradition, I haven't read the article. It's cricket season, good time to release depressing news like this.
I'd rather nerd out on cricket stats than read a depressing article about private equity in the All Blacks. I'm going to assume it isn't true ... sometimes foreign media use the terms "All Blacks" and "NZRU" as meaning the same thing, I'm going to hope NZRU are looking for equity for a competition, not the team ... please?
Would it even be legal? Form a WR perspective? NZRU have 3 votes on the world council, as a representative of NZRU which is a representative of the provincial unions which are are representatives of the clubs.
Could we go all 1990 retrospective a-la every post from MN5 and speculate on a Rupert Murdoch buying 3 SARU votes from rugby-hating ANC stooges? etc etc
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@taniwharugby said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@Snowy yeah I think WR had offered cash to the Unions, but NZ opted not to take thier's just yet?
Hadn't heard that. Any idea what the terms were? Why would you not take it...
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I'd rather NZRU just gave up on competing at sub-national level, settled for top players being foreign based. Come back to play test rugby.
Obviously will play less tests per year (fine with me).
Then, if they are playing for foreign clubs I don't give a shit about, I won't even need to be angry ever again about terrible bland tribeless franchise rugby kits. Sub-national rugby has become so identity-less that I don't really care anymore.
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@Snowy said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@taniwharugby said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@Snowy yeah I think WR had offered cash to the Unions, but NZ opted not to take thier's just yet?
Hadn't heard that. Any idea what the terms were? Why would you not take it...
It's just bringing forward the payout from RWC years, where the Big 10 tier 1 unions get 'compensated' for not playing November and June EOYTs in a RWC year.
So, ARU had a cashflow crisis, WR paid them their future income 3 years early.
NZRU hasn't as they had 5 x this amount in their own reserves.
Just Australia and Wales, I think, have tapped it.
There is a separate, much smaller, pot. That WR have created as a covid crisis fund for tier 2s. I believe. -
@Machpants said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@Victor-Meldrew is not covid related, it was talked about before. NZ rugby is totally unsustainable with the current structure, so they need to do something about it if we want to stay a world power
Thanks. Is it the structure, the money from Silver Lake or both?
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I'm not going to read up anything on it, until there is local source. I assume the sky link above is sky UK?
As I say, foreign media mixing "All Blacks" and "NZRU" means I'll probably just get unnecesarily annoyed.
If there's a local source other than a crap NZ website quoting parts of a foreign article, then please post on here.
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@Rapido said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
other than a crap NZ website quoting parts of a foreign article
jeez, why do you come here then
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Report: NZ Rugby for sale in mega deal
A small percentage of NZ Rugby could be up for sale - for a mammoth price.
NZ Herald?
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@Kiwiwomble said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
NZ Herald?
He didn't want a crap NZ website...
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@Kiwiwomble said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
Report: NZ Rugby for sale in mega deal
A small percentage of NZ Rugby could be up for sale - for a mammoth price.
NZ Herald?
Thank you.
With the realisation that NZ Rugby's financial model can no longer rely solely on the All Blacks to fund the game, a high ranking NZ Rugby source explained how a private investment could be carried out.
"You would set up a subsidiary company of NZ Rugby and get investment into that company in some form of partnership," the source told the Herald in May. "You put commercial assets into that company — whether that's in combination with Sanzaar partners and something like Super Rugby in its reincarnated form, or the Rugby Championship.
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Following the Herald's report, which stated negotiations with Silver Lake and other private investment firms would resume once Super Rugby's future had a firm blueprint, Sky News UK now suggests a 15 per cent stake could be sold.
That's what I thought.
Some NZRU and maybe SANZAAR cmpetitions. Not 'The All Blacks'.
Panic over.
Good old useless foreign rugby media and use of the term All Blacks. A BBC article I read last year made it sound like the All Blacks teams were in financial negotiations in the build up to a test match. Would have needed to select Ben from Accounts.
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$2B for a 15% stake would make the ABs worth over $13B?
Doesnt seem right.
