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Welcome to the Sports Fix for the fourteenth of February twenty twenty five. My name is Darcy watergrave Van. Coming up on this edition of The Fix. The first up we're going to have to chair with the chief executive officer of the mL ARTIST Major League Rugby out of the United States of America. His name is that Nick Benson. Will talk the lie of the land for our favorite game and the Land of the Free, the home of
the Brave. The list goes on. I've got an opinion on what the nz R should do now in face off being stuck with the logo on their training gear in shorts that they don't want anyos will just not go away and joining us in the chamber consecutive days usera Sidivice Disney. His name is Elliot Smith News Talks to be Sports Journalists and of course the voice of rugby. Here for n z Emmy as we throw around some of the bigger topics of the day. This is sports
Folks of a Friday thanks very much for joining us. Right, let's do it.
In other news.
And sport today, KIWI Doubles SPECIs Aaron Ratliff has labeled the US Tennis Opens Mixed Doubles transformation as a cast grab exercise. Singles rankings will determine we can enter with the draw half to sixteen teams and wrapped up in two days. Raplett could potenisely be shut out since the new one point six million dollars winners prize shows with a priorities life, whereas before it was not even close
to that amount. And that was that happened right when they changed the rules so that singles players can sign.
So I think they think singles players playing the.
Mixed doubles will maybe bringing more fans. One of Super Rugby's poster of players makes his competition debut tonight. Joseph sua Elite. It's a test level. Last November, after I switched from the NRL, will run out for the war Cars against the Highlanders in Sydney. He's reflected on being a big heart marketing campaign, including it's superhero composite at last week's launch. I really like being the center of fans or anything like that.
But you know, as a kid, I'm just looking to myself as a kid seeing my younger self would be pretty would be pretty proud.
New Scadapion. It's Sports X with Dancie Valde Greve.
We go now to the USA where we're joined by the m l R. That's a Major League rugby CEO's name is Nick Benton. He joins us. Now, good day to you, Nick Edning. Your competition starts this weekend as well. It starts off with a game the Sharks and the Old Glory. Then you got five more games. Your competition is nearly as big as Super for rugby. How did that happen?
You know, we're people don't understand often how big of a country it is. We've got three hundred million people. It's almost like, you know, five different countries within you know, within one. So we're hyper regional, you know, we're hyper focused on growth. So for us, what's really important is being having teams in markets and having teams that are in markets doing the work to grow the sport that
we play. Right, there's no better advocate for a sport than a team owner who is making an investment in a team and trying to grow the sport, building grassroots programs, getting players and staff into schools, trying to get more and more boys and girls playing the game. The long term pathway to rugby being successful in the United States runs through grassroots, and it runs through getting kids playing the game, which starts with getting them exposed to the game.
And whether it's the school program, a PE class, an MLR game, you know, whatever it is.
So it's being talked about is a sleeping giant but not really roused from its dose at the hair close? Do you think United States of America is just standing up and roaring? Because what you got the World Cup coming in our twenty thirty one. Plainly everything you're doing right now must point to that. Because if that doesn't wake you guys up or the public, more's the point. I don't think anything will.
So much of what we're doing right now is built around twenty thirty one, and it goes, you know, right down to the grassroots programs or building a fan base and building exposure and building awareness for the sports that we have. You know, we want to have a massive Yeah, we're gonna have visitors from overseas, but we want to have American fans sitting in the stands. We want to have American fans sitting in the stands cheering on an American team. You know, there's a lot that's happening to
build that. You know, one of the big programs that I would point to when we're trying to build an American team is what we've done in with Anthem as our North Carolina team. They play out of Charlotte. That's actually a joint venture between MLR and World Rugby, and the purpose of that team is to get young American
talent getting high level professional minutes. So you know, those are all we're almost all American players with a few strategic foreigners who come in for experience and to kind of help anchor and and you know, to coach up their their teammates. But it's an American focused team. It's getting those young men minutes on the field. There's no substitute for professional minutes when it comes to developing an international rugby player. It's helping them build cohesion and playing
time playing together. You saw you saw much better performance by the Eagles this last summer in their last summer tour they want. They won a few key games going in and more importantly, more than the results you saw, much more cohesive and connected side. Scott Lawrence has done a great job building that out over the last over the last couple of years. He deserves a ton of credit.
And that's just one part of it. You know, there's U twenties programs that that he's funding right now through USA Rugby, taking tours to to to South Africa and other places where you know that you're playing with young men of similar age who have a higher sort of rugby age because they've just been playing for longer. That's
our biggest challenge. We have talent. There's an abundance of talent in this country where you're a passive country, there's an abundance of talent, but most of the talent is picking up the game when they're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and it's very hard to develop an international player at a key skill position who's picking up the game at that age. Rights it's hard to develop the instincts.
We know not is playing San Diego. What other involvement have New Zealand has had, kay it is to tap into that IP players, administrators and the like as well as there much of a kinection and arrangement there.
Nick, Yeah, there's there's actually a pretty significant there's a lot of crossover with New Zealand. You know, we have a ton of players who actually play at NPC during our offseason and go back and forth. That's continuing to evolve. Those are team relationships. We have a ton of KIV coaches that I used to be with the Utah Warriors before I came back to the league office. You know, we have Greg Cooper coaching there, so he's he's a He's a great dude and a fantastic coach. You are.
Our twenty twenty three Player of the Year was Jason Petrose, obviously a KIWI are twenty twenty four Back of the Year was Reese McDonald. So we haven't yeah, I think so. I actually had someone pull this stat for me before we can call. We have about sixty sixty KIWI players playing in the league. So so for us, it's it's it's a really important market.
You've signed a deal with ESPN. How relevant is that? How important is that? And does this mean New Zealand audiences are going to be carrying on or be able to carry on watching the MLL.
So interesting that you should ask that question because I've got a piece of news. I'm and a break here for you in a second. ESPN is hugely important. It's the town square for sports in the United States. It's it's got twenty eight odd million subs. You know, we love TRN and well can you to operate TRN as a platform for rugby fans. But if we're going to grow and get outside of our ecosystem and bring new fans to the sport, we have to go to where
the sports fans are. That's why we're going to ESPN for New Zealand. We're actually finalizing a deal today with Sky New Zealand, so Sky New Zealand will be carrying our games coming into this year. They gave me permission about ten minutes before I got on this interview to make that announcement. So we're actually really really excited about that. So they'll carry one game, we expect them to carry one game live on Linear and the rest will be
streamed by Sky New Zealand. So we're really excited about that partnership because we know that's that's where that's where rugby lives in New Zealand, so we want to be there.
You guys gonna set up a super rugby franchise because you know you are on the Pacific, on the waist skist anyway and steam on over here over owy. Is it a possibility?
You know.
We're focused on building MLR and making MLR and making MLR the highest, the highest level of rugby the week in may it and making it as good or better. But I do look forward to some crossovers. Actually, our our LA team played played the DRUA in a preseason
fixture two or three weeks ago. It was a pretty competitive match, and we hope to have more of that, you know, with with the rest of the rugby world, because if we're not measuring ourselves against the best rugby out there, we can't hope, we can't hope to match it.
Love what I've heard, I'm sure the listeners have, as well as the MLR CEO, Nick Benson. We thank you very much for your time, your readiness to share all of your information and the positive stories around the future of our national sport in the USA. Nick, look after yourself, have a great weekend, and I hope the opening round goes as well as our opening rounds too. I love the way it combines. It's a wonderful Thanks Nick.
Thank you so much for having me.
Sports Ams. It are more than Pope to the bear. They smacked the bear in the face the beer, of course I'm talking about. Is any Us, the vast albeit rep breaking apart and losing money petrochemical company run by sid Jim Ratcliffe. They decided it'd be a good idea not to pay the bill because they're a bit short of coin ends and I went, yeah, no, I'm not really happy with that, and we're not happy with the fact you want to cancel your sponsorship as well. We're
relying on that money. So after a bit of negotiation, I presume they turned around to Anios and said, we're taking you to court. The problem here is that the Sevens, both the Black Fern Sevens and the All Black Sevens, play this weekend in Canada. They're playing in kit with Anios already emblazoned on them. That's on the training gear and on the shorts when they're playing as well. Apparently
it's too late to get new kit. There's also the thought process that they wouldn't be indulging in covering up the Anios logo even though they'll be quite within their rights to do so. I appreciate Enios would be rather upset if NZR went through and darned over their logos, or maybe got some printers ink and a roller and covered them up. But they started this, and even though it may seem petty from endz R to cover the
logos up, who cares. If they wanted to be really petty, they could how about advertising the fact that they'd really like to wear old training gear and old seven shorts. And if anyone in the crowd would like to come along and bring their old gear, I'll swap them out for the Anios kit that they don't want to wear.
It's a poke in the eye. Or better still, get all of their kit, put it in the middle of the park before the opening of the Canadian Sevens, cover it in Enios product, and set fire to the whole thing. Again extraordinarily petty, But in the face of a multi billion dollar man who appears to be held bent, I'm destroying all of the sports sponsorships. Why not play the silly game.
The chamber is now in session on Sportsfax.
We swing open the chamber doors and joining us is like it You're a recidivist Elliot Smith joining us again.
I have left since yesterday.
Our voice of rugby smells a bit rich and maybe that's why welcommended to the chamber always discussion around sporting topics. Of course, Elliott not only is our voice of rugby, he's a news talks b sports journalist to boot So seventeen. This is interesting, isn't it. They're still going to be wearing their Anios branding even though it's not paid for, and this is because they just haven't got enough time to change the jerseys.
I suppose you could set them in and start get everyone you know working bee, start peeling off the NIOS logo or maybe it's subliminated on and you can't do that. But I suppose short notice, and this has only come because of the court action that was filed earlier this week that you know they would have already gone all, had it packed and ready to go getting those shorts of different notice. You think it may have if you back up somewhere that they could stash them.
Do you think maybe Sunny Beal could turn up, because there's pretty adept to getting rid of the ben zlgo back in the day, wasn't it.
Just get some tape, just get some band aids or whatever it might be. You know that that medical tape and just tape it over.
And it's only the training jerseys, it's not actually on the pitch and the back of the shorts. Is that still with the sevenths you sit in the back of the shorts. Okay, so not dominant.
But I'm presuming when michaeleb Lyde or Georgia Miller's scorching away for a try, you'll be seeing in the os and the on.
The sidelines and their training gears in the sideline. They'll be very, very obvious to see it. So do you see this? If they do say we're not going to we're going to change it, We're going to take them off. Is this petty from Enza?
No?
I don't think so. I think they're well within their rights. They haven't got the money to justify in the os being on the on the shorts or on the jerseys, whatever it might be. So if you're not being paid money to advertise, why would you hand out free bees? New Zealand Rugby aren't in the business of dishing up free bees when they don't have to they're a profit not definitely a profit driven organization, but they need commercial income. When you're not getting it, there's no need to advertise
this brand. So if they can get rid of it, I'm sure they will in time, because why would you want to give any os a free plug?
Yeah, so they've already poked the bear. In fact, they smack the beer around the face with a stick. So this would they infuriate that one. You can't really make the situation any worse.
They're already going to court or have legal action formed. I don't think anything else would necessarily inflame any os. In fact, for any Os, they're getting a bit of free advertising out of it. They haven't paid the dollars. There's going to be a talking point over the next few days and next week into this tournament. So for them bit of free advertising they can they probably need as much as they can get it.
The money I can't be that difficult. Either. You get like a roll or a bit of black ink on it. Just roll them over there, you go over.
Get the vivid out.
Yeah, very very important, I say, And not what about the all blacks got time of time?
Be very surprised if they don't get the All Blacks sort of work.
What my suggestion is, if you've got your hands on on anything that's any branded ready All Blacks, keep it because it could be worth quite a bit of money.
Jim Radcliffe might.
Want indeed, l IV Golf. We've all got our opinion on liv GOLFI I think they want the President Trump to try and drag them all back together again. Of that works and I don't know, but we've got TV in z picking up the right. So the important thing here is that it's free to wear, which is kind of ironic considering the money in golf.
And look, it's been free to wear on YouTube for a couple of seasons.
Now.
I don't know that too many New Zealanders would have watched too much, but there is an interest level with this year with not only Danny Lee there, but Ben Campbell in the mix, this Weekend's tournaments and Adelaide, so it's a good time zone for New Zealand. So it's a real hook to get New Zealanders involved. And it's all very well being on YouTube. But how many videos are on YouTube? Several million? I know the cricket's being streamed on there as well.
I found it the other day a released from New Zealand Cricket and I've got that. I don't want to say like I'm advertising for sky because they don't like pay men. They don't give me a free box. But I'm got that new skybox really easy to access things like YouTube and Netflix and everything else. It's not such a grind anymore.
Just as in a side, if you know what you're looking for it, and you know you're searching for live golf, it's great or all the cricket itself. It doesn't necessarily pop up on the home page unless it's part of your algorithm. But what TV and Z will be able to do is give it a push and go to the people that are watching Shorten Street or Dad the Jack or whatever's on TV and Z Plus and the other sport as well. Go hey, live golf's on here. You can stream it now, hit the button on your
phone you're watching. So being in that environment I think is good for live golf. It doesn't appear like it's going away. You mentioned obviously there's there's a plea for Donald Trump to try and bring the two groups back together, but Live Golf seemed fairly sit on deer Ways. For the time being, there's been talking of a New Zealand event as well. Maybe not a bad decision for t New Zealand. A TV TV in zed to get in and go hey, we're in on live golf and and we're broadcasting it.
So they're just getting given it.
I don't think I'll be paid too much money.
I would.
I don't need any more money, you.
Can really, Elliott Smith. They're joining us in the chamber and Super Rugby it gets underway tonight. Sorry, Super Rugby Pacific. We've got to be specific about its name after.
All, specific about Pacific.
Yes, that's it, finally back in action again. And I know that you're drawling over the start of it because you're such a code head. I am as well. I'm looking to what Super Rugby Pacific are doing around the promotion of the game. You mentioned this in your article today and New Zealand Herald another great read from you at Elliott Smith. It is just going to get traction or is just going to carry on sliding.
Well, we needed to get traction quite frankly. And look, I think the squads this year you remove the rebels and splin into some of those players across some of the Australian franchises. It lifts them up. I don't think there's as weak are teams as there has been previously across the competition. You can't pick them out and go yep,
they won't win too many games. You look at it and go, well, why it could be dragged up by Ardie Savia and become a playoff team in the blink of an I Fiji and Dre have been there that are about the last couple of seasons including playing a playoff. Then the talent spread across those Australian side. So in theory this should be a very very even competition.
Who the whipping boy is then, I don't.
Know that there are anyone. I mean we make up back in two weeks time ago Jeep as the Crusaders are and Straggle Street again. Let's hope not of it, but it could happen. I don't think on the paper there are too many whipping boys. Maybe the Highlanders because they are so young and Jamie Joseph coming in his first year. But I think removing the Rebels and just some movement of talent around the place has made this a much more even competition than it was last year.
We need it to go from being on paper even to being an even competition. We can't predict the results and that looks like success for Super Rugby if they can get that to happen.
Talk this before. I love the fact that our two All Black pivots are both playing at fullback. I can't quite get that one.
But what it does you know, Harry Plumer, Yes he's leaving the Blues. But Josh Jacombs, a player that's been talked about as an up and come I went on the All Blacks fifteen tour last year, gets a big opportunity at Eden Park in a Grand Final rematch to show what he can do. Is only played four Super Rugby games prior to this point. He's been handed the keys of the Chiefs. They've got Damian mckinser there and
take a bit of the load off. Yeah, it probably would like to see both of those players at ten, but just opens up an avenue for Josh Jacob and that's what Super Rugby has done so well over the last twenty so years. You know, whilst the TV came in last year and made a name for himself, maybe Josh Jacob is the guy to do so in season twenty five.
And in closing Elliott. As far as All Black access to the Super Rugby franchises throughout the year, it's not free for all. There will be limitations they do. They need to be able to basically climb into All Blacks whenever they want. Is that important for the competition?
Oh?
Absolutely, And look I think now as well. You want your stars playing and that's something that Jack Mesley has been keen on, you know, having those stars aligning and playing in those big matches of Super Rugby, not resting taking a team out Eleven's not ideal for the competition, but it does mean there is a buy every weekend, So in theory you should be having your All Black stars rested a little bit less often if there is a it.
Is there an edict though from New Zealand Rugby because they normally have a limitation.
Dick pooh say is my understanding. But there are plan management protocol and it's not the same for every play.
And on that we'll let you get on with what will be a frantic old weekend of lying in front of the TV and staring at the screen.
Sounds great.
Elliott Smith. Thanks very much for your time and the change.
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