Win, win, win - calendar news timely for NZ Rugby
It has been a good week for Steve Tew. New Zealand Rugby’s chief executive appears to have walked away better off than most after agreement was reached on a longawaited international calendar that will, among a raft of other tweaks, see Super Rugby run uninterrupted from 2020.
While Tew would not discuss specifics, and no formal announcements have been forthcoming, Super Rugby is likely to follow New Zealand’s preference to cut three teams - possibly the Rebels, Cheetahs and Kings - and regain some integrity around its convoluted draw.
Tew has also got England scrambling to break the bank and do everything they can to face the All Blacks on November 4 at Twickenham. Win, win, win it seems.
‘‘This is very good for New Zealand and Sanzaar. We now have a continuous window for future of Super Rugby whatever that looks like from 2020,’’ Tew said of the calendar changes. ‘‘Everybody has left happy without being over the moon. Often when you’ve got a multitude of different interests, compromise is inevitable.’’
The only major downside from the 12-year (2020 to 2032) calendar agreement that also features big wins for tier two nations could be future British and Irish Lions tours dropping from 10 to eight games.
Three future Lions tours - to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand - were signed off as part of the new agreement but one concession may be a reduction of games.
‘‘The agreement at the moment is they won’t be less than eight,’’ Tew said. That’s a matter for discussion as each of those series come up. If you think about our schedule this time around fitting everyone in when you’ve only got eight games would be an interesting conversation to have but most of the commercial side is generated from the test matches. Throughout this process different parties have brought different ideas to the table. That level of detail has been one of the reasons it’s taken so long [over two years] to get to this point. It will be no less than eight games and that’s the most important thing. There’s a lot of detail around the Lions and we’ve committed to sitting down and working through that post this tour.’’
NZ Rugby is expected to clear as much as $40 million from this year’s Lions tour, highlighting its importance to southern hemisphere nation’s books at a time when their collective talent continues to be poached by wealthy European clubs. Retaining the vital boost the Lions provide forced Tew and co to concede on keeping the same revenue model around test windows, which will move from June to July and one week earlier in November. Under that model host nation keeps all gate profits.
‘‘The commercial arrangements stay as they are but one of the big claims from the north from the outset of this was we needed to take a different approach to the revenue the Lions generate when they’re in the south.
‘‘That in the end was the trade off. We’ve retained the commercial model for the Lions and in return the July and November model stays the same. While it’s not 100 per cent perfect we think it’s a reasonable compromise.
‘‘Like all these negotiations it’s not exactly what we wanted. We would still have preferred to have had a continuous international window at the end of the year so to play the north v south games in the October-November window but that wasn’t achievable.’’
A key plank in the long-term agreement sees tier two nations guaranteed 110 fixtures - a 39 per cent increase - while England and France have committed to touring the Pacific Islands. Fixture lists are yet to be released, but Tew was non-committal about whether the All Blacks would venture back to the Islands after their historic test in Apia in 2015.