Most provinces can’t afford a million-dollar salary cap

A brief conversation this week spooked those with rugby bones in Manawatū.

It provoked an instant yelp from the Manawatū Rugby Supporters’ Club, no less, to regurgitate the Save-The-Turbos campaign from 14 years ago.

NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said on Sky that the NPC competition wasn’t ”fit for purpose” which in corporate patois could’ve meant anything, none of it good.

Immediately, six nervous unions, including Manawatū of course, figured they might go under the guillotine.

Sponsors, furious fans, employees and probably players and coaches on multi-year contracts went into panic mode and hit the phones asking the question.

The impact was of similar tsunami strength to that when a bored ESPN soccer reporter headlined Palmerston North as boring last month.

The NPC scare kicked off on Sky’s The Breakdown when John Kirwan, while gabbling about low match attendances, posed a leading question to a possibly ambushed Robinson that the NPC was ”not in great shape”.

However, Robinson’s ”not-fit-for-purpose” riposte was more about shoring up the provincial balance sheets.

On the field the rugby has been competitive; they seldom get the blowouts they do in the women’s game, the Turbos are hanging in there and the NPC keeps producing talent.

It has been a grotty, cold winter and those who grizzle about crowd sizes are sitting at home on their derrières. Consequently, TV viewership is up.

Every year 7pm games in mid-winter are teeth-chatterers. I happily went to watch the Jets’ basketball night games inside their warm stadium.

Robinson though, has to be more focused on the competition being financially sustainable long term. Few unions budget to any depth on gate receipts these days.

Most overspend on teams and that has the potential to send them broke, even when they’re well inside the salary cash cap of $1.1 million. It appears only three can afford that – Auckland, Canterbury and Hawke’s Bay. Even Ranfurly Shield holders Wellington reported a massive deficit last season of about $690,000.

Manawatu allocate between $800,000 and $900,000 for the Turbos and that too is unaffordable and cannot continue.

Every year I broach this with Manawatū Rugby’s chairman Tim Myers and every time the salary cap and spending come up, and I ask whether the big boys would wear a slashed cap. Fat chance it seems.

If NZ Rugby can’t get consensus on that, they who pay out the millions each year must make the call or increase their already generous subsidies.

Myers doesn’t see a threat to the competition itself because it’s the proven pathway to professional rugby for amateur players. NZ Rugby is not going to suddenly cull 14 academies and all the contracted staff nationwide.

If the cap was cut to $500,000, most of the provinces would then be profitable, but players would then be paid an average of about $16,000, not much to keep those with experience. Now it’s about $21,000. The incentive in the NPC is to rise to Super Rugby and earn an average of about $125,000.

But NZ Rugby say they won’t tap into the Silver Lake Legacy Fund of $60 million or it will be frittered away on NPC players, which makes sense.

Myers stressed Manawatū’s $1 million Silver Lake bequest is set aside in a term deposit and isn’t being used to prop up the Turbos.

The NPC salary cap does not have the same function as the NRL’s which is designed to make an even competition by forcing players to move to other clubs.

The NPC is a three-months-long part-time paid gig, a steppingstone betwixt club and professional Super Rugby. The current Turbos have many young guys who will play Super Rugby one day, from Josh Taula, Ofa Tauatevalu, Jordi Viljoen, Raymond Tuputupu, Vernon Bason, Isaiah Armstrong-Ravula, Waqa Nalaga, maybe Joe Gavigan, Malakai Hala and others.

All have played club rugby this season and Manawatū now works closely with the Hurricanes.

It would be lunacy for NZ Rugby to contemplate culling all that. Under Steve Tew, they tried unsuccessfully to dump four teams in 2009 after Manawatū had declared a loss of $452,000 when the Central Vikings went belly up.

Jiggering around with the competition format is annoying too. While Manawatū hsa beaten Canterbury three times as Turbos, when there was the mid-table Championship it was something more tangible for Manawatū to strive for and when they won it in 2014, the Arena erupted.

Manawatū this year again has Major League Rugby players from the United States, half of them former Manawatū players.

MLR clubs are starting to pay to send players to New Zealand for development, another potential source of revenue.

Myers stressed that funding the 30-plus Turbos can’t be at the expense of the 5500 grassroots players and Heartland rugby isn’t for Manawatu.

NZ Rugby has prevaricated too long.