In a frightful turn of events SANZAR’s decision to expand Super Rugby into an 18-team competition involving Japan and Argentina has turned a significant number of Super Rugby fans English!
Too much travel, the teams don’t all play each other, the new teams will be too weak, it’ll destroy rugby in this country, and that country, and I’m not going to watch anymore, let’s leave SANZAR!
Such whinging can be heard echoing through the rugby sections of the internet like a pandemonium of halfbacks stuck in a tunnel.
I’d like to address some of these common viewpoints.
Too much travel
Rubbish. Any increase in distance travelled will be offset by the fact the competition will be a week shorter. The Australian and New Zealand teams will continue to play all but two of their matches in Australia and NZ, while South African teams will actually play one less match outside of South Africa every second year.
The new Argentinian and Japanese teams will have it far tougher. Even then, rugby players have it easy compared to tennis players, Formula One drivers and people from any number of professions that travel all around the world on a regular basis for work. And it’s not like Super Rugby players aren’t well compensated for what they do.
It’s unfair that teams don’t all play each other every year
Quick, someone tell the NFL their competition has no credibility. This has been the case in Super Rugby for a few years now. While each year some teams inevitably get a better draw than others, this balances out over time. And the fact some sides don’t play each other every season adds a bit of occasion to those matches.
The best teams are still always going to qualify for the finals.
The new teams will be too weak
Nonsense. While both will suffer from their geographic isolation and are unlikely to win the tournament in their first couple of seasons, they’re also unlikely to be the worst teams going around.
The Argentinian team won’t be able to bring back all their top European based players, but they’ll be able to bring back enough. These will be added to the impressive locally-based Pampas side which had no trouble beating the ‘A’ sides of the Australian Super Rugby teams this year.
Many of those players also got significant game time in the Rugby Championship – including the win over Australia. With another year of preparation and development, they will certainly be competitive in 2016.
The Japanese national team has in recent times beaten Italy and Wales (minus their Lions players), and got within seconds of defeating the Maori All Blacks a few weeks ago. This team will be topped up by some foreign players who will add quality and depth in key positions.
Don’t doubt the competitiveness of the Japanese team. They will do fine. They’ll also play a very fast and entertaining brand of rugby.
Let’s leave SANZAR!
Many believe Australia should change direction, leave SANZAR and focus on building a domestic competition in its place. Likewise, a number of South Africans would like the Currie Cup to take back its place as the premier competition for South African teams.
I agreed with this once, but have come to believe it would be a disaster, particularly for Australian rugby. If this was to happen it had to happen 20 years ago. It might have worked then.
Now it would simply result in a very sudden exodus of all the top players to Europe and Japan. Broadcast and sponsorship revenue would plummet and the ARU would be forced to abandon their ‘local players only’ selection policy for the Wallabies. This would heavily wound Australian rugby.
You only have to look at the NRC to see how popular domestic rugby is in Australia without the top players involved.
The reality is that Super Rugby has to expand to new markets to compete with the money on offer in Europe. The retention of top players is important and a global competition offers more potential broadcasting and sponsorship revenue.
Certainly there is risk, but the potential upside is much higher than sticking an extra team in Western Sydney, Newcastle or the Gold Coast – all of which would have a high chance of failure anyway.
Australian rugby is not going to get ahead by trying to be exactly like the NRL and AFL, it just doesn’t have the fan-base at this point in time. Not to mention the sporting market in Australia is the most crowded in the world.
The NRC is important, but it will work better building from where it is now – a pathway between the grassroots and fully professional rugby. In time that might allow for further domestic expansion, but it just isn’t realistic at the moment and certainly not as a replacement to Super Rugby.
The 18-team structure is undoubtedly a bit messy. Japan in a South African conference is particularly weird. But it is clearly a bridge format to something bigger.
If these initial expansion teams have some success, particularly off the field, then it will open the door to further expansion in Asia and the Americas. This would then give better structural options in future.
Most importantly, if you love rugby none of this should even matter. Forget the format!
When you sit down on the couch or at a pub on the weekend you’ll still have many games of top level, intense and entertaining super rugby to enjoy. In fact there’ll be one more game each week to choose from. And when you’re sitting there watching a sport you enjoy, will you really be thinking about the competition structure?
tc
Guest
Birdy I was living n the UK earlier this year and I can tell you from first hand experience that the rugby fans are well aware of Super Rugby and that it has a good following. So where ever the money comes from to keep the ARU solvent they will take it. Also don't be jealous that the NRL will never leave Australasian shores because people just see it as a dumb down version of Union, you lot can have Sydney and Brisbane, we will have Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Cape Town and many more to come in the future. You do know that international Rugby Union will destroy league don't you, its just inevitable, as the world globalizes so will sport, so with league having trouble expanding where do you think that's going to leave it, that's right vulnerable to its players being stolen, its territory being encroached on, and its juniors dwindling, and these three things are exactly whats happening. You lot haven't got a dogs show of taking over New Zealand and the three Pacific Islands and Union is bigger than League in the southern states of Australia, so I guess you guys are stuck aren't yous.
Birdy
Guest
I'm sorry this is utter nonsense. Super Rugby is shown up here, but then again, so is 'Aussie Rules' (although no-one watches, obviously), and handball from Qatar. There are loads of sports channels that need filling. I believe the figure is $20m. That's peanuts to Sky. A Super Rugby game from NZ starts about 7.30 Saturday morning. I promise you I personally know of no pom that sets his alarm clock for 7.00 so he can catch the latest SR. I suppose there must be some and if you add in Kiwis, Saffas and Aussies living in the UK Sky might just break even. There's a much bigger fight going on for domination of the rugby pay TV market in the UK and I reckon it's got more to do with the wider battle to be the dominant rugby provider than a belief that millions of poms are going to get back from the pub early on a Friday so that they can be up in time for the Blues versus King's or whatever. If what you are getting from Sky makes the ARU solvent, good luck to you. If the implication is that this is some upwards curve of ever increasing UK revenue with a never ending bidding war off into the future then I think you're in for a shock.
higgik
Guest
doesn't mean that there are players in NZ who are currently not able to play SR, but could by moving to another country within the competition.
Graeme
Guest
I really don't see how this will make Toulon selection any easier?
Eddard
Roar Guru
Good post tc, we're on the same page. Lets just hope SANZAR manage to pull it off over the next decade or so. North America is interesting. I think at the very least that SANZAR should be trying to get them integrated into the rugby championship at some point. But perhaps an American league could also become part of Super Rugby. Certainly the time frame of the Super Rugby season would fit North America much better than the European season which overlaps with the NFL. Or maybe there'll be two different leagues in America. An eastern league aligned with European rugby, and a Western league/conference aligned with Super Rugby. So many variables it's hard to predict anything at this point, other than to say there will be professional rugby in North America sooner than later. It's a big potential opportunity for SANZAR though so I hope they're working towards something.
Eddard
Roar Guru
Thanks Owen (and also hotdog), I'm glad there's some other people that get it. Like anything, once it starts people will realise it's not so bad, and really not so different to what we have now. There are just a lot of people with an aversion to change and uncertainty.
Eddard
Roar Guru
Hog, it's the only way. A domestic competition would generate so much less money per team to begin with that it could only work in the place of super rugby if you opened it up completely to private money and found 8 to 10 multi-millionaire consortiums willing to lose millions every year. But even if that occurred do you think it would be so great? Private investors are fickle - you only have to look at what happened at the Rebels. It's going to have growing problems - that's for sure, but super rugby could become something really unique and cool in world sport. Why should rugby have to follow the model everyone else uses? A point of difference is a good thing. We live in an increasingly global world, and super rugby is becoming the world's first truly global competition. Lets not be stereotypical insular Australians and look outward.
Owen
Guest
Well said. I agree with all your points including that the travel and competition formats are not perfect but no competition in the world is and Super Rugby is unique. It will continue to retain the best players and has the potential to be something special. Heineken Cup Teams do not all play each other either. That is a tournament fourmat too. Super Rugby is a Hybrid. It is the best of both worlds. Also you have to remember that the UK broadcasters have boosted revenues for SANZAR substantially this round because they love watching Super rugby up there. They watch our Super Rugby more than we watch their Heineken Cup. Super Rugby doesn't need to have a longer season, but I'm sure that the SANZAR bosses knew that the Europeans would pay even more to see Japanese and Argentinean teams playing too. It is a different flavour to Nothern Rugby and they like it. They only watch it because the teams are full of superstars too. So local domestic leagues would not be enough...it has to be a SANZAR league or nothing. Get behind it boys!
hotdog
Guest
Eddard, thank god you wrote this article! Finally someone who understands the economics of rugby in Australia. The inescapable fact is, it's something similar to what is proposed in the super 18 or nothing. No exclusively Australian or Australia/New Zealand comp can possibly generate enough broadcast and other revenue to survive. So lets get behind it. It's still just rugby after all !
Hog
Guest
Soccer in Australia ring a bell !!!!
Hog
Guest
And your in dreamland if you think this is the way forward for Australian rugby.
Bakkies
Guest
They are deluded if they think that will work.
Midfielder
Guest
Eddard OK of the 250 A-League games 17 will be in NZ and of the 218 RL games 13 or so in NZ..
tc
Guest
Why is my comment awaiting moderation.
Eddard
Roar Guru
I don't think the quantity of games is quite as important as you do. NFL vs MLB is a good example. Each MLB team plays 162 games per regular season compared to 16 games per NFL team. You ask any American which is more popular and they won't even think before saying the NFL. The most important thing is to build the quality of the product. If all the teams could be as well run as the Reds then Australian rugby would be in a much better place. But your comparison isn't entirely fair anyway. You're probably including matches played in NZ in those NRL and Soccer numbers. You should include all the games played at a reasonable time in Australia. That includes matches played in New Zealand and Asia. Even Argentinian games will be on at an okay time - like mid-morning or so. As they'll all be broadcast they are also matches Australian fans will be able to watch. And while they don't rate as well for Fox Sports, they also don't have to spend any money to produce them. Then you also have the NRC, which might build into something a bit bigger over time (say 5k crowds, 50k ratings as a medium term goal). Super Rugby combined with NRC will provide a decent amount of content. A key challenge is to get some domestic rugby on FTA.
Anglo-Scot
Guest
It's a gamble by SANZAR that could of course fail, but if it does succeed it will be one of the most important steps to making rugby a global game since the Rugby World Cup was launched. So good on them for taking it. I do hope the current uneven format is, as the article says, just a bridge until there are more teams.
You are generalising mate. Not all fans.
tc
Guest
Eddard Good post. I definitely agree that this new agreement in 2016 is just a bridge to better things in 2021, it seems SANZAR have already said to the Singaporean syndicate to not give up and keep developing the game in Singapore because they will be seriously looked at next time. Then there is the comment made by the Hong Kong Rugby Union mentioning that they weren't ready right now but would like to join Super Rugby in the future, and as for Argentina they were offered two teams by SANZAR but said no because they thought it would be too much of a strain on their finances at the moment. Any blind man can see that this new format is weird, so either the SANZAR CEO's have got rocks in their heads or their is a dastardly plan afoot. I remember reading a rugby magazine about five or six years ago that had an article written by someone with SANZAR connections, it stated that even that far back SANZAR had plans to go global, weather that article was genuine or not doesn't matter, because it seems that's exactly what's happening. Expansion into other parts of South America and Asia is inevitable, but the interesting one in my opinion will be North America, seemingly they are starting their own pro comp in either late 2015 or early 2016. This new comp will initially have six teams and will be called the NRFL (the L stands for League), and there desire is to be connected in some way to the English Premiership, and in return the English are seemingly interested because the Leicester Tigers are playing a pre season game against one of their teams next August. It will be interesting to see what alliances take place over the next ten years. Rugby Union is growing quickly across the world, and it seems that in growing rugby markets SANZAR is well placed to take rugby to that next step of professionalism, all without those countries having the financial burden of starting up a whole League. I know Australian Rugby is going through hard times at the moment but all I can say is stick in there, because as a kiwi I know that if New Zealand pulled out of SANZAR tomorrow the Europeans would be feeding off our carcass by noon, and from all reports the money in European Rugby is only going to get bigger and bigger over the next five years.
Harry Jones
Guest
I will wait and see
Midfielder
Guest
Eddard I am not denying the importance of the revenue SR brings...also your rating figure for the NRC I think is high I have read figures of between 20 & 22 ... My point is how can 30 to 40 games against AFL 210 RL about 220 and Football soon around 250 games... I don't as I posted earlier have the answer, however I can see major challenges ahead