SA to push for bigger Super Rugby
24 Jan 2013
MARK KEOHANE writes South Africa will this year support an expanded Super Rugby competition to accommodate the Kings and Lions. But Pacific Island teams will again miss out.
Any expansion can only happen in 2016 but take it as a given Super Rugby will comprise more teams, but they won’t feature teams from the Pacific Islands because there is no financial gain to be made.
Sanzar CEO Greg Peters told the media Sanzar’s three partners Australia, New Zealand and South Africa would make the decision to expand or not later in 2013.
Argentina, Canada, Japan and the United States are seen as the primary targets. Japan because of the cash cow it promises to be, Argentina as a commitment to the expanded Rugby Championship that featured the Pumas for the first time and Canada and the United States because they are seen as potential cash cows, especially the United States. The word is to have one team from each of those countries.
It is one of the reasons Canada and the United States will play in the Pacific Nations Cup, which again shows how poorly the Island representation of Tonga, Fiji and Samoa are treated within Sanzar.
South Africa has always been seen as the big brother to Samoa in terms of value attributed to playing against Samoa and giving the country’s rugby side as much playing opportunity as possible.
New Zealand and Australia do nothing to promote the virtues of any of the Island teams because financially they offer nothing in terms of broadcasting deals.
‘We are considering whether or not we will include new territories in Super Rugby and one of the factors we’ll be weighing up is their [Canada and United States] competitiveness,’ Peters told The Australian.
‘Super Rugby in its present form is a pretty successful model … and we are not going to water it down. But we’d be derelict in our duty if we didn’t consider expanding into areas. The United States is a very big market and so is Japan and Asia generally. Ultimately it all comes down to what is in the best interests of the three Sanzar parties.’
Peters said player welfare would be a consideration but an expanded competition may allow for the tournament to be split into two pools of 10 teams each, although Australia will definitely not want to lose the conference system and the double-header local derbies. It is proving massive in Australia and the current format gives Australia everything it has wanted in a rugby union tournament that competes with the AFL (Aussie rules) and rugby league’s NRL.
Television audience figures and match attendance were highest in Australian Super Rugby for derby matches and because Australia has no provincial domestic competition Super Rugby doubles as their domestic competition. Just how South Africa and New Zealand agreed to give up so much for Australia to have so much gain is a question that can never be answered by those who did the surrender. If it could they would not have done so.
Ideally South Africa should be playing in a Super Rugby tournament with the best from England and France. Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Japan should have their own Super Rugby tournament. Geographically that makes more sense, but the Celtic nations (Scotland, Ireland and Wales) remain the stumbling block to any South African participation in Europe.
New Zealand knows it can’t do justice to more than five teams, Australia is at its maximum and South Africa’s only need is to ease the political tensions and have all six regions represented. Then it is a matter of which new territories can make the existing Sanzar partners the biggest financial net gain.
Sanzar’s counter argument to the Pacific Islands is that it is the responsibility of the IRB to develop those countries. I don’t buy it, but then Sanzar has never been big on a purchase of morality.
540 Comments
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25 Jan 2013, 12:46 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-499: Yeah….should be fun….or not!
25 Jan 2013, 12:50 pm
@grant10-501: Email me when your 10 week old pup has you cornered at 23:00pm and is leaping at you; biting and tearing anything that moves (in between running round like a lunatic in a fit of the ‘zoomies’)
25 Jan 2013, 12:52 pm
@grant10-483:
Is he allowed to sleep on the bed with you and JustBuggery?
25 Jan 2013, 12:56 pm
@bryce_in_oz-503:
friggenhell…
bwaaahaaaa
that came out the blue
25 Jan 2013, 12:59 pm
@Transformation-487: ja first bafana game.
probably only my 5th live soccer game ever bud.
more of a rugby and cricket fan.
25 Jan 2013, 13:00 pm
@bryce_in_oz-503:
only if luke isnt visiting.
25 Jan 2013, 13:03 pm
@bryce_in_oz-503: Sheezus
25 Jan 2013, 13:12 pm
@The Rangerman-506:
Einapoes.
25 Jan 2013, 13:19 pm
@gunther-508:
25 Jan 2013, 13:20 pm
@gunther-508:
Gaan was jou mond met seep uit.
25 Jan 2013, 13:27 pm
@TooMuchRugby-510: latin, engils and now afrikaans.
is there no end to your talent?
25 Jan 2013, 13:29 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-502: Any advice will be much appreciated…
25 Jan 2013, 13:30 pm
@bryce_in_oz-503: Fark…if he get as big as his father he can sleep anywhere he damn well chooses!
25 Jan 2013, 13:35 pm
@grant10-512: You can honesty contact me anytime. Raising rotties…..raising hell
Nah…but any questions etc, get my info from Dawn anytime.
25 Jan 2013, 13:46 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-514: Thanks …Sincerely…
25 Jan 2013, 13:58 pm
@The Rangerman-511:
he’s a cunning linguist for sure.
25 Jan 2013, 14:15 pm
@gunther-516:
Yeah, I know some cunning stunts
25 Jan 2013, 19:35 pm
@gunther-516:
“You might be a cunning linguist, but I am a master debater.” Donald Rumsfeld
26 Jan 2013, 07:37 am
@ufo-518: I thought that was Austin Powers ?
26 Jan 2013, 08:16 am
yeah sb…
it didnt quite ring true when a i found it…
and I should’ve remembered anyway…
thanks for the correction…
26 Jan 2013, 08:36 am
Donald Rumsfeld.
26 Jan 2013, 12:34 pm
Keo beating his patriotic chest with a whole lot of B.S. only the deluded will follow!
26 Jan 2013, 12:34 pm
Keo beating his patriotic chest with a whole lot of B.S only the deluded will follow!
26 Jan 2013, 14:11 pm
@wallabie.-522: give us an example of NZ or Aus helping out their neighbors where rugby is concerned.
26 Jan 2013, 14:17 pm
It is incredibly STUPID for SA to be pushing for 6 teams. It will ultimately be to the detriment of the wider quality of SA’s teams. We cannot sustain 5 teams let alone 6. All for POLITICAL so-called expediency. It boggles the mind.
I just hope that the Kings get SMASHED by all and sundry this year and SARU and the politicians realise their mistake. Super rugby is not the place for “development”.
I would support a call for a reduction to the number of teams in Super rugby, to once more make it “Super”.
26 Jan 2013, 16:54 pm
Eastern cape needs top rugby. Tired of seeing the lions take woodenspoon
26 Jan 2013, 17:04 pm
In 10 years the lions have not add anything to SA rugby. Bet u the kings will do more in 3 years than the lions ever did. Its time to move in a different direction.standig still is not helping anyone.
26 Jan 2013, 17:24 pm
Lions haven’t done anything in 10years, its time to move on. Bet u kings will add more value in 3 years. Doing the same thing and think things are gonna be different is stupid.
26 Jan 2013, 17:33 pm
Kings to set spectacular new points difference records. Supersport to change their table graphics to accomodate another digit.
27 Jan 2013, 21:42 pm
@stormer in a teacup-524:
You sure you want to go down that road?
You guys think SA is helping Samoa by playing them 2 times more than NZ and Ozzie?? Is that the big brother thing here?
Well lets put it this way… about 80% of the Samoan team is paid by Kiwi dollars. They play in NZ competitions and learn rugby in NZ……
28 Jan 2013, 00:41 am
@stormer in a teacup-524:
I was commenting on Keo B.S story and not how well aussies are doing for development.
28 Jan 2013, 03:04 am
love the whole “SA is doing more for the islands” rugby fantasy going on here..
40 years ago NONE of the Samoan players would have been allowed into the country..
lets not forget, it was a SA journalist who expressed his dismay that supporters in NZ were cheering “coloured” players..
eina, now they are the bastions of helping island rugby?
hahahaha .hysterical stuff..
28 Jan 2013, 03:18 am
@the curse-532:
It is rather funny..in a warped kinda way…
28 Jan 2013, 03:33 am
@Te Rangatira-533: perhaps they could “coconut tackle” the issue?
28 Jan 2013, 03:56 am
@the curse-534:
or even give Bryan Williams South African status…
28 Jan 2013, 03:58 am
@Te Rangatira-535:
true dat bro
he was the first Moan player that SA “helped”
now they assist the whole nation, not just their rugby players…unlike us kiwi, we only allowed 200 thousand plus to move to our country so we could poach approx. 30 AB quality rugby players..
28 Jan 2013, 04:23 am
@the curse-536:
I wonder if that ‘HELP’ was on a temporary basis though….does he still enjoy that status to this day?
28 Jan 2013, 05:52 am
@Te Rangatira-537: I’m not sure, but I guess he will always have “honorary” status
whatever that means
29 Jan 2013, 03:27 am
Oh, well, that’s 3 potential point donors. Nice move. How about 10 teams per conference?
29 Jan 2013, 21:47 pm
@i_love_u_bakkiesbotha-218: “it would be a meeeting of equals, ‘brothers’ if you will as opposed to ‘two kissing cousins and the family friend they dont like.”
Couldn’t agree more, the level roughly is the same.
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