New Zealand Rugby’s Board should resign en masse now; return of the Warriors Wāhine to the NRL imminent; South Island NRL bid chases Hollywood star backing; Why Taylor Swift’s NFL romance has Donald Trump and American rednecks in a twist.
First stop is the NRL, where the Christchurch-based bid for a South Island expansion franchise has secured its first significant investor.
The consortium’s newly appointed chief executive, former Canterbury Rugby League chair Tony Kidd, told Sports Insider that support for the bid is growing weekly and a seed investor had been found.
Kidd said the offer had come from “a prominent overseas investment firm specialising in fundraising platforms and direct investments” with a public announcement soon to come.
He added the consortium was closely collaborating with the New Zealand Government and, in an intriguing twist, is “in discussions with major Hollywood celebrity representatives about potentially becoming the face of our bid”.
I’m racking my brain trying to think who that could be. Sam Neill perhaps? Taika Waititi or Jason Momoa? There’s a successful precedent in Ryan Reynolds’ investment in Wrexham.
Kidd also revealed the consortium plans to host a “significant number of games” at the new Christchurch Te Kaha Stadium and is engaged in “long-term strategy discussions” with the council.
“We are also in ongoing discussions with major non-NRL clubs across three countries to establish feeder systems and support infrastructure with an aim for entry in the 2026 season,” he said.
I think it’s unlikely the Mainlanders, who are committed to men’s and women’s teams in the NRL, will gain the 18th expansion franchise tipped to enter the competition in 2026 but Kidd maintains they can be ready by then if they gain the nod.
A team from Papua New Guinea is tipped to take that spot due to Australian Government financial support (to, I kid you not, see off Chinese expansion in the area) but interestingly that bid is not supported by current NRL coaches who say it is the wrong move.
Only 10 per cent of current NRL coaches favoured the PNG option as the next franchise with 50 per cent opting for Perth and 23 per cent advocating a second New Zealand team.
Cairns, Perth and original Australian Rugby League foundation club the North Sydney Bears are the South Island’s rivals for the 18th team but the NRL also wants to expand to 20 teams by 2030, a more likely entry target for the Mainlanders.
“While we believe our bid is the strongest for the 18th men’s license, we support other bids in their journey,” said Kidd. “We believe that healthy competition can be achieved with 20 teams, enhancing the NRL and NRLW’s status as the leading sport in the southern hemisphere.”
Last year wasn’t exactly a stellar 12 months for New Zealand Rugby in many respects.
An independent governance review recommending the entire board stand down capped a 2023 to forget.
But, incredibly, 2024 has yet to kick a ball in anger on the field and already we have evidence of ongoing tumultuous times within the secretive walls of Rugby HQ.
Chief executive Mark Robinson and board members had barely got their feet back under the metaphorical desk after the summer holiday break when Gregor Paul from the NZ Herald lowered the boom on them with this February 1 exclusive on the troubled partnership with American private equity giants Silver Lake.
The revelations that New Zealand Rugby (NZR) faces a dramatic financial crunch and could have entirely squandered a $262 million investment into our national game by 2031 should deeply concern all rugby fans in this country.
In reality, it is merely the chickens coming home to roost over a dumb deal which featured massive over-promising, a falsely rosy set of financials and a bunch of bonehead provincial union administrators feathering their own nests.
In my opinion, it’s already such a debacle that I can only stand up and applaud last year’s independent governance review and agree – the entire board should go now.
In revealing the latest twist in the tortured Silver Lake story, Paul presented us with compelling evidence once again that the country’s 26 provincial unions continue to be the tail that wags the NZR dog.
As a weak board sits by, the game in this country continues to be steered towards a financial nightmare.
Harsh?
I don’t believe so (and nor does the independent review’s chair David Pilkington given he has urged the latter).
The secrecy surrounding NZR’s strategic courting of private-equity players with the game’s true stakeholders (fans, volunteers, Sky subscribers, etc) kept in the dark has been slowly exposed over the past 12 months (at the risk of self-promotion, I can recommend the seven-part podcast Pieces of Silver I did with BusinessDesk senior journo Paul McBeth last year as a potential case study).
In that podcast, we revealed how NZR had presented over-the-top financial revenue projections to the provincial unions (PUs) – which included, without consultation, cutting the All Blacks players’ pay from 36.5 per cent of revenue they generated to 31 per cent.
This was designed to secure the PUs’ blessing which it handed over in a heartbeat at the promise of increased cash coffers.
The PUs were the easiest sell in the world, eagerly clamouring onboard for a financial sweetener and even extorting the NZR board for further money to get the deal across the line after the New Zealand Rugby Players Association (NZRPA) pushed back.
Lessons should have been learned then.
The latest shenanigans with the NZR board and PUs taking up a Silver Lake underwrite for another $62.5m on top of the original $200m investment show they haven’t been.
And that radical intervention is now needed.
Just as it was in the original deal, the NZRPA and its leaders David Kirk and Rob Nichol have proven themselves once again to be the only sensible adults in the room.
The Herald’s revelation that the NZRPA went to the extreme lengths of seeking a High Court injunction late last year to stop NZR selling more of the family silver demonstrates how the Kiwi rugby eco-system is still a basket case.
The NZRPA correctly argued that the further investment was not required and would only exacerbate NZR’s future financial instability.
But NZR’s board caved to the PUs who wanted $60m invested into a promised “Legacy Fund”, which should be more correctly titled as “The Financial Safety Net We Want When We Go Broke Over Spending on a Flawed NPC Competition Nobody Watches”.
Simple maths underscores the selfishness of the provincial unions and the ongoing stupidity of this deal.
Silver Lake’s additional tranche moves them from 5.6 per cent ownership of NZR’s commercial assets to 7.5 per cent. On the current revenue earnings of $270m per annum, that is $20m returned to Silver Lake every year and for the next 100 years – and more to them or whoever they sell on their investment to in the future.
If NZR had not pursued the Silver Lake deal and continued to manage its costs competently (which it was doing), it could have created the so-called “Legacy Fund” the unions so desperately want by putting aside $20m a year for three years (don’t forget NZR had reserves of more than $100m even before the Silver Lake agreement was struck).
But the deal got done anyway. At this point, the board should be limiting the damage.
Instead, it has caved to the PUs’ desire for a short-term sugar hit to gain $60m now when there is no credible argument that it is needed, nor guarantee that the Legacy Fund won’t be rorted.
Instead we are giving away $2 billion over the next 100 years to get that $60m - and potentially up to $10b to $20b if revenues rise on past projections.
The board should have stood up against this nonsense after mediation with the NZRPA broke down last month and NZR presented a revised (and dramatically reduced) set of future financials that bore no resemblance to those it provided when lobbying for its original deal.
The Herald’s story revealed NZR would not achieve its proclaimed financial goals, including a forecast of $76m in improved revenue from “new business initiatives”, and that the cost of setting up its new commercial arm with Silver Lake had been much higher than anticipated, stopped the PUs voting overwhelmingly to selling more equity off.
So the board kow-towed, with NZR chair Dame Patsy Reddy offering the weak statement that the Legacy Fund was promised to the unions during the original deal.
All the more reason for the board to go.
Equally culpable are the senior administrators who oversaw a fictional set of financials the original deal was sold upon.
As for the provincial unions?
The Pieces of Silver podcast irritated NZR and at one point, CEO Mark Robinson clearly felt the narrative was strongly favouring the players’ viewpoint and urged me to speak to provincial union bosses for a counter view.
I heeded his advice and tried half a dozen of them to seek their view. But not one of them would talk to me.
I am reliably informed the Warriors will finally have a women’s team playing in the Women’s National Rugby League (NRLW) again from next season.
Of the 17 current NRL clubs, the Warriors are among seven current franchises who don’t currently field a women’s team, having withdrawn from the fledgling competition in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic.
Since then, the NRLW has gone from strength to strength and is chocka full of New Zealand stars including a bevy of former Black Ferns including sevens Olympic gold medal winners Gayle Broughton and Tyla Nathan-Wong.
Indeed, Auckland-bred Georgia Hale, who plays for the Gold Coast Titans, was named the best player in the international women’s game during 2023.
So arguably, the Warriors have missed a trick in recent seasons and on Kiwi talent alone would be a premiership force every year.
CEO Cameron George said a year ago that he wanted to see the team return in 2025 and the club remains on target for a highly anticipated return next season.
The Warriors responded with this statement following a Sports Insider query this week: “The club is keen to return to the competition in 2025. We’ve been planning along those lines for some time and are just awaiting approval to rejoin the NRLW next year. Inaugural Kiwi Ferns captain and current New Zealand Kiwis manager Nadene Conlon was appointed our NRLW academy manager early last year, tasked with creating a women’s development and pathways programme ahead of returning to the NRLW.”
The return of the Warriors wāhine has been slower than some would’ve liked but it’s tough to criticise team owner Mark Robinson (no relation to the aforementioned rugby boss) over anything right now though.
Despite a rocky first season of full ownership, Robinson is proving he may be the best owner yet of the Warriors franchise, diving into his own pockets to invest in much-needed player development pathways that previous owners ignored, thus securing a more promising future for the club.
It’s Super Bowl week in good ol’ USA and beyond the two combatants, the reigning champs the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, that normally means acres of newsprint coverage of the halftime entertainment show and the best TV commercials.
Only this year, the build-up seems to have been highjacked by pop princess Taylor Swift, whose relationship with Chiefs star Travis Kelce seems to have sent redneck NFL fans and one Donald Trump into a spin.
It’s been amusing to watch from afar as Maga redneck supporters cower from the potential threat of Swift mobilising her army of young voters in a public endorsement of Joe Biden in US election year.
As ESPN’s Colin Cowherd so adeptly captured it in this Herald story, the rage over Swift being shown in broadcasted Chiefs games in support of Kelce (who used his own celebrity status to promote Pfizer’s Covid vaccine) has exposed America’s darker misogynist underbelly.
Right-wing conspiracy theorists have even found a home for this one, declaring the romance a “psy-op” (short for a psychological operation) and, in this instance, a Democrat-conceived deep state ploy to swing the election in favour of Biden.
If ever an endorsement from Swift is going to happen, you would expect it after a Chiefs victory next Monday, NZ time.
Sky Sport has the Super Bowl live from noon on ESPN Channel 60.
The extravaganza will go down while, in the shadows, the NFL attempts a world class job of keeping its dirtiest secret underground.
The Washington Post upset that applecart this last week by revealing how the thousands of former NFL players who should qualify for compensation from the 2015 historic US$1.2b settlement over CTE-based concussion payouts are being rorted.
I have no doubt the nearly 300-strong professional rugby players, including former All Black Carl Hayman, currently suing World Rugby and the English and Wales national unions for negligence will have noted the shifty tactic of setting the qualification bar at an insulting level and will react accordingly.
If the Kansas City Chiefs topple the San Francisco 49ers, star quarterback Patrick Mahomes will have won three Super Bowl championships in six years, a feat only achieved by the great Tom Brady who finished his career with seven rings.
That will inevitably raise Goat (Greatest Of All Time) discussions. Mahomes is one of four subjects in Netflix’s Quarterback reality series. It’s worth a watch.
Tom Brady was recently in Brisbane where he beguiled fans at a sold-out speaking engagement by hurling a bullet ball from the stage to former Warriors turned Broncos star Reece Walsh, who caught it on the run and spiked it NFL-style as the audience went wild.
Brady later signed the ball for Walsh, who was labelled the “Tom Brady of Queensland” when he was introduced to speak on stage before the star act.
Asked if he had ever given thought to playing in the NFL, Walsh said not until now, but was aware “there’s bit more money there”.
American MC JT Foxx told Walsh: “With your looks and skills, you’re looking at $25m to $30m a year, and that’s US.”
The Aussie media predictably lapped it up.
(The purpose of these weekly What to Watch, What to Read and Best Reel items is a recognition of the volume of audio, audio-visual and written sports content out there nowadays and a need to sort the wheat from the chaff. This is the stuff that interests me, so maybe we’re on the same wavelength and I can save you some searching time...)
It was inevitable that the poisonous tentacles of Saudi Arabian investment in sport would ultimately reach rugby.
According to multiple media reports, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are in talks to buy a stake in four clubs in the basket-case English club premiership.
The PIF has begun negotiations with Gloucester, Leicester Tigers, Northampton Saints and Newcastle Falcons over securing a potential seven-figure takeover.
English rugby has been in the midst of a colossal financial crisis over the past two years with London Irish, Wasps and Worcester Warriors all going to the wall in the past couple of seasons.
How long before we see the Saudis attempting to host big rugby matches in the Gulf? Perhaps we would see a repeat of the recently announced All Blacks v Fiji test in the US, only hosted in Riyadh.
That will queue a moral argument New Zealand Rugby had better be ready for.
(Explainer: I am far from a fan of what Saudi Arabia is doing to world sport. They will get a regular mention in this column, revealing their nefarious ways. I don’t expect to be short of content).
1.) Freshly-appointed New Zealand Rugby Commercial boss Craig Fenton in the Strand in Paddington opposite Auckland’s NZR offices having a few team-building beers with the “ComCo” employees hired to get NZR out of the financial mess it is now in. Fenton has been in his new job for three weeks now.
2.) Newly minted All Blacks coach Scott “Razor” Robertson, also having a few bevvies in Auckland over the holidays and once again proving he’s a man of the people by happily posing for selfies with a ton of Jafas who - until very recently - reviled him when he coached the Crusaders. A source tells Sports Insider that former Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle was seen in the same bar on the same night, though with a different crowd than Razor. With the recent appointment of Joe Schmidt to the Wallabies job, the pair might have found time for a quick chat about the vagaries of Australian rugby.
- Trevor McKewen is one of New Zealand’s most experienced journalists and sports business commentators, and a former Head of Sport for NZME. He has also held senior executive roles at NZ Rugby and the Warriors and holds a particular interest in the commercial side of sport. Now semi-retired, he writes the Sports Insider column weekly “to keep sports fans informed and administrators honest”.
The Rugby World Cup final referee revealed he had to undergo surgery during the tournament