New Zealand Rugby weigh-up shock Super Rugby Pacific exit at crunch meeting as ‘bombshell’ report reveals three drastic measures
Three options have been tabled ahead of a crunch meeting in Wellington.
New Zealand Rugby and its stakeholders will discuss three proposals on the future of the game in Aotearoa during crunch meetings in Wellington on Thursday, according to a report.
New Zealand’s continued participation in Super Rugby Pacific will be one of the options discussed, according to The Post journalist Paul Cully, who has obtained the NZ Rugby document titled Rugby Summit – Men’s Elite Competition Possible Options.
Bombshell option B: ditching Super Rugby Pacific
The bombshell option to ditch Super Rugby Pacific would see a new 8-10 team national competition to replace the southern hemisphere’s premier club tournament as well as the NPC.
The report emphasises the fact that the push to replace Super Rugby with this tournament “does not reflect NZ Rugby’s position and has originated from the provincial unions setting the scene for a showdown before NZ Rugby makes a decision on the future in late October.”
Under this proposal, all other rugby underneath this competition would be deemed amateur, with each of the 8-10 teams receiving player payments of $8m-$10m, and would be run by provincial unions.
This would allow possible private investments into the unions, while NZ Rugby would supply the licences to the teams. NZRPA chief executive Rob Nichol floated a similar idea to the same publication in February this year with the report stating that cutting Australian Rugby adrift would “be the biggest change to rugby since the sport went professional.”
Furthermore, this isn’t likely to solve the global calendar issue, as it reported that the competition would remain in a similar window to Super Rugby (February-June window) from 2028 – it would also require tough negotiations with Australia to exit the joint Super Rugby venture.
Alternative options
Another option that has been tabled is the expansion of Super Rugby Pacific with New Zealand adding a further two teams.
This is known as Option C in the document with a new entity known as “SPR Hold Co” set up to operate the tournament.
“SRP HoldCo holds cross-border, pooled team commercial rights, funds logistics, marketing. NZR and RA keep broadcast control,” the document states.
The report explains that “the five Super Rugby clubs and their provincial unions would again be amalgamated, reducing the number of high-performance environments from 19 to 14 across the country.”
The document states that this proposal “would require Rugby Australia agreement to be convinced of the financial viability and strategic value of the expansion clubs”.
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Lastly, Option A would see single-city Super Rugby Pacific organisations form a centralised “SRP HoldCo” to operate the competition.
In this proposal, Super Rugby and the NPC would both be unchanged. However, savings would be made by combining the five New Zealand Super Rugby clubs with the provincial unions based in their city.
This could result in a saving of around $5.75m a year for NZ Rugby, according to the 2024 Men’s Pathways and Competitions report. Like Option C, this would open the door for more private investment into the Super Rugby clubs and would create the opportunity to pay players “over and above” what NZ Rugby contributes.
The report concludes that NZ Rugby wants to bring a final proposal to its board meeting in early December.