Blacks in red despite $7m windfall

NEW Zealand’s sagging rugby coffers are set to gain a much-needed $7 million boost.

That’s the windfall Richie McCaw’s All Blacks will generate from their European tour including an overnight sell-out at Twickenham against England.

But not even the biggest revenue return ever generated from an All Blacks tour will be enough to prevent the New Zealand Rugby Union from finishing 2009 in the red.

New Zealand Rugby boss Steve Tew admits the national union will still suffer a financial loss despite three revenue-sharing matches on the tour resulting in the big pay-out.

That means lightening the load on the All Blacks by cutting back on the number of games on end-of-year tours and abandoning overseas Bledisloe Cup tests in Asia is unlikely.

The NZRU made more than $1m from the Tokyo clash with the Wallabies while returns from the Wales test in Cardiff and the upcoming match with the Barbarians in London will boost it further to almost $7m. The union doesn’t get anything from the tests against France, England and Italy.

Tew wouldn’t confi rm likely fi gures but admitted it would be enough to pay for the bulk of the All Blacks’ wage bill for the year, as well as the entire community rugby programme.

“It will pay a lot of bills,” said Tew in London.

“We bank signifi cantly more from one game here than from a full Eden Park. And they’re extra games, so we’re not taking matches away from fans.

“We’re facing the same challenges every year – how many games can we afford to play before we compromise the performance or the uniqueness of the All Blacks, versus how much do we leave the asset unexploited and not produce enough money to run our community programmes and retain our players and competitions?”

The NZRU boss also confi rmed the revenuegenerating add-on fixtures were here to stay as long as the IRB model remains that allows a union like Italy to make an estimated $10 million-plus out of the Milan test against the All Blacks without sharing any of the income.

“Unless we’re miraculously able to change the commercial model where we fi ll their 80,000-seat stadiums and receive nothing in return, then host teams who have historically not been that good in our 30-40,000-seat stadiums, then we’re going to have to continue to have some additional games.

“But we’re constantly battling with the balancing act of playing too many versus not playing enough … this is a long tour for the guys.”

- © Fairfax NZ News