OPINION
Ponder for a second what next week might look like for professional rugby in New Zealand.
There's a possibility the All Blacks will be bottom of the Rugby Championship, seventh in the world rankings and in possession of yet another unwanted record of losing four consecutive tests and two consecutive series on home soil.
A board that unanimously decided to retain head coach Ian Foster after the All Blacks began the year with two victories from their first five tests – and just two victories from their last seven – will have to work out whether to double down in the face of intolerable pressure and stay resolute, or risk admitting they made a mistake and appoint a new head coach just one year before the next World Cup.
Next week will also see a court case begin in France where Mo Altrad, the billionaire owner of the eponymously named scaffolding company which has the naming rights to the All Blacks jersey, has been charged with "active bribery of a person charged with a public service mission."
No matter the outcome of the trial, the scenario of someone with such a close and material link to the All Blacks being charged with such an offence is already acutely embarrassing for NZR.
It's not like they could have known or discovered the danger lurking through any due diligence process available to them, but when they also signed a major sponsorship deal with a petrochemical company that has been deemed by environmental groups as one of the world's worst ocean polluters, and another with a Japanese pharmaceutical company that own multiple health brands, yet has chosen, to this point, to make its association with the All Blacks through an energy drink, it does generate wider questions about whether NZR has partnered with highest bidders rather than the right strategic partners.
To make things yet more volatile and fascinating, NZR now has a signed agreement with Silver Lake and possession of the first of two $100m payments the US firm will make as part of the deal to buy an equity stake in the commercial interests of the national game.
The two parties are in the process of planning a handful of new business initiatives, many of which will be looking to trade off the brand value of the All Blacks.
And because the deal has now been completed, that has triggered the clock on an agreement made last year with the Rugby Players' Association that a full, independent review of NZR's governance will begin within 60 days of the agreement being signed.
The RPA made it a condition of giving its approval to the Silver Lake acquisition, that NZR agree to a wide-ranging review of its own governance process and structure to see if both are fit for purpose given the new landscape that will emerge, which will see a new company formed to run the commercial interests of professional rugby.
The professional game has never experienced a period quite like this, where so many big initiatives, with such a high level of interconnectivity, are all converging to conclusion at the same time.
Never have we seen such a conflicted picture of administrative ambition running at an all-time high with the All Blacks results running at an all-time low.
And it is this widening gap which perhaps provides the answers to why next week could be the worst in an already annus horribilis.
Somehow in the last two years the commercial tail has been allowed to wag the high-performance dog. Making money has become a goal itself rather than a byproduct of onfield achievement.
The All Blacks didn't set out to become a commercial machine back at the dawn of the professional age: it was something that organically happened when they were able to continue to build on their incredible performance legacy.
NZR, for the first two decades of professionalism, understood that professional rugby was both a sport and a business, but mostly weighted its investment and resource towards the former which it realised was the bit that it had to get right to ensure there was in fact a business to run.
There is a direct link between the All Blacks being successful on the field and successful off it.
What attracts sponsors is the culture of success. What persuades fans to buy test tickets, broadcast subscriptions and merchandise, is the culture of success.
Brand All Blacks is built on one simple idea, which is that this relatively tiny nation somehow manages to defy its demographic and geographic disadvantages to conjure up phenomenally successful rugby teams.
They keep winning and the story keeps becoming more compelling and on the back of that, the commercial team can sell their little hearts out – demanding record fees for associations and partnerships.
But in the last few years, NZR has perhaps lost sight of the importance of high-performance success in delivering the commercial outcomes it desires and has focused too much time, energy and resource in monetising the brand rather than investing in measures to ensure its continued high-performance success.
This commercial-first approach was evident back in early 2021 when NZR actively chose not to collaborate with the professional players in doing their initial deal with Silver Lake.
It was visible again in South Africa when it was revealed that no one from NZR's high-performance department – or indeed any kind of independent, credible evaluator – was despatched to the Republic to assess the preparation of the All Blacks and general approach of the coaching team.
Instead, the main source of intelligence-gathering about the coaching team came from conversations between NZR chief executive Mark Robinson with the coaching team.
Robinson also sat in on a number of leadership meetings and proclaimed himself satisfied with what he experienced, based on the premise that they were significantly more detailed than he remembered similar encounters being when he was an All Black 20 years ago.
None of this feels like the sporting side of the business is being treated with the respect with which it should, something that is only amplified by the make-up of the nine-person NZR board, none of whom can claim any expertise or history in high-performance environments.
Professional rugby is both a sport and a business and if the game is to dig itself out of the hole in which it appears to be falling, the former needs to be re-established as the number one priority.
