KEY POINTS:
Rugby continues to fall on hard times with the once dependable national championship cash cow having morphed into a financial black hole.
Attendances at matches nosedived this season and television viewers tuned out in their thousands.
Many of the drawcard end of season playoff matches were run at a loss, with one source close to Auckland rugby said the costs of operating a ground the size of Eden Park meant a crowd of 16,500 for the final against Wellington as an "unmitigated disaster".
Auckland chief executive Andy Dalton was more circumspect. "We haven't done the financial analysis of the final at this point but I am reasonably sure that it won't look too great."
Wellington chief executive Greg Peters was equally underwhelmed. Wellington were entitled to 15 per cent of gross gate up to a maximum of $100,000, Peters said.
"We wouldn't be expecting to get 100 grand. For the premier competition in New Zealand, a gate of 16,000 is woeful. It's not Auckland's fault, Canterbury had 7500 for our semifinal last week.
"If the game had been in Wellington I would have backed us to get over 20,000, but not sell it out, which is what this competition should do."
Smaller unions such as Southland and Bay of Plenty have questioned the financial viability of the championship, but even the country's biggest unions are now feeling the pinch.
Dalton declined to say whether Auckland had lost money this season.
"I'm not in a position to go through that at this point," he said. "But it would interesting to see the finances of all of the unions. Crowds are generally down. There is not the same interest. The competition has been diluted and I think there are a large number of unions really struggling. Our results are certainly forecast to be well down on previous years."
Canterbury chief executive Hamish Riach said the province's crowds had been well down on expectations.
"The biggest concern to us was the way the competition finished," Riach said. "We had 22,000 for the Shield challenge against Auckland but when you have 8000 for a home semi against Wellington, we lost money on that game."
The dismal crowd for the Eden Park final was also an indication the competition was failing, he said.
"Auckland deserved lots of pats on the backs this year. They went through unbeaten and played bloody good footy all year and it didn't capture the imagination."
There have been exceptions to the rule with Hawkes Bay and Manawatu attracting good crowds but the Weekend Herald understands Bay of Plenty recently sent letters to creditors saying it could not pay bills on time. "If it was a normal business, you'd shoot professional rugby at this level dead in the water," outgoing Bay of Plenty chief executive Paul Abbot told the Bay of Plenty Times this week.
The fallout from the failing competition has been widespread. Official NZRU documents obtained by the Weekend Herald show Southland has posted significant operating losses in each of the past three years.
In 2004 and 2005, those losses were close to $500,000, while in 2006 that figure was closer to $300,000. Southland's net asset position had dropped over that period from more than $1 million to less than $500,000.
Southland is believed to be conducting a review to see if there is enough community support to continue in the competition.
Otago and Taranaki lost money in each of the past two seasons. Otago's net wealth dipped by more than $1 million during the new competition's first year, while Northland's balance sheet dipped by 25 per cent to about $1.5 million.
Other documents showed the average player wage bill of the first division unions rose from $1.213 million in 2005 to $1.313 million last season. Additional costs associated with the competition were also up, from an average of $652,000 in 2005 to $714,000 last year.
Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury increased their bottom lines last year but Peters doubts whether that growth will continue. "We'll be in the black this year but how long that will last for I am uncertain at this stage."
