Rugby faces hard yards on finances
National game starting to run out of savings options.
Cities where Super Rugby boosts rugby’s profile are helping to keep provincial rugby alive.
But the country’s rugby unions are still in a brittle financial condition, according to a report by Deloitte.
Its annual ‘‘state of the union’’ report says that after three years of combined surpluses, the 14 national provincial championshipplaying teams posted a ‘‘substantial loss’’ in 2015.
They made a combined loss of $1.4 million, versus a profit of $1.2m last year, the first loss since 2011.
Deloitte partner Grant Jarrold said the nub of the problem was falling revenue with little room for cost savings. Revenue fell 5 per cent to $63.8m, the lowest since the report began.
The loss wasn’t as significant as the string of losses between 2007 and 2010 but it still highlighted a serious situation, he said.
‘‘As many other not-for-profit organisations will attest, there comes a point where there are no more notches on the belt to tighten.’’
As usual, rugby was stronger in the five New Zealand cities hosting Super Rugby franchises.
Rugby unions in these cities generated almost half the revenue and had a stronger supporter base, larger populations and more players.
‘‘A city like Wellington has got the Hurricanes playing for the first six to seven months of the year, and NPC games for the second half of the year,’’ Jarrold said.
‘‘Take Napier, which has no Super Rugby and their rugby fans have got their NPC team but it only runs from August to October. The big cities have the sports available all year around.’’
However, in the last year, the unions that were in the best shape were the 12 smaller provincial teams in the Heartland championship that ran in parallel with the NPC. They collectively produced a small surplus, showing their unions were still being well supported.
Despite taking a step backwards in 2015, stronger management had kept the provincial unions on a more even keel, and they had begun looking for new ways to make revenue.
However, a number of unions were still in break-even mode.
One bright note was that more people were signing up to play the game.
Registrations for the Mitre 10 Cup, or Npc-playing unions have grown 4.4 per cent in the last five years, and women’s rugby membership is up 156 per cent over the same period.
Females now make up 12.4 per cent of the rugby players in the Mitre 10 Cup unions compared to 8.3 per cent in 2010.
Jarrold put this down partly to the excitement generated by the presence of women’s sevens at the Olympics.