New Gunner wrote:
While the SRU is growing revenues year in year quite impressively, a £1m a year rise in pro team costs is quite a challenge. I suspect that the budgets have gone up since 2015/16 (not least as a result of the £500k per team uplift from South African TV, however doubt we're at £6m so something (squad size) has to give.
I doubt very much that the Pro team squad budgets have gone up at all since 2016, because the CEO says they are still at £4 - £5m. That is a fairly recent quote from him within the last three months.
The more likely scenario is that the £500K from South African TV and other new monies have been used
to reduce the cost of the Pro teams to the SRU. The teams cost £8-9m each if I remember, when you include the coaches, backroom staff, club staff, travel, insurance, medical care, etc, etc. Put the £500K against that, freeze the squad budgets at 2016 levels and hey presto, the Performance Dept at Mf has its £700K for the Super 6.
I will be very disappointed if that is the case. Mark Dodson has been an excellent CEO who has moved Scottish rugby light years forward. He has been brilliant for the Pro teams, in forking out for top coaches and driving the marketing, media, playing venues, academies etc. He knows the playing and commercial imperatives of having successful Pro teams underpinning the national side.
However, dealing with the leading Premier clubs, who always assert that they should have a bigger slice of any available attention and pie, can distort things and lead to wrong choices.
All that said, the attendances at Myreside can't have helped. I am sure that the SRU's budget forecasts for the season would have envisaged a good bit more coming through the Myreside turnstiles, but the Mf-only brigade have rather knocked that, probably with direct consequences for the team's squad budget. Hey ho.