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Speaker 1: I guess that is what press releases are for. And

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Speaker 1: in the Rugby Union press release yesterday, Chairman David Kirk

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Speaker 1: and the CEO Mark Robinson did their best to infer

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Speaker 1: that life financially for the sport is sensational despite the

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Speaker 1: fact it isn't. They lost money almost twenty million dollars

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Speaker 1: and they lost money the year before that and the

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Speaker 1: year before that as well. Kirk ran the line that

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Speaker 1: it was not a cash loss and they had one

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy million ish in reserves. They also spooked

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Speaker 1: the fact that they were pulling in record revenue. Now

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Speaker 1: I'm a conservative when it comes to money. The fact

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Speaker 1: they pulled in record revenue and still lost money is

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Speaker 1: your real news because if you can't make dough when

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Speaker 1: you're raking it in, your model's broken. Mark Robinson admitted

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Speaker 1: as much by saying, quote, there was further work needed

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Speaker 1: to achieve a sustainable financial model. This is no different

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Speaker 1: to your household budget. You get a pay rise, brought

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Speaker 1: some good coin into the house, but you're still not

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Speaker 1: getting ahead. And then you reassure yourself that although you

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Speaker 1: did get a pay rise, but spend it all and

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Speaker 1: then some don't worry. We've still got the savings account. Now.

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Speaker 1: The trouble for some people like Kirk and Robinson is

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Speaker 1: everyone's an expert. We all want to run rugby, and

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Speaker 1: in a way that's a good thing. I suppose we're

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Speaker 1: not short of interested parties. But what you can't argue

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Speaker 1: with is the market rugby plays in the global sports

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Speaker 1: market is booming. The money out there for elite sport

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Speaker 1: is eyewatering. Their revenue uptick indicates they might be seeing

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Speaker 1: a little bit of that, But the simple truth is

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Speaker 1: you can't bank the buck in the golden days. If

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Speaker 1: you can't do that, you're going to get killed in

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Speaker 1: the lean ones. The experts who text me will tell

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Speaker 1: you Robinson's a fall, women's rugby is a train. The

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Speaker 1: provincial unions are run by people called Bruce who still

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Speaker 1: drink handles a beer every Friday night with the shirt

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Speaker 1: front's hanging out. But what all of that florid verbiage

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Speaker 1: from the well intentioned doesn't address is the really big

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Speaker 1: important question. If you can't make money from your national game,

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Speaker 1: either no sport can make money, which we know not

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Speaker 1: to be true, or something is wrong with the way

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Speaker 1: the national game is run. If you're still in the

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Speaker 1: red when it's raining money and your press releases have

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Speaker 1: a desperation about them, someone needs to be held to

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Speaker 1: account for more from The Mic Asking Breakfast Listen live

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