What happened to the ARU TV deal?

"Fans like a winning team". That's part of the problem with Super Rugby Owen. Your team can't win every year and the odds are getting worse thanks to Sanzar's tournament dilution. In 1996 your country had a 1 in 3 chance of winning Super Rugby. Your team had a 1 in 12 chance (all things being equal). Fast forward to 2016 your country has a 1 in 5 chance and your team 1 in 18 (all things being equal). Significantly worse on both counts. This makes it difficult for the likes of Melbourne Whatever-they-are-called or WA Force to compete for support against AFL, say. An Australian team wins the AFL every year and Melbourne and Perth teams make the finals every year. Fans love a winning team.

How many Highlanders players were born in Otago?

Speculation speculation. Australian and NZ Super teams are only just finalizing their coaches and players. Most will not complete player rosters until October. This is a new franchise and there will be bumps in the road and NO SANZAR is not going to walk away from the Asian market. If the Japanese team has to be filled with Argentinians, Kiwis and South Africans and Pacific Islanders for the first 3 years so be it. It will still try and blood up and coming Japanese players from University and build a fan base. Fans like a winning team.

@Skip. Nicely said. I expect you are right about Japan and also about Sanzar being sent back to the drawing board. I don't think Sanzar will get it right though, until there is regime change. The guys directing the ship have been there too long. The ship is drifting off course. They need to get off the boat. To be specific, Sanzar do not properly understand who their customer is. They think that the sponsors and broadcasters are their customers. They are not. Rugby players and rugby fans are their customers. Rule 1 of marketing - find out what your customers want and need and give it to them. In pandering to sponsors and broadcasters Sanzar has failed to listen to their customers: rugby people. Sanzar is not giving us what we want. They are giving broadcasters what they think they will pay the most for. That's the problem. A change of leadership is needed, especially at the NZRU I reckon.

I would suggest that the reason we have not heard anything on the SANZAR TV rights is that the S18 concept is in Limbo. Firstly Japan are struggling to get a team together. A broadcast agreement would have an agreed amount of content and a compensation clause if content can not be supplied. The Feed back from the fans to the various unions have said we don't understand/Like this competition. I would assume that Foxtel and other providers have done their market research and have been spooked by viewer feed back. Note, I also think the S18 concept will be a nail in Australian Rugby Popularity. There will be less local content more unknown teams, Australian fans will get isolated. There are rumours that Google are looking to launch an online TV/Movie platform and are wooing Sports organisations for content. The other question is how long does Rupert hold a grudge? His comment at the AFL TV rights announcement suggest he may still be bitter about Super League. With the growth of Rugby in the USA and Europe (The main parts of his empire). Will he fund Rugby at the NRL's expense. (That is my own pure speculation) I wont be surprised if SANZAR are (or have been) told to go back to the drawing board.

Agree Ken, I'm sad to see my boy's old local club (in Sydney) struggling. Need to invest a lot more in grass roots, either else the code won't grow amongst the competition. Very fragmented here. Drawing a contrast with the UK, my club there could field a D team in most younger age groups and there was a waiting list to get in (started losing players in the late teens, like here). Great infrastructure, longer season, good training resources for coaches (I coached and refed), very different reality. Only real competition there was football (much bigger than here), but rugby held its own (although people there worried). Still, despite this, Wallabies are a darn good team (never mind the casandras). Could be even better if we invested in grass roots rugby properly.

Rubbish! I lived in the London area for six years, you'd be hard pressed to know league existed unless you read the Murdoch papers or had Yorkie friends (which I did). Friends from Manchester were actually surprised there was a league team close by. No premiership rugby on FTA because Sky bought the rights for top dollar. You also can't watch F1 there in FTA (and now here too, pain, need to pay for cable because of my two sport addictions). On the other hand, we discussed SH rugby results at the rugby club bar, and every now and then they had a match playing.

Speaking of code competition for audiences and players. I took my son to a game against my old schoolboy club yesterday. Speaking to one of the dad's from the area, an old rugby district, I was saddened to hear that my old club had amalgamated with one of the old 'enemy' clubs, and that a further four team amalgamation was due next year. Why? Not enough players. Where have they gone? Soccer. Chickens and eggs both have a role to play here. Kids need heroes on tele. And the code needs grassroots support. NRC is good. But we need to support chickens and eggs.

Trust me, you're not missing anything, it's a dreadful sport made even worse by its omnipresence.

"(I lived in the UK, league there is only relevant in the Yorkshire area" - what an absolute nonsense. Wigan is probably still the most famous name in English "rugby" - are they based in Yorkshire? Club rugby league continues to rate higher than club rugby union on pay TV. As for free to air, there is no club rugby union shown live in England - only rugby league via the Challenge Cup. It is international rugby union that dwarfs rugby league and always has done. As for international rights - Super Rugby ratings in the UK are negligible. They simply do not rate.

Agree Katipo. You also need to think globally, where rugby is a large and growing sport and the other two are non-existent (I lived in the UK, league there is only relevant in the Yorkshire area and AFL is unheard of). Australian (and SH) rugby sells in international markets, Foxtel (Sky/Murdoch) driver is to secure global rights. The fact that it'll show in Australia as well is a detail. NRC needed to secure a deal for FTA, perhaps from ABC or SBS. What it needs now is visibility to generate interest and a following. I'll hop to the stadium to see the Rams, but I'm a fanatic. Need to interest the casual viewer (and the rules changes really produce an improved experience).

A take over maybe 10-20 years ?

@Relief. Foxtel needs sports content. If it wasn't for sport it would be in serious trouble. Therefore Foxtel needs all the footy codes to some degree. Obviously rugby is the least important of those footy codes in Australia. ARU is doing the right thing in launching a domestic tournament. It's an acorn that could grow in to an equivalent asset to the A-league, say, over the next decades. Fox is testing the appetite for supporters to pay for NRC by selling digital 'on demand' subscriptions. I would pay $5 or $10 just to watch this afternoon's Shield game but it's not possible to do so. Their sales model is not on demand. I can not pay per game. I'm forced towards a monthly subscription for a tournament that lasts 8 weeks. It doesn't make sense. Why not offer an NRC subscription? http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/nrc/nrcondemand

Correct. The national weekly competitions of the NRL and AFL make them far more attractive for FTA TV.

Does Fox Sports actually need rugby union?

No Chris it will not be the perfect product at all if the two codes merge but at present they are very much alike. Modern Rugby with its law changes is a fraud and more like League than the pre professional game.

$40 million for what rights exactly? Would be good to have more details and more importantly how is the money going to be spent. Whatever people say about the AFL, they have a plan and are executing it and includes a lot of money spent at grass roots level to ensure the longevity and expansion of the game.

They do for stuff actually shown on Foxtel, but the streaming stuff just seems to stand alone.

I just like to see both Rugby codes officials, fans etc stop being petty and just have 1 Rugby code and a perfect product.

Does Foxtel have an online catch up service like Sky have in the UK and Ireland?