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The imminent demise of one Australian Super Rugby team is both a warning sign for Australian sport and a lesson from history that has not been learned.
It's the story of sporting competitions expanding beyond their means.
The beginning of the Super 12 Rugby competition in 1996 was a fantastic innovation — a new competition comprising the best 12 teams from the best three countries, playing each other on a weekly basis was just what the sport needed as rugby embraced its new fully professional status.
The three Australian teams, the New South Wales Waratahs, the Queensland Reds and the ACT Brumbies, represented the heartland of Australian rugby.
At 18 teams Super Rugby is bloated and incomprehensible and only the most diehard fan can explain how four conferences and five separate points tables work, and how Japan and Argentina were part of South Africa.
Bringing the competition back to 15 teams and cutting one of the Australian franchises - either the Force or Rebels who are based in staunch AFL states - may hurt, but it makes sense.
Hindsight says it was inevitable, but the cost now will be messy legal battles, the end of careers and broken dreams.
This is a story that has been repeated time and again in Australia.
Mistakes repeated across codes
Take rugby league. In 1995, and with the Super League war brewing in the background, the Australian Rugby League welcomed four new teams into a ridiculously expanded 20-team competition.
Gone from those 20 teams were the Seagulls (from that notorious Australian sporting graveyard, the Gold Coast), North Sydney, Brisbane's South Queensland Crushers (remember them?) and Perth's Western Reds.
St George and Illawarra have since merged as have Balmain and Western Suburbs to form the Wests Tigers.
There was even a short-lived team in Adelaide, the Rams, which lasted one season in the NRL following the demise of Super League.
And what of the National Basketball League?
Here is a list of just some of the teams that have come and gone since 1979 — the Canberra Cannons, Sydney Supersonics, West Sydney, St Kilda, North Melbourne, South East Melbourne, Nunawading, Victoria Titans, Frankston, Geelong, Glenelg, Gold Coast (Rollers and Blaze), Hobart, Launceston, Devonport, Newcastle Falcons, Hunter Pirates, West Adelaide, Souths Dragons, Townsville and the Singapore Slingers.
Even the A-League has lost three teams in its short 12-year history; the New Zealand Knights, Gold Coast United and the North Queensland Fury.
The calls for an expansion of the current 10-team competition are loud, but with most of the teams privately owned and running at a loss, there is no way any of those owners would want an even smaller share of the pie.
Equally strong is the call for a second-tier competition, but who pays?
It's a story related time and again in Australian sport. Even the AFL has had its growing pains.
Fitzroy's marriage with Brisbane was a merger in name only.
And while the addition of Greater Western Sydney and the Gold Coast Suns has added an extra game per week, and so more broadcasting revenue, the ongoing cost will be the tens, if not hundreds-of-millions of dollars needed to prop up the ailing Suns and any other team that falls on hard times.
For that reason, it is hard to see a Tasmanian team admitted to the AFL any time soon.
Australia's population not big enough for so much sport
Australians are proud of their sporting culture, but with a population of 24 million, we are spread thin.
At this time of year we are supporting the AFL, the NRL, Super Rugby, A-League, and the Super Netball — that is 56 professional sporting teams competing for sponsorship and broadcasting deals.
Then there are the second tiers, all running on a semi-professional basis, needing ongoing funding for players, coaches, physios, accommodation and travel.
In summer, cricket is competing with soccer and basketball — all of which have men's and women's competitions. Throw in athletics, tennis and cycling and the scene is as busy as winter.
Compare Australia with the United States. There, you have three main sporting competitions, the NFL, basketball and baseball spread evenly throughout the year.
Ice hockey is a close fourth. Even so, those four major sports are consumed by a population of 325 million people.
Yet here we are with one-thirteenth of the population of the US and arguably more sport. The sheer number of professional clubs in Australia is one of the major issues in Australian sport.
Our population simply is not big enough to sustain the number of teams we currently have, let alone expansion.
As sport becomes more professional, teams and competitions need more money.
They need sponsors, they need broadcasters, they need bums on seats, but there's simply not enough of any of those to go around.
While some sports are like the AFL and NRL are thriving, others — particularly rugby and basketball — are struggling.
The mantra of business is that you must grow. But there is a limit. A rubber band that is stretched too thin will most surely snap.
First posted