Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Eden Park and Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh.
Kiwi athletes suffer at the hands of Nicola Willis and her razor while Olympic injustices continue; Melbourne Rebels threatened not to play in Fiji; the Warriors and their surprisingly poor performance in a NRL benchmarking exercise; and the Eden Park debacle rolls on.
Are the Olympic Games a modern-day version of medieval peasantry?
In the dark ages, peasants were forced to work unpaid, as their masters reaped the benefits of their labour.
If that sounds like a provocative comparison, consider this: how would this sell go down from an event promoter in the modern world right now?
“Hey everybody, I’m going to create an international multi-sport extravaganza which the world’s best athletes are going to compete in. But I’m not going to pay them any money. And they can’t wear any of their own sponsors’ gear. They have to wear my sponsors’ logos though. Oh, and I’m also going to keep all the money and decide what I want to do with it.”
Try that on in 2024 and you will get laughed out of the room.
Yet that, folks, is exactly what the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does every four years.
It’s an organisation that actively steals other sports from the X-Games such as surfing and skateboarding in a desperate bid to remain relevant to youth, all the time refusing to drag itself into the 21st century.
But is the dam breaking? Last month, World Athletics announced it would pay US$50,000 ($80,800) to track and field athletes who win gold in this year’s Paris Olympics. The International Boxing Federation followed suit just last week.
It’s incredible it has taken individual world governing bodies to start the reversal. And please note that it is not the IOC who will pay this money, even though it generated US$7.6 billion ($12.28b) in revenue in the four-year cycle between 2017 and 2021.
The challenge for other Olympic sports is that their national and international federations don’t have the money to do the same thing, although basketball, football, golf and tennis all certainly have the wherewithal to do so.
But try being a gymnastics, triathlon or rowing organisation and pulling that off.
And, yes, the governments of many (particularly Eastern Bloc) countries pay Olympic gold medal winners handsomely – but not if you’re a Fijian, Peruvian or New Zealand athlete, even if you win gold.
There will be some Kiwi track and field athletes, like high jump gold medal contender Hamish Kerr and rejuvenated pole vaulter Eliza McCartney, who will eye the US$50k booty, knowing it is potentially within their reach if they perform at their best in Paris.
But they are the rare exception rather than the rule. No such luck for the likes of kayaker Aimee Fisher and cyclist and Kiwi Sportsman of the Year Aaron Gate.
While ostensibly a positive move, the fact it is being left up to individual world sporting bodies to decide if and how much athletes get will likely drive a wider gulf between the haves and have-nots.
While we’re talking have-nots, our leading and aspiring athletes (not to mention the average one of us looking to keep a little fitter as we age) took another hit last week.
The Budget headlines were dominated by other aspects of Nicola Willis and her razor gang. Most Kiwis will be unaware of the slashing of $36 million in annual funding for sport and recreation in this country.
But you can bet the athletes – many of them living on the smell of an oily rag in towns like cycling and rowing satellite base Cambridge – know about it.
In the same year when we have more medal contenders in high-profile sports than in our Olympic history, High Performance Sport New Zealand’s funding was cut from $89m to $74m.
A further $21m has been culled from community sport and recreation programmes, which in my view is even worse, given the likely impact on the nation’s collective health (but let’s not get sidetracked, even if the bureaucrats don’t realise those sorts of programmes helped inspire the likes of sporting Dames Val Adams and Lisa Carrington in the first place).
Supporters of the outdated Olympics ideals argue the Games’ profits fund the training and development of athletes between cycles. Scrutiny of the IOC’s financial records call into question exactly how much is being passed on by the Games overlords though.
Many of them still probably sit in dark rooms watching re-runs of Chariots of Fire and deluding themselves that the Games still treat all athletes fairly and equally (actually scratch that... it should read “while luxuriating in five-star penthouse hotel rooms watching on giant screens”).
Try telling your average sports fan that LeBron James will be treated equally to a Chinese badminton player during his time in the Paris Olympic village.
Between the Games’ stubborn refusal to pay athletes through to Willis’ funding cuts (we better not see politicians fawning all over medallists in Paris), it’s a tough time to be an aspiring New Zealand Olympian right now.
What’s more, it looks like the new rules have already kicked in at High Performance Sport New Zealand’s Auckland base.
For the athletes that is... now they can’t even get a decent coffee.
The Melbourne Rebels considered not getting on the plane to play the Fijian Drua in last weekend’s defining final regular-season round of Super Rugby Pacific.
Upset players gathered on Friday morning ahead of a flight to Suva as they digested the news from the night before that Rugby Australia had rejected an A$18 million ($19.4m) rescue bid from the Rebels board.
Eventually, the players decided they wanted to bow out as the most successful Melbourne side in rugby history and even though they lost to the Drua, they had already secured a finals berth for the first time in 14 years of trying.
But there’s no denying the bitter taste the Rebels saga has left – let alone the bind Super Rugby Pacific now finds itself in with only 11 left in its competition and with perennial rumours one of them, Moana Pasifika, is on life support.
Rugby Australia (RA) and the two former Wallabies now heading it, chair Daniel Herbert and chief executive Phil Waugh, showed some much-needed teeth in holding their ground in forcing something that should have happened years ago.
Australia can’t afford nor has the player depth for five Super franchises. Concentrating their players into four teams will benefit the competition and the Wallabies.
It will also help RA survive the next couple of years as it battles the National Rugby League (NRL) and Australian Football League (AFL), whose broadcasting riches threaten to bury their code.
RA’s broadcasting booty is only A$29m a year. The NRL and AFL’s are both north of A$600m a season.
But there is hope just around the corner.
Through fortuitous timing, RA will host the two biggest events in international rugby – a tour by the British and Irish Lions and a World Cup tournament – over the next three years.
Herbert and Waugh appear to be banking on the dual opportunity to wipe out the A$80m loan it took last year and which is already down to A$45m, mainly because of propping up the Super franchises.
The pair have clearly said “enough is enough”.
If they continue to show fiscal discipline, bank the remaining Lions tour and World Cup profits, and Joe Schmidt can create an improved Wallabies squad, there’s a good chance rugby in Australia can climb out of the big hole it’s in.
It’s unfortunate the Rebels were the victims but it was a necessary amputation which was required to save the patient.
What rugby is up against in this part of the world has been underlined by an exclusive Australian media report into the operating budgets and profits of the NRL’s clubs, including the New Zealand Warriors. The Sydney Morning Herald’s “Wealth List” revealed the NRL had benchmarked the commercial performance of all 17 clubs bar the publicly-listed Brisbane Broncos, whom the newspaper said would likely have come out on top in most categories.
There were several surprises, notably the financial powerhouse that is the newly-admitted Redcliffe Dolphins. The Brisbane-based club, introduced into the NRL last year, generated A$23.5m in revenue in their first season.
The Dolphins, backed by the powerful Redcliffe Leagues Club, were the equal-top revenue earner alongside the Russell Crowe-owned South Sydney Rabbitohs (also A$23.5m) with reigning premiers the Penrith Panthers (A$23m, 57 per cent profit) and the North Queensland Cowboys (A$22.7m, 63 per cent profit).
The average revenue per club was A$15.7m.
Interestingly, the Warriors were second-last in the revenue list with A$11.6m, with the Manly Sea Eagles (A$11.5m) taking the financial wooden spoon.
That figure must surely be from last season though. The Warriors are the only club to sell out all of their home games this season and with merchandise sales also soaring, a climb up the fiscal competition ladder to match the real one can’t be far away.
With the NRL dishing out A$19m a year to each club and all 17 clubs returning healthy profits, the financial snapshot above demonstrates rugby league’s potential to swamp Australian and New Zealand rugby with tempting player defection offers.
Just this week, Joe Schmidt was forced to leave talented outside back Mark Nawaqanitawase out of his first Wallabies squad of the year after the NRL-bound flyer signed for the Sydney Roosters.
New Zealand-born and raised rugby prospects Isaiya Katoa (Dolphins) and Olympic sevens gold medallist Will Warbrick (Melbourne) are just two breakthrough stars in this year’s competition, highlighting the rich rugby breeding rounds on this side of the ditch.
If nuclear war ever breaks out in Auckland, take Sports Insider’s advice and head to Eden Park – it’s the only place that can seemingly survive anything.
By all measure of logic and common sense, Eden Park should have failed hopelessly to make the final two contenders in the Great Auckland Stadium Debate.
But yet again, the grand old lady has survived the cut and is alongside the Quay Street waterfront bid for a final decision by Auckland councillors early next year.
It’s a triumph for the tireless efforts of the ingenious Eden Park Trust management – and one for secret squirrel tactics in the face of unsuspecting ratepayers.
In this final run home, Eden Park will sell itself as the cheaper and therefore more fiscally responsible decision. It will claim it can put a roof on the stadium and upgrade the whole box and dice for little more than $500m.
In reality, the costs will be more like $800m to $1b.
Nor will that cost address the glaring problem with Eden Park’s grandstands still being too far from a rectangular playing field and therefore unable to create the same spectator vibe as Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, the benchmark for footy viewing in the south Pacific.
Eden Park will also exploit a nervous council and gun-shy public once the penny drops that traffic will be a nightmare while Quay Street is built and the need to build the stadium above KiwiRail-owned train links blows the cost north of a billion.
But what we’re not hearing from Eden Park is any detail on where their money is going to come from.
There are claims of private equity (PE) investment but who in the PE world would seriously believe a retreaded stadium in the suburbs will commercially out-perform a new one in the CBD?
Eden Park needs to reveal its corporate backers to the Auckland public and wider New Zealand so we can have faith we’re not going to end up with yet another taxpayer and ratepayer bailout of this dinosaur.
In a recent Sports Insider column about Eden Park, 96 of the 98 comments left by readers were critical of the stadium.
An Elliott Smith interview on Newstalk ZB on the subject resulted in a deluge of talkback calls, texts and emails calling for a waterfront stadium ahead of an Eden Park reboot.
Yet still it survives, seemingly nuclear-proof.
Hamilton Boys’ High School: The school’s First XV ignored all the recent controversy over a conflicting development policy after a sponsor claimed players were being pressured to not play rugby league by beating Auckland Grammar to retain the coveted Headmasters’ Bowl and now begin the defence of the national Super 8 title.
James McDonald: The Sydney-based superstar Kiwi jockey rides his first-ever winner in Japan, with Romantic Warrior taking out the prestigious Yasuda Kinen in Tokyo.
Real Madrid: Six wins in the Champions League final from the last 10 seasons. And now with French superstar Kylian Mbappé joining the Spanish giants on a five-year deal, you can etch the team’s name on the trophy for several years to come.
The Kiwi will coach Wales through the 2025 Six Nations.