Conrad Smith, Andrew Webster and David Beckham. Photos / Photosport
The Warriors question why they are missing out on Australian free-to-air television coverage; the spectacular Te Kaha Stadium has a roof and that’s important; is a smaller rugby ball on its way for female players?; and the Welsh test star chasing a giant NFL contract.
Everybody is on the
The “Up the Wahs!” call isn’t exactly reverberating around the halls of power at Australian TV network Channel Nine, the National Rugby League’s (NRL) free-to-air broadcast rightsholder.
Saturday night’s Mt Smart sellout - the third this season on top of a sold-out Christchurch match against the Wests Tigers - features the equally high-flying Manly Sea Eagles and is comfortably within the two most attractive games of this round.
Yet, in what is looking increasingly like a deliberate trend, Andrew Webster’s men regularly miss out on selection for the three free-to-air games Channel Nine broadcasts live weekly under its NRL deal.
Other less-performing clubs including the Tigers - last year’s wooden spooners - the lowly Gold Coast Titans and inconsistent performers like South Sydney and the Canterbury Bulldogs have attracted Nine’s cameras ahead of the Auckland-based franchise.
Nine gets to select the games it broadcasts (one Thursday night match, one Friday night match and one Sunday afternoon game) with those also simulcast on pay TV rightsholders Fox Sport as well as the remaining games.
Yes, I get that it’s an Australian network chasing Australian eyeballs - but overlooking the Kiwi juggernauts as often as they are is a short-sighted view and does the overall NRL competition no good.
Sydney’s Manly club, based near the golden beaches of the city’s elite northern suburbs, used to be the club all others hated, notably for their high-and-mighty “Silvertails” images and regular poaching of star players from other clubs.
For a while the Brisbane Broncos rivalled Manly as that team - but only New South Wales clubs and their fans despise the Broncos.
A Penrith-like emergence as a consistent Premiership contender by the Warriors will provide Aussie NRL fans with a new club to hate. And animus in sport means higher ratings. Channel Nine should get that.
But there’s also the relevant fact that Nine’s blinkered view is costing the Warriors money.
We all know there are a lot of Kiwis now living in Australia. They have to fork out a monthly sub to Fox Sports to regularly watch the Wahs. With limited FTA and marketing exposure in Australia, the Warriors are losing out on valuable merchandising and club membership opportunities and the income that comes with it.
Warriors owner Mark Robinson and his chief executive Cameron George have been agitating with the NRL over the impact of Nine’s apparent snubbing.
It will be revealing to watch what the NRL does, not least because it will be instructive around the view that HQ holds towards New Zealand and its budding love affair with its competition.
In the words of one now NRL-converted rugby mate: “League has been shot up the arse with a rainbow in New Zealand by rugby’s continual stuff-ups.” He, like many others, is increasingly tuning into NRL games ahead of Super Rugby Pacific.
Off the back of the Warriors’ surge to credibility, that sentiment is growing. But do key NRL administrators like chair Peter V’Landys and CEO Andrew Abdo realise that too?
I’m not sure they fully understand just how deep and dire the straits are that Super Rugby and New Zealand Rugby are navigating and just how big the opportunity is on this side of the Tasman.
Whatever plans the NRL do have for New Zealand - an expansion franchise, Las Vegas appearances for the Warriors, a “Magic Round” or a State of Origin match hosted in Auckland - they need to fast-track them now.
Super Rugby Pacific started brightly this season. There were some great matches.
Yet, in an increasingly dominant pattern, it is once again the Warriors who will occupy centre stage in the battle for our sporting attention this weekend.
The Warriors are good enough to achieve that at the best of times nowadays.
So why is Super Rugby giving them, and the NRL, a free ride?
Over the Easter holiday break, Super Rugby racked its cue by the end of Saturday night. No Sunday or Easter Monday games offered.
The Warriors, meanwhile, put the Newcastle Knights to the sword in front of packed audiences at the ground and on TV on Easter Sunday, and the NRL offered a Monday game to complete its Easter round.
Not many people were talking Super Rugby come work on Tuesday.
But on top of that, Super Rugby rolls out of Easter into a three-week block when it offers just four matches per round, providing four teams with mid-season byes, all at the same time.
This in a competition already heavy on the rhetoric around the need for player rotation.
It defies belief.
It can be fixed but rugby seems to lack the will to undertake the overdue major surgery required.
The NRL has the chance to pounce - if it’s listening.
This week, the New South Wales Government commissioned a feasibility study into building a A$300 million ($326m) roof over Accor Stadium at Sydney Olympic Park.
Accor Stadium hosts NRL clubs South Sydney and the Canterbury Bulldogs while other key tenants are Football Federation Australia and Rugby Australia, who regularly take internationals there.
If the State Government commits to supporting the project, it could secure Sydney the 2027 men’s Rugby World Cup final ahead of the two other contenders, the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Perth’s Optus Oval.
Accor, then known as Stadium Australia, hosted the 2003 RWC final between Australia and England (and the All Blacks’ infamous loss in the semis to Eddie Jones’s Wallabies).
V’landys has weighed in on the Accor debate by claiming he had seen first-hand the benefits of a stadium roof at the NRL season-opener at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas last month.
“Before I went to Allegiant Stadium, I couldn’t see the benefits of having a roof,” V’landys said. “But in Vegas, when heavy winds had shut the airport and roofs were being blown off houses, you wouldn’t have known inside the stadium. The roof also keeps the atmosphere within the stadium. I wasn’t a fan, but I am now.”
Tigers NRL club chief executive Shane Richardson, who spent more than a decade as the boss at South Sydney, said he had long been pushing for the stadium to have a roof.
“It’s essential for Sydney to have a stadium with a roof on it - it would be a massive attraction to any club,” he said, stating the obvious of the wet-weather insurance policy a roof brings. Rain, thunder and lightning delayed the start of Taylor Swift’s first show in Sydney in February.
The NSW government is still to commit to the funding and its Sports Minister said addressing the “cost-of-living crisis” remained its key priority.
But providing a roofed stadium that can in turn secure major events for a city is a proven economic boon, underlined by Swift’s recent Australian tour.
That’s why V’Landys’ comments about Allegiant Stadium are relevant when it comes to Christchurch and its two competing consortiums bidding for the expansion club licence the NRL is mulling over for an 18-team competition by 2028.
The horse has already bolted on the ratepayer funding of the new Te Kaha Stadium. The roof will be there no matter what, so let’s not get into that debate.
The reality is that, on the strength of V’Landys argument, the Christchurch bids must have shot up in credibility within the immediate expansion debate.
I don’t want to further confuse the debate given Auckland Council has also made a covered roof compulsory for Auckland’s main stadium.
Whether that is a revamped Eden Park or a waterfront option is a hot topic, given whatever option is ultimately chosen is likely to still require central government and council funding at some level.
But the headline fact remains that a roof on a stadium does deliver greater event status and improved financial opportunities.
One of the more intriguing notions in front of a gab-fest that World Rugby has had going on this week in Europe is the prospect of a smaller ball being introduced into the women’s game.
World Rugby is basing this on the not unreasonable premise that women’s hands are 10 per cent smaller than males and has been running trials using a slightly smaller ball that is 3-4 per cent lighter and 3 per cent smaller than the traditional adult ball.
But opinion on the merits of such a move is apparently “quite divided”.
The smaller ball is reportedly superior for passing and offloading and also makes kicking slightly easier.
Former All Black Conrad Smith, now a board member of the New Zealand Rugby Players Association, attended the “Player Welfare Symposium”, which also featured timely sessions on concussion protocols and tackle heights.
There’s been a lot of predictable hype about Welsh rugby winger Louis Rees-Zammit’s signing for Super Bowl champions Kansas City Chiefs.
But before everybody gets too excited about Zammit rubbing shoulders with Travis Kelce and being cheered on by Taylor Swift, a modicum of reality is needed.
Yes, Zammit may well be the best all-round athlete to have chased an NFL career via the league’s International Player Pathway programme, which features 16 hopefuls a year from around the world (the class of 2024 includes a Nigerian player, an Austrian, a Scotsman and one from the Dominican Republic).
But in the scheme’s eight-year history, only 37 players have signed with an NFL team and just five have made a final roster and actually tasted top action.
Get it right, though, and the financial spoils are eye-watering.
Australian Jordan Mailata is the poster boy for the programme.
The former South Sydney league hopeful hit paydirt when he landed a four-year US$64m ($106m) contract with the Philadelphia Eagles, earning a Super Bowl appearance last year.
The Eagles just renewed Mailata’s contract for another three years this week, making him the fourth-highest-paid offensive tackle in the NFL.
ESPN reports the deal is worth US$22m per season, which in an increase on the $US16m he was receiving annually under his previous contract.
As for Rees-Zammit’s prospects, a tweak in the rules the NFL has made about kickoff returns may help his quest.
David Beckham: The 48-year-old budding business mogul is making far more now than he ever did as a player. The brilliance of Beckham’s ground-breaking 2007 deal when he quit Real Madrid to sign for the LA Galaxy in the United States is now being revealed.
As part of the deal that saw him join Major League Soccer, Beckham took a pay cut from a reported £16.6m ($35m) down to £5.4m per year in return for the opportunity to start his own team when he retired for just £19.7m.
Hence Inter Miami was launched in 2018. Beckham then convinced the world’s best player Lionel Messi to join him. According to Sportico, Miami is now valued at US$1.02 billion - which is almost double the $US583m it was valued at last year.
Signify Group: The English-based company hired by World Rugby to monitor social media threats against match officials snared its first successful prosecution this week when its AI-powered program identified a Brisbane-based troll who had threatened a TMO official and his family. New Zealand-born Aaron Isaia made the threats after an England-Samoa World Cup game controversially won by the English by one point. He pleaded guilty, was fined A$1000 and put on a good behaviour bond. World Rugby says more cases are pending in five different countries.
Wayde Egan: The Warriors hooker is in the form of his life, looking at a New South Wales State of Origin representative call-up and a big, bold new contract from his club from 2026 onwards - if the Wahs can keep rival clubs at bay looking for one of top two No 9s in the game.
Dana White and the UFC: A milestone for the combat sport this weekend with UFC 300 in Las Vegas. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but the often belligerent White has created a modern-day commercial juggernaut that has a global hold over young males.
Hagley Oval has a new head groundsman ahead of the first test of the summer.