On the field, in their fourth Super Rugby Pacific season, Moana Pasifika savoured their most successful campaign yet as inspirational captain Ardie Savea led the team to six wins, a notable sign of progress.
Moana’s success was mirrored in record crowds, mainly at their adopted North Harbour Stadium base in Auckland.
Over 48,000 fans flocked to seven home games, soaking up the festive atmosphere and the team reported that digital reach exploded through the addition of 150,000 new followers to their social platforms – more eyeballs than follow the five other New Zealand Super Rugby Pacific teams combined.
Off the field, however, Moana’s future looks uncertain as the team faces financial pressure.
Through its inception and first three seasons the team received some $8 million in New Zealand Government help.
About $5m were grants or similar, but $3m was a Sport New Zealand loan. That loan was fully drawn down in 2023 and payments are now due every six months until 2034. The first repayment ($150,000) was made in March.
Julie Morrison, Sport NZ group manager strategy, policy and investment, confirmed the Crown entity has already written off $298,000 of the loan’s interest, fixed at 5%, but she has yet to disclose the reason.
A bigger concern for the team centres on its primary backers, the charity Pasifika Medical Association Group (PMA), which bought the franchise last year.
Just 12 months on, the PMA itself faces an enormous reduction in revenue and is slashing costs.
Through its controlled entity Pasifika Futures (also a charity), it has held the lucrative government contract for Whānau Ora commissioning for Pasifika since 2014 – a devolved model for buying community-level health and wellness services for families and communities with public money.
The contract represents more than half PMA’s revenue, in some years it has constituted the vast majority.
From July, however, Pasifika Futures will lose that contract, following a shake-up in the Government’s approach to commissioning.
The contract is worth $44.35 million in the current financial year, which ends next week; it was also worth $44.35m in 2023/24, $36.34m in 2022/23, and $57.64m in 2021/22.
In three of those years, PMA used the Whānau Ora contract to directly bolster Moana Pasifika’s finances, by $770,000 per annum in 2022/23 and in 2023/24.
Financial disclosures for the current year (2024/25) have not yet been made, and the charity declined to make public the figure.
Furthermore, in financial year 2021/22, a payment of $600,000 flowed from Pasifika Futures to Moana Pasifika through The Pacific Island Business Development Trust, according to the charity’s annual report for that year.
Nick Smith, a spokesman for the charity, declined to answer the Herald’s questions about details of the payment, including whether it related to Whānau Ora. The PMA was not able to confirm whether the funding flowed from the Whānau Ora contract by the Herald’s deadline.
The use of Whānau Ora funds for a professional rugby team is quietly contentious, especially among Pasifika health service providers, though none spoke to the Herald for attribution.
Several feared burning bridges and rocking the boat in the close-knit world of Pasifika-related services and funding.
Moana Pasifika operates primarily as a Super Rugby franchise, but the PMA emphasises that the money has gone to the team’s community sports activities, which include a strategy to develop professional pathways in sports for Pasifika youth.
PMA chair Dr Tearikivao “Kiki” Maoate told the Herald that the investment is measured for three outcomes: “(1) reducing barriers to participation in sport, (2) improving professional pathways, and (3) increasing engagement in all sport”.
He said Pacific families and communities have repeatedly told the PMA that, “investment in sporting pathways and activities” is a priority.
But elite rugby is expensive. Moana had $9.2m in expenses in the 15 months to August 31, 2022, covering its establishment and first season (the only period for which there is public disclosure of the team’s finances).
More than 60% of the cost was staff ($5.76m), much of it paid to a handful of players. And, since player calibre has risen since then, it is likely that cost has too.
Critics emphasised that the team is only tangentially linked to stronger, healthier Pasifika families and communities.
If sport is a Whānau Ora priority (and they agreed that it should be), the commissioning of related services should be more heavily focused on play time for ordinary folk, especially kids, not professionals, they said.
It remains to be seen whether Moana Pasifika will continue to attract Whānau Ora funding when an unrelated party holds the purse strings.
Te Puni Kōkiri (the Ministry for Māori Development) is responsible for Whānau Ora funds, and, starting next month, its commissioning contract for Pasifika will pass to the Cause Collective. The organisation did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.
The new version of the contract carries more stringent requirements to measure the benefits that the money buys; the rugby team and its benefits would need to stack up against more bread-and-butter health and wellness services such as medical clinics, infant inoculations, education, and training.
Since its inception in 2021, Moana Pasifika has been closely linked to the PMA Group. Three Pasifika Futures and or PMA board members – Sir Michael Jones, Francis Agnew, and Kiki Maoate – have been on the Moana Pasifika board since inception.
Debbie Sorenson, chief executive of the PMA, including Pasifika Futures, was also on Moana’s board until May last year.
This raises a question of fairness when the PMA is choosing whether to allocate public Whānau Ora money to its own related entities, or to other service providers.
Maoate told the Herald that all conflicts of interest are managed, “consistent with those obligations that apply to a registered charity, including that all conflicts are declared and the conflicted person does not participate in the discussion or decision-making process ... ”
He said a conflicts register is kept and regularly updated, and that conflicts are noted at each board meeting along with any mitigating action taken.
Beyond direct Whānau Ora commissioning, the PMA has used its considerable balance sheet to lend cash-strapped Moana money.
In 2023/24 it provided the team with a $1.85m concessionary loan – unsecured, interest-free and repayable on demand.
And in July 2024, when the PMA bought the team outright, it absorbed Moana’s debts (net liabilities) of $4.6m.
The PMA appears to have been able to take these costly decisions, at least in part, because it has been well funded through the valuable management fee the Whānau Ora contract has provided. As of its fiscal 23/24 disclosure, PMA had built up a $43.5m property portfolio and $717,000 worth of art -- it had considerable equity (net assets) of $22.4m.
Pasifika Futures has no staff, and all of its work is carried out by the PMA.
Maoate confirmed that the Whānau Ora contract carries a management fee, to cover the likes of staff and overheads, of up to 20% – nearly $9m per annum in each of the last two years, if the fee was charged at the maximum allowed.
He stressed that no loans to Moana Pasifika have been funded through Whānau Ora funding provided to Pasifika Futures.
In its first season, $7.4m of Moana’s $9.3m in revenue came from grants and subsidies. The single largest source was New Zealand Rugby; the second largest was Government funding, some of which flowed through third-party charitable entities; and the third largest was World Rugby.
Several years on, all of these major revenue streams appear compromised or soon to be so.
The Herald understands that some $2m in annual funding from the governing body of the sport of rugby union, World Rugby, is expected to be scaled back beyond 2027. And the team’s broadcast revenue and other funding from New Zealand Rugby – currently around $2m annually – is uncertain from next year.
A reduction in New Zealand Rugby’s total broadcast revenue – possibly by as much as $25m from the last agreement – is widely expected in an imminent deal with Sky Television. This would affect the overall pooled share divided between the 11 Super Rugby Pacific teams.
Sky Television also doubles as Moana’s front-of-jersey sponsor, but the broadcaster is cutting costs and there are no guarantees that the significant six-figure payment will be maintained next year.
On average, it takes around $12m to $13m annually to fund a New Zealand Super Rugby franchise, including all operational and player-wage costs. And Moana are not alone in facing financial challenges.
The Hurricanes lost $2.1m over the past two years, which forced the Wellington-based franchise to raise $1m from a share offering. Last year, the Melbourne Rebels collapsed, and the ACT Brumbies were bailed out with an A$1m loan from Rugby Australia.
Earlier this month, Moana released 15 players from this year’s squad. Although the majority were non-starters, the size of the release raised eyebrows.
In addition, Savea will join Japanese club Kobe as part of a New Zealand Rugby agreed sabbatical in 2026. On a brighter note, Savea is scheduled to return to Moana the following year.
The team has also recruited former All Blacks midfielder Ngani Laumape for next season and re-signed key figures such as Samoan loose forward Miracle Faiʻilagi.
Maoate said he is confident in the team’s bright prospects: “Our financial position is on track to finish the year ahead of the forecast set in July last year. We see every dollar invested in Moana Pasifika as an investment in the future of Pasifika youth and their families.”
The coming months will, however, be telling for the team, and may have consequences well beyond New Zealand.
The team’s disappearance could cause reputational damage to New Zealand, given that its genesis was steeped in regional diplomacy – some of the team’s early funding came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and was aimed at strengthening Pacific ties through sport. One of Moana’s main stated purposes is to feed players to the national rugby teams of Samoa and Tonga.
Unlike the Fijian Drua, who are supported by 15 on-island sponsors and Super Rugby Pacific’s highest merchandising sales, it is financially impossible for Moana to be based in Samoa or Tonga.
The countries’ economies are prohibitively small and both lack the facilities and infrastructure necessary for the high-performance sport.
For Moana to survive they must remain New Zealand-based or move to a financially viable location offshore.
For many, and especially for their hordes of new fans, Moana’s successes make it unthinkable that the team could disappear.
But for others with an eye, not so much on the ball but on shrinking government largess – particularly relative to the Covid years – and on the reduced flow of rugby-related revenue, a financial reckoning looks imminent.
Kate MacNamara is a South Island-based journalist with a focus on policy, public spending and investigations. She spent a decade at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation before moving to New Zealand. She joined the Herald in 2020.
Liam Napier is a Senior Sports Journalist and Rugby Correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. He is a co-host of the Rugby Direct podcast.
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