What will be interesting to see is whether the USA benefits from the new Americas 6 Nations starting next year. I think it will start out fairly low key but perhaps it can develop quite a bit over the next 5 years. I can’t see Argentina being happy playing in a South African Super Rugby conference for too long, and perhaps the ties created by the 6 nations could lead to an eventual Pan-American Super Rugby division.

It wouldn’t shatter anything. How would it stop any rogue union claiming this other, much smaller form of rugby should not come under its jurisdiction? League and Union mean nothing to most people, the key word is rugby and it’s understandable (if not right) that Rugby Unions around the world lay claim to this word.

Rugby Union has only ever been called as such because it was the rugby administered by the union – as opposed to the professional rugby that was played in leagues. As rugby union is now also played in leagues, and has been for decades, the distinction between the two sports is not so obvious by name. If you really want to avoid all confusion the only solution would be for rugby league to drop rugby and come up with a new name – however unfair that may be.

And yes, it was originally called ‘lawn tennis.’ In the 19th century the term ‘tennis’ usually referred to what we now call real tennis – which is an older game played indoors. Since then lawn tennis has effectively taken control of the term tennis and other variants have a different or extra name. It’s a pretty good analogy. The fact there are no problems (to my knowledge) like that experienced by this UAE Rugby League, is just evidence that this is probably not an issue of semantics like you suggest.

So do you also think it’s an ethical imperative that the tennis associations and authorities in the world that don’t already have ‘lawn tennis’ in their titles should change their names to avoid confusion with the separate sports of table tennis and the much smaller (but older) real tennis?

In most of the countries where rugby is played rugby league is either much, much smaller than rugby union, or doesn’t exist at all. I fail to see how it’s an ethical imperative. Even if they added Union on to the end of more titles, most people coming across a Rugby Union body for the first time wouldn’t assume ‘Union’ to be part of the name of the sport. I doubt it would do anything to clear up confusion. Similarly, most people coming across some kind of ‘Rugby League’ organisation would probably assume it meant a rugby competition – perhaps related to or organised by that Rugby Union they’d heard about.

Yep, and the world series is only going to grow. I wonder whether it will stay on the same path it is now – a bit like Formula 1, or if it might become more like tennis, with many different events all around the world and some counting for more points than others. That way you’d give more nations the chance to compete in regular tournaments.

Yeah I mean it only has almost exactly the same laws as 15 a side rugby. Of course it’s rugby.

A lot of Americans really only follow their team and to a lesser extent their division and conference until it gets to playoffs. Structure isn’t the reason why Super Rugby does or doesn’t work. If anything it’s a point of difference over the bigger domestic codes. The NFL shows that this sort of structure can be very successful in a competition that spans wide regions.

And the NFL doesn’t go very long. It’s just a 16 week regular season. Super Rugby will have 15 regular season rounds in 2016-20.

Yes, by revenue it’s the biggest league in the world. The only one that comes close to it is MLB and they play almost 10 times as many matches. To give you an idea, the NFL’s total revenue is about double that of the English Premier League.

The NFL is the biggest sporting league in the world and it’s got a conference system where certain teams get better draws than others every year. This tends to balance out over time. At the end of the day people that like to watch rugby will watch the rugby. I don’t decide what sport I watch based on the structure of a competition. And the best teams will still make the finals and the best team will win.

Some that are young leave for a year or two and return. Others wait til they are older and no longer certain selections. Certainly more than 7 seasons. As soon as you have current test stars playing in Europe it adds prestige to those competitions at the expense of super rugby. Once you start compromising it’s a very slippery slope.

Some might, but the best players will leave earlier than they would have done – at age 26/27. Some even at 25 (a guy like Michael Hooper will probably be eligible at 25).

Guys will no longer move to France because they’re near the end of their career or because they feel they’re on the outside edge of test selection, or because they want to have a year or two away between world cups – they’ll leave in their peak as an incumbent. This will add prestige to the European competitions and take it away from Super Rugby.

Nick, you’re ignoring the ability of Super Rugby to become a more global competition of which we are a part. Australia is one of the richest countries in the world per capita, and the world is becoming a smaller and smaller place. With expansion into Asia, the money in Japanese rugby and the 2019 world cup there’s certainly hope of competing with European leagues. It’s not like these European leagues are massive. People exaggerate their size. The European Cup final this year is predicted to be played in a half empty stadium. The Aviva Premiership and Top 14 average crowds under 15k and haven’t grown for years. Most of the clubs run at a substantial loss. It’s not like we’re up against the English Premier League.

You’re arguing the straw man. I never said that.

Brett, if you made a list of the top 30 players in the world most of them would be in Super Rugby. The major selling point of Super Rugby is that it’s the highest quality rugby in the world outside of tests. Policies like this will change that. Only very little at first, but it’s pretty difficult to stop the erosion once you’re actively contributing to it. Would a guy like Stephen Moore have resigned for the Brumbies late last year if the policy had been announced before then?

The future, if SANZAR can avoid devaluing Super Rugby further, is a separate Asian conference with 2 or 3 teams in Japan and private teams in Singapore and Hong Kong, and possible Seoul. A lot of Islanders could play in these teams.

MT, a couple of these ‘bland franchises’ you refer to have been around for over 100 years. Get off your high horse. The Super Rugby teams are less bland than most of the A League franchises.

There’s plenty of private investment interest in Super Rugby, the unions just don’t want to give up control. There’s been at least 3 separate private groups interested in taking over the Waratahs license in the last couple of years for example but the NSWRU is reluctant to relinquish it. Also, don’t forget that the bid from Singapore (with tens of millions behind it) – the Asia Pacific Dragons, was entirely private.

SANZAR need to separate themselves somewhat from Super Rugby IMO. They should have certain controls, but Super Rugby needs to be run more independently for its own benefit. If private investors were able to get more control over teams and the competition then you’d see there’d be no shortage of interest. There’s a lot of very wealthy rugby people in Australia.

Johnno, Wallabies, All Blacks and Springboks are the best players in the world. The ARU and SARU have a significant bargaining chip they are giving away by letting them be selected from European comps. One of the greatest selling points of Super Rugby is that it features these players and substituting them with inferior players is not going to grow the competition.

I agree that the problem with the unions is that they are far too focused on test rugby. Hence I’d like to see the unions give up some control of Super Rugby, encourage greater private investment and ownership and allow a greater spread of test players throughout the conferences.

I think this policy is the beginning of a huge mistake. It’s basically putting the European clubs up on a pedestal, on a goal players can reach. And as Super Rugby’s quality gets eroded so to will the criteria for remaining eligible overseas.

nick, I agree we can’t compete by ourselves. But as part of a global competition with centralised revenue sharing we can. And we have been. The new broadcast deal is increasing significantly due to global TV rights. This will only increase further if expansion into Japan and hopefully further into Asia is successful.

There’s 5 professional teams in Australia. England and France are bigger markets, but they have many more teams that split up the market. And the potential market size of Super Rugby once Japan and Argentina are added is bigger than England plus France plus the Celtic nations.

Rugby fans in Australia are used to following a competition with the best players in the world competing in it. Take that away and I think teams will be much less popular. People always bring up the A-League, but soccer is a more popular sport. Just imagine if the A-League was the best soccer league in the world, featuring many of the best players in the world. It’d be a lot more popular than it is now.

I’m just trying not to lose my head mate!

The Argentinian Union have: http://rugbyworldcup-argentina2023.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/professionalism-rugby-argentinas-future.html

I guess we’ll find out if it will work or not from 2016. One positive for them is that their team will essentially be playing with each other all season. During Super Rugby they’ll undoubtedly experiment and rotate players a bit.

Hopefully only 1 team in Argentina is a temporary situation and there will soon be 2 or more.

Ultimately yes, though the number of subscribers needs to be high enough.

Spotify, for example, makes something like 10 times as much revenue from subscriptions than it does from the advertising on its free service (and the free service has more users than the paid service).

So New Zealanders would coach both Hemispheres?

I would certainly watch, but ultimately I would be hoping for a good game of rugby. I wouldn’t really care who won. I doubt more casual fans of rugby would be interested. A hemisphere is not a region. Maybe if you had Europe vs Oceania it would create a bit more passion from fans, but I think even that would still have a very exhibition type feel.

Best to keep such matches for one off charity events IMO.

It’d just be an all stars exhibition match that was kind of fun for the occasional one off but ultimately no one would really care about the result. I don’t think many people feel much of a connection to their hemisphere.

I think Fiji will definitely be a threat. They look like they’ve got more depth than ever and if the coaching staff can get the team confident and well prepared then anything could happen.

Even their best domestic players have done pretty well recently in the Pacific Challenge – only losing by 2 points to the Argentina Pampas (containing several capped Pumas) last week. And they have another chance to play them in the final on Monday.

Agree 100% Owen. I think professional rugby would go the way of basketball in Australia if we abandoned the SANZAR alliance. Super Rugby has a long way to go and the only way it will compete commercially with Europe in the long term is by becoming a bigger global competition. By successfully expanding into Asia more money will flow into Australian rugby and that will allow greater investment in the game domestically.

The Currie Cup, NPC and NRC trophies could perhaps one day be integrated into the Super Rugby format (due to the conferences system) – and that is the only way you will have test players regularly involved in these competitions.

IMO our world sevens leg shouldn’t be a tournament to ‘spread the game.’ The ARU should be trying to turn it into a genuine major event and Sydney provides the best chance of achieving that. Sydney is the most important market for rugby and it needs events like this to compete with the other codes.

Though I think there is some chance to spread the game by playing it in Sydney. It should appeal to a broader demographic than the traditional rugby supporter base. Younger and more multicultural.