Power shift: Why the Brumbies had to hand over keys after years of struggle

Head bowed, he shuffled quietly in the University of Canberra corridor while Rugby Australia chief Phil Waugh declared the national union would seize control of the cash-strapped ACT Brumbies.

The Brumbies had resisted Rugby Australia's centralisation push for 12 months, fighting the heavy-handed approach of former Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan and firing back against talk of relocation.

You wonder how many sleepless nights Thomson had as the Brumbies chief executive tried to find ways to end years of financial turmoil for a club battling to keep its head above water.

How many calls he made in the hunt for private equity deals which came to no avail. A last-ditch attempt went awry when the interested party wanted too big a stake for too small a price.

"We've all had those nights at three o'clock in the morning, staring at the ceiling," Brumbies chairman Matt Nobbs said. "The last thing we wanted to do as a board or an organisation was to fold."

Which is why the Brumbies bosses joined Waugh on Tuesday morning to announce Rugby Australia would take over the Super Rugby club and split the professional and amateur game in Canberra.

But some have been left with as many questions as answers. The Brumbies are here until 2030, but will some games be moved? What happens at the end of the next broadcast cycle? Will the academy stay here or will a centralised system be set up in Sydney?

The most pertinent might just be: how did we get here?

A deal to sell their Griffith base and move to the University of Canberra was supposed to set the Brumbies up financially and bury the fears of insolvency.

The Griffith site was sold in 2013 to a developer for $11.375 million, with then-chief executive Andrew Fagan heralding the sale as a chance for the Brumbies to clear debts and secure a move to the University of Canberra.

Yet by the next year, The Canberra Times reported the Brumbies had only about $2 million from the Griffith sale in the bank and had posted a financial loss of $1.07 million for the year.

The Brumbies pumped $5 million into the new facility at the University of Canberra, while other costs and debts from the sale totalled about $2 million.

The financial losses which followed came largely as a result of declining crowd figures.

The Brumbies average crowd figure in 2013 - the year they reached the Super Rugby final - was 14,257.

The club's highest average attendance figure since then is 9887 in 2016, and they haven't played in front of 10,000 fans at home since a quarter-final in 2019.

Roughly half of the Brumbies' home crowd has disappeared in little more than a decade. The result is a club struggling to break even on game day.

The Brumbies are yet to lodge last year's financial report. A financial statement for the year prior showed the Brumbies had 5364 paying members - but revenue in that area had been cut by more than half in a six-year period.

Super Rugby clubs are under massive financial strain with Rugby Australia's annual funding cut to $3.9 million, and the Brumbies have felt every blow.

John I Dent Cup clubs say handing control to Rugby Australia was the only viable option to save the Brumbies, but trepidation remains over the fate of community rugby.

Club presidents will meet next week with the fate of the Brumbies' long-term future and the club's Canberra-based academy high on the agenda.

The Brumbies' future is secure until 2030, but the make-up of Super Rugby beyond the expiration of the next broadcast deal remains to be seen.

More pressing in the short-term is the Super Rugby academy system, amid concern Rugby Australia could build a centralised academy in Sydney - thus attracting club rugby's best talent to the Shute Shield.

There are fears shutting down club-based academies would hurt ACT club rugby given clubs could lose their best players and struggle to attract others to Canberra.

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When pressed on the fate of the Brumbies academy, Waugh said: "There's a lot of work being done on the contracting model at the moment, as well as the appropriate pathways and how we get the most effective pathways. Pathways in Canberra have been very successful for a long period of time, so we'll work through that with Peter Horne, who leads the high performance area of the game."

Thirteen Brumbies squad members will play in the John I Dent Cup this weekend, bolstering the strength of club rugby sides.

Nobbs says retaining a Brumbies academy in Canberra is vital to the health of community rugby in the region.

"Not only the academies, you look at pathways for coaches. We need a strong John I Dent competition so coaches feel they've got an opportunity as a pathway into the professional space," Nobbs said.

"To keep the academies [is crucial]. You look at our contracted squad, our squad of 36, I think 26 of them had come through our pathways and academies. That says it all."

Rugby Australia's takeover will see two new boards set up to oversee the professional and community arms of the game.

Thomson is confident the two boards will be able to work together.

"As we have in my time here, we've worked pretty closely as one operation, one team. That's the way we want to continue," Thomson said.