Gregor Paul: New Zealand Rugby's 'wacky, wildly exciting' investment opportunity

All Blacks head coach Ian Foster and NZ Rugby CEO Mark Robinson. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

OPINION:

The turmoil in English rugby, where two Premiership clubs – Worcester and Wasps – have fallen into administration, may be viewed within the UK as a disaster, but New Zealand should be eying it as a wildly exciting investment opportunity.

Rather than let these two clubs be forced down the gurgler by the tonne of debt they both carry, New Zealand Rugby and its equity partner Silver Lake could ride in like white knights and buy majority stakes in both.

At face value this sounds mad-daft, a catastrophically bad idea. Why would NZR try to save two English clubs from insolvency? What on earth would be the point?

There would in fact be several reasons for doing this and all of them make sense.

Part of the agreement between NZR and Silver Lake is to set up a second investment vehicle called Global Rugby Opportunities (GRO).

This company will look to invest in rugby or rugby-related investment opportunities around the world at a smaller scale than Silver Lake would typically be interested.

The agreement is that Silver Lake will own 85 per cent of GRO's profit with the remaining 15 per cent open to be split evenly between NZR and the Rugby Players' Association.

The basis of GRO is that Silver Lake raise the capital and manage the business side of any investment and NZR and RPA provide their expertise in the art of sports management, relationship-building and high-performance understanding.

Mark Robinson speaks to media at NZ Rugby AGM April 29, 2021. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

Buying into specific rugby entities such as clubs, national unions and competitions is precisely the remit that GRO has been given.

Whether an investment in Wasps and Worcester can make financial sense would depend on what agreements could be reached restructuring debts and repayments.

But there is no question that there is a strong rationale for looking at this, because ownership would deliver NZR direct influence in the Northern Hemisphere, and more importantly, the ability to expose more players and coaches to the sorts of rugby environments Super Rugby doesn't provide.

The Northern Hemisphere has become New Zealand's biggest threat. France and Ireland are the two best teams in the world and England aren't so far behind.

The North has got its act together in the last five years. They play a structured, disciplined, powerful style of rugby with well-conditioned athletes who lead the world in execution of the basic skillsets.

South Africa has committed its clubs to the North's competitions and there is an undeniable sense - financial carnage at Wasps and Worcester aside – that this is the commercial and high-performance epicentre of the global game.

The balance of power sits firmly with the North and corporate and broadcast money seems destined to flow in its direction, along with more of the world's best players.

Owning a couple of clubs in England would give NZR additional control over its labour force and crucially, a means by which it could develop next generation athletes and coaches to suit the trends of the global game.

The logic stacks up on the development front. Take a player such as 21-year-old Josh Lord, the Chiefs lock who at 2.04m and 110kg is loaded with potential.

In this new world Lord could be contracted to Wasps and sent to England for two years to get smashed about in the Premiership and return to New Zealand probably 10kg heavier and conditioned to cope with a higher physical intensity.

Imagine how such an arrangement could have benefitted Akira Ioane if he'd been packed off to England when he was 20.

Two seasons there would have demanded he learn the art of intimidation and fast-tracked his progress in a way Super Rugby, with its heavy emphasis on ruck and run, simply couldn't.

But maybe the real value in buying into the broken English clubs is to create new pathways for New Zealand coaches.

If the North is the biggest threat to the All Blacks then what better way to counter that than having two or three coaches embedded in the UK for a few years, gathering intelligence and learning how England, Ireland and to some extent France are building and preparing their players?

There are already so-called strategic partnerships in place between New Zealand Super Rugby teams and various clubs around the world, but these are superficial arrangements that don't have the depth of agreement to facilitate the transfer of players or coaches.

The beauty of ownership is the ability to control movement of labour: to send a coach to Wasps with the certainty of how long they will be there, when they will be coming back to New Zealand and to what job they will fulfil when they do.

NZR buying distressed clubs in England may sound wacky, but it might in fact be a stroke of genius.