Rugby’s Thatcher v Scargill
Memo Sir John: Nichol has right to question wisdom of this $465m deal
Trade unionists have never been able to manage to win their rightful place in history. They have been too divisive, inevitably revered by those they have protected and loathed by those who have seen them as a handbrake on progress.
Throughout the 1980s in the UK, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, was a nightly visitor to homes across the country as the miners’ strike led the news almost without exception.
In half those homes, he was a hero: the face of Northern resistance, fearlessly standing up for an industry that employed thousands.
In the other half, he was hated — seen as the scourge of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s quest to build a new economy built on light industry and technology.
When tension was at its highest between 1984 and 1985, the evening news was the best theatre in the land.
The BBC, as only the BBC could, did their level-best to be their usual balanced, neutral selves but that didn’t stop the audience independently casting the main players as heroes and villains as they interpreted the drama as it unfolded.
When significant change is proposed, no one knows the future. There are few if any reliable facts to trust, no certainties or guarantees about what will happen, just predictions and assumptions.
What sways us is the power of each side to effectively tell their version of the story; to push all the right emotional buttons as they lay out their respective vision.
New Zealand, albeit on a lesser, not so heated or dramatic scale, is building towards its own miners’ strike as it contemplates whether to sell a slice of its beloved All Blacks to a United States investment house.
In this version, New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson is Thatcher and New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association boss Rob Nichol is Scargill.
Robinson is on a mission to revolutionise the sport, flood it with the capital of a giant US fund manager totalling $465 million and bring their expertise into the fold to build new
and sustainable revenue streams that will mean the game here no longer relies entirely on the traditional suite of selling broadcast rights, sponsorships and tickets to survive.
The sales pitch sounds great. There will be cash for everyone — for the clubs, provinces, schools, sevens and Super Rugby teams.
Women’s rugby will finally have the resources it has always craved and all that is being given up in this seemingly Utopian scenario is a relatively tiny chunk of New Zealand Rugby’s assets.
Silver Lake will own anything between 10 and 15 per cent of NZR’s commercial rights, depending on the final agreement, and so the deal appears stacked massively in favour of the national body.
It would, almost, be mad to say no and NZR appears to have persuaded Sir John Kirwan to help them tell their story, sell their vision and hit those emotional buttons.
Speaking to Newstalk ZB on Monday, Kirwan questioned whether the players had a mandate to get involved in this Silver Lake business, saying they should stand back and trust the national body to look after their interests.
At the same time as he spoke to Mike Hosking, news broke that Nestle´ is potentially cutting 40 jobs in its South Auckland factory.
Sir John offered no opinion as to whether the employees’ union, E tu¯ should stand back and trust Nestle´ to look after the interests of staff.
And that’s why the Silver Lake deal will succeed or fail through the power of storytelling, as no one would dare suggest a trade union fighting to save the factory jobs of low-paid workers should stand down.
Yet a trade union looking after the interests of highly paid professional rugby players was thrown into a questionable light by Sir John, who insinuated Nichol is interfering in something beyond his jurisdiction.
It was a powerful blow in the PR war as a highly respected former All Black was effectively painting Robinson as charismatic and revolutionary and Nichol as belligerent and obstructive.
The players absolutely have a mandate to be involved in this decision and Nichol is not obstructive or controlling, he’s doing the job his members pay him to do.
Just as the miners in the UK needed Scargill to be their champion, New Zealand’s professional players need Nichol to be demanding answers to specific questions, no matter how much it may upset the sensibilities of those determined to push through the proposal.