Empty seats raise concerns

The TV ratings are up. Total attendances have increased. Sponsors say they are happy. It's no wonder, then, Sanzar's executives are adamant the extended Tri Nations is a roaring success.

Yet, there is good cause to wonder whether they are secretly panicking that in time the Tri Nations will be rejected by those who need to love it.

For all the public assurances that everything is rosy in the Sanzar garden, how do executives explain the half-empty stadium in Sydney last week? Or why Channel Seven, the Australian Rugby Union's free-to-air broadcast partner, chose to show The Sound of Music before airing the second Bledisloe Cup clash in Brisbane after midnight?

Even in New Zealand, spiritual home of rugby and the nation that can't sleep for worrying about the All Blacks, hundreds of seats were empty at the Bledisloe game in Christchurch.

Officially, the game against the Boks in Wellington was a sell-out, but the eye kept jarring on vacant spaces as it scanned the stadium. People paying good money and not turning up. That sounds like a worry.

The Tri Nations is Sanzar's premium offering. It is the component that drives the value of the broadcast rights. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch splashed US$373 million on the five-year broadcast rights essentially because of it.

The latest figures show that about 8 per cent of New Zealand males aged between 18-49 watched the opening game of this year's Super 14. Almost 14 per cent watched the All Black test against South Africa in Wellington.

The same figures reveal that, of all males aged between 18-49 watching TV on Saturday, July 15, 40 per cent watched the test in Wellington while 27 per cent watched the opening Super 14 match.

Those ratings are up this year from last - but how much longer will Murdoch tolerate falling attendances at games? Half-empty stadiums hardly give the impression viewers are watching "can't miss" tests.

How much longer will he tolerate the three international sides using his money to build up for the World Cup - a competition for which he doesn't own the broadcast rights?

Sources with experience in this area say it won't be long before News Corporation puts some heat on the Sanzar bosses to get grounds filled.

Australia Rugby Union chief executive Gary Flowers admits the preference is to play to a full house, but: "We have met our broadcast partners and they have not expressed any disappointment or negative views."

Flowers says that there was never any expectation they would sell out in Sydney. The union budgeted for 62,000 and that was pretty much what they got. For only the third time in Australia, total attendances for domestic tests in a calendar year have exceeded 300,000.

"We don't believe there is a trend in terms of falling attendances," says Flowers. "The Bledisloe Cup is a hugely sought-after event and matches against South Africa still draw people."

The concern, though, is that games against South Africa don't necessarily draw enough people to keep broadcasters and sponsors happy over the long term.

Compare the Tri Nations with the Six Nations. A ticket for any game at Twickenham, Cardiff or Paris cannot be bought for love nor money regardless of the opposition. It is rare for Dublin not to sell out and although Scotland struggled to fill Murrayfield for their opening match against France last year, the Calcutta Cup game three weeks later was sold out in minutes.

In a three-team tournament, there can't be any passengers. South Africa have got to pull their weight and that is why one source feels the sooner Sanzar executives assess ways to invigorate the format, the better.

The IRB say in their mission statement that Argentina need to be in a regular competition. The Tri Nations seems the natural home but, before any progress can be made, New Zealand and Australia have to align themselves strategically.

"It is important that New Zealand and Australia share the same vision on where they are going," says one source. "You have got to know what your plan is."

In practical terms that means Australia need to support New Zealand in their mission to create a global season. New Zealand want just one test window per season. If that came in November then the Super 14 could be expanded, the Tri Nations played later in the year and then run into the end-of-season tour which would allow the All Blacks to be kept together uninterrupted for five months.

But for New Zealand and Australia to collaborate on a combined vision, they first need to put their differences behind them.

In April this year NZRU chief executive Chris Moller said the relationship between the two unions was strained. There was lingering hurt that Australia didn't support New Zealand's 2011 World Cup bid and tension increased when Australia rejected New Zealand's efforts to play the final Bledisloe Cup game on a Friday night.

NZRU deputy chief executive Steve Tew says: "We have had a series of meetings in the last few weeks and the relationship is on a very sound professional footing."

It will need to be - because it appears as if Sanzar really cannot afford to have any cracks in its alliance right now.