All Blacks great reveals ‘astounding number’ that could be impacting NZ Rugby as he calls for more ‘private investment’ in Super Rugby
Chiefs v Reds in Super Rugby and NZ Rugby chair David Kirk.
All Blacks great Jeff Wilson has called for more “private investment” in Super Rugby in order to aid the struggling NZ Rugby.
While that model is established at the Hurricanes and Highlanders, there has been a resistance in New Zealand to completely sell off the franchises to outside investors.
However, that is the avenue they may have to take with some believing that full privatisation is an option going forward.
The governing body ultimately need to decide what is best for the sport in the country given that they continue to lose money.
Question marks over the NPC
The NPC is currently in progress and has reached the quarter-final stage but there is questions over the viability of that competition.
There is a debate as to whether NZ Rugby can support both Super Rugby and the NPC, particularly with the latter struggling to attract supporters to the ground.
“[The NPC has been] competitive, yes, but quality – they’re two different things. This has been a competitive NPC, very, very competitive, but if you think about what brings people into the stands,” Wilson said on The Breakdown.
“There’s plenty of passion… but people aren’t coming watching live in a lot of these places.
“Yes, Counties [Manukau] when you win a Shield, Northland wins a shield, but Auckland sold about 90 tickets to a game.
“We need to get something that I believe will raise the quality of this competition across the board in terms of the players. To me, the jump’s getting bigger.
“I believe the jump is getting bigger between NPC and Super Rugby, and can we support 14 quality teams? Quality not competitive.”
Wilson ultimately believes that NZ Rugby will struggle to fund all these different aspects of the game, meaning that they may need to find outside investment.
The former All Black duly highlighted the number of people which are involved in running the game in New Zealand, which also puts a financial burden on the governing body.
Wilson’s ‘astounding number’
“We haven’t got more money. We’re looking at this game now and we’re going, ‘we haven’t got enough money to have all of these parts’,” he said.
“We’ve got to find a way to balance these things out.
“Here’s an astounding number; there’s 470 administrators of rugby in New Zealand, that’s more than professional players.
“Now you might think that’s a good thing, but you think about the cost of that, that’s a huge amount of money. We’ve got to find a way to keep quality high but reduce cost; that’s really hard to do!
“We’ve got to find money. We’ve got to take pressure off one part of the game. Super Rugby needs private investment, it needs money to come from outside so it can take the pressure off New Zealand Rugby, so they can focus more on how we can invest in maybe the women’s game.
“You’ve then got our club and maybe NPC, but the pressure at the moment is controlling and having to cover everything. There are some hard questions which need to be asked.”
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