{"id":362795,"date":"2026-01-10T13:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T13:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/362795\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T13:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T13:06:16","slug":"former-hurricanes-ceo-opens-up-on-clubs-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/362795\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Hurricanes CEO opens up on club’s woes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Hurricanes<\/a> CEO Avan Lee has opened up on the challenges facing the Wellington<\/a> club and the realities of player contracting, offering insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Lee stepped away from the Hurricanes at 2025\u2019s conclusion after a decade serving as the club\u2019s CEO. The announcement of his departure was soon followed by news that the Hurricanes were operating at a loss of up to $2 million in the recent financial year alone.<\/p>\n

New Zealand<\/a> Rugby has stepped in to bail the club out, and Wellington Rugby has sold its 50 per cent share in the club to NZ Sport Investment Limited in an effort to \u201crecapitalise\u201d.<\/p>\n

Iain Potter, former Hurricanes Chair, and Tony Philp, former GM Rugby, have also decided to leave their respective roles, although the latter has been appointed as interim CEO for the coming season.<\/p>\n

When explaining the financial woes that have befallen the club, Lee pointed to a post-Covid drop in attendance, from a 16,000 average to 12,000, as a primary factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a different environment, and you need to work harder to get the same results,\u201d he told Martin Devlin on DSPN.<\/a><\/p>\n

While the Hurricanes\u2019 viewing figures have increased at a healthy rate \u2013 30 per cent in 2024 and 15 per cent in 2025 \u2013 there remains uncertainty over whether that will ever translate into ticket sales, or if that engagement will remain behind a TV screen from the comfort of fans\u2019 homes. The emphasis on ticket sales is inherent, however, given the financial structure of the New Zealand game.<\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Super Rugby Pacific<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hurricanes <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Moana Pasifika <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike other sports around the world, we don\u2019t get a share of the broadcast revenue,\u201d Lee explained, painting a picture of the relationship between Super Rugby clubs and New Zealand Rugby, who manage broadcast licenses and contracts the players centrally. Top players can, however, receive payments on top of their New Zealand Rugby contracts, opening the door to potential inequities from club to club.<\/p>\n

\u201cA large chunk of the broadcast revenue pays for the players. So, $5 million, circa a year, is the budget you have for your team, and you\u2019ve got the ability to have player agreements on top of that, which is where your top three or four players can receive an extra payment from the club. That\u2019s where there is quite a significant disparity with one club versus the others, and what they can spend. That can create an unlevel playing field.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo New Zealand Rugby pay 90 per cent of most players\u2019 salaries, some they\u2019ll pay 100 per cent. And then they\u2019ll get the NPC payment as well; they\u2019ll get 30 or 40 or 50k from the NPC union for playing NPC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee noted that for provincial unions with All Blacks<\/a> on their roster, any absence due to national duty is reimbursed by New Zealand Rugby.<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s highlighting of a financial disparity between \u201cone\u201d club and the rest, when explaining the additional player agreements, received additional context from an ensuing conversation about the realities of profitability for clubs in Super Rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really difficult for us across the board in New Zealand. The only teams to have made a profit in recent years are those that have hosted a final.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t budget on a final, and you try and break even from there. It\u2019s been challenging. The costs of running a club haven\u2019t gone backwards, because you want to be competitive, you want to win, but all teams at the moment are looking at their spend and thinking, \u2018Can we cut back?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Navigating financial responsibility while running a high-performance program that\u2019s designed to feed the All Blacks, rugby\u2019s largest brand and the financial beast that fuels all of New Zealand Rugby, is a balancing act, says Lee.<\/p>\n

For Super Rugby to stand on its own two feet, match attendance is one significant problem to solve, as Lee says, \u201cWe\u2019ve got an over-reliance as a sport on ticket sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou open up the curtains in the morning, and if it\u2019s raining, you\u2019re not happy. Weather, opposition, who we name, they\u2019re all factors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeather is a massive one. Wellingtonians, like a lot of New Zealanders, buy late in the week. So, if the weather turns to custard as it can do down here, people might decide not to go. But that could affect our net profit by 20, 30 grand. That\u2019s a lot for us. We\u2019re not big businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Hurricanes CEO Avan Lee has opened up on the challenges facing the Wellington club and the realities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-362795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}