The row over high ticket prices for Test matches between the Springboks and the All Blacks suggests the South African Rugby Union (Saru) is treating rugby as just another business. If that is indeed its view, it is on the road to self-destruction and perdition.
Saru spokesperson Andy Colquhoun told the Sunday Times that “with 20-million people in surveys saying they support the Boks and only 300,000 tickets available for matches, demand far exceeds supply, which is a function in price-setting in every industry. Professional sport is a business and has to be run according to business principles.”
Colquhoun is right — up to a point. Of course Saru’s income should exceed its expenditure, which is substantial. It spends more than half a billion rand a year on its national teams, including about R270m on the Springboks. It does not receive state funding.
It is, in effect, a not-for-profit company that is expected to cover all costs and to reinvest any surplus money back in the game. Its revenue comes from broadcast rights and sponsorships, which often overlap, and, of course, from ticket sales for really big events like the upcoming “Greatest Rivalry” series.
The magnitude of all three revenue streams increases in direct proportion to the win rate of the national team. But the supply-and-demand mechanism is not so simple in rugby. Customers have alternatives to the supply of match tickets. They can watch the match on TV at home, or visit bars and restaurants that charge nothing for the broadcast because they make their money on food and drink.
Nor is the concept of rugby as a product so simple. Thanks to the transformative leadership of coach Rassie Erasmus and — crucially — the sustained success of the Springboks on the field, rugby is now a force for national unity. It is a focus for the fanatical emotions of millions of South Africans who want nothing more desperately than to escape their problems for a few hours and to live the dream with their heroes. Saru will betray this devotion at its peril.
It also seems to ignore the fact that many of those who would like to buy match tickets are members of families with deep rugby involvement at grassroots level. The great rugby schools that have produced so many Springboks are largely self-funding. Their parents and old boys find money for performance centres, coaches, tours and bursaries.
At club level, thousands of players and administrators, largely unpaid and indeed often out of pocket themselves for the sake of rugby, keep the game going. The great strength of rugby down the years has been that it is a game for all sizes and abilities.
In South Africa it has now, after a social history of bitter racial division and a record of sporting mediocrity on the field, at last become the game of the people. The danger is that if Saru drops the ball on ticket prices — and its handling of the matter so far does not inspire confidence — the Springboks will become a team only for the wealthy elite.
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