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Super Rugby can revive itself with a quasi-American model
The Chiefs-Crusaders clash in front of a sold out local crowd in Hamilton was a shot in the arm for Super Rugby this year.
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It was a classic derby between two quality teams, with an energetic crowd that was hanging on the edge of their seats.
However, that it has taken 10 weeks to have a sellout in New Zealand does highlight issues: this should be happening far more frequently.
It can’t be denied that Super Rugby Pacific has to keep evolving to find a footing in the modern era.
The competition suffers from a number of issues; the overall parity across teams, fan apathy towards majority of the teams, lack of wider media coverage, and the competition playoff structure.
The goal of Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby should be to create an entertainment product worth more than the All Blacks and Wallabies, not to have a competition subservient to those teams.
The South African split from Super Rugby still presents a unique opportunity to re-structure the league and adopt a quasi-American model to address the flaws with the competition.
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There is a widely held belief that Australia can’t handle more than four teams, and that New Zealand can’t sustain more. That might be true under the current operating model but could be misguided under a different one.
New Zealand’s provincial competition had 14 teams in the mid-2000s. Sydney’s Shute Shield club competition in Australia built its own viable TV broadcast with 12 teams recently which attracted crowds in the tens of thousands.
What is possible is only limited by the people running it and the rules they come up with. Change the rules and new realities open up.
Rugby continues to want more cash but at the same time doesn’t want to change in order to earn it. Growth has to be achieved by finding a new way, otherwise it will continue to shrink.
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One of the biggest commercial failings of New Zealand Rugby is not finding a way to work with Rugby Australia to get a piece of the Australian sports market, which is competitive, but a much, much larger pie than their own.
If they can work together on re-imagining Super Rugby into an elite sporting league and agree on a new revenue sharing model, they will both end up in much stronger positions if it is a success.
Taking steps to address the unequal distribution of playing talent across Super Rugby is a necessity to achieving that.
New Zealand’s stronger playing pool is not shared, leaving Australian teams to remain behind them most of the time. A ton of young New Zealand players that could be playing simply aren’t.
We hear frequently of New Zealand fans lack of interest in watching Australian teams play and even trans-Tasman clashes if their own team isn’t featuring.
All Blacks and Wallabies’ eligibility must be expanded within Super Rugby to spread the playing resources, breaking the current mould.
As long as players are contracted within in the competition, they can remain available for international duty.
That alone is not going to guarantee top All Blacks will head to the Force or Rebels, but the option of such a move needs to be possible.
Once new boundaries around international eligibility allow for a flow of talent across the Tasman, a draft system for Super Rugby is needed.
Under the current model, Super Rugby clubs run their own academies and develop the talent that they recruit coming out of school.
Much of the talent is often already coming from another region outside of their own.
This aspect can be maintained but with new financial rewards for the clubs who develop players into high draft picks.
Academy players would enter a three-year period of development in the club’s own system, before becoming eligible for a Super Rugby draft at around 20 or 21 years of age, or sooner if the team agrees.
Super Rugby teams won’t be able to keep all the talent that they nurture, but will be rewarded for investing in their development.
The governing body can set tiered bonuses payable to Super Rugby teams based on where their academy players are drafted.
These payments in turn can be used to help sign and retain experienced players, or invest further in development programmes to reap the rewards available.
A club with a strong development programme effectively has a new profit centre, flipping young players in the draft for bonuses from the governing body.
By commercialising the Super Rugby draft as an annual event, TV rights and sponsorship deals would likely be significant once it becomes established.
The draft mechanism will ensure that talent is distributed fairly among teams to attempt to keep parity, along with bringing a hype-building fan event that brings exposure and excitement for new players on new teams.
The four bottom Super Rugby Pacific teams at the moment are based in Perth, Melbourne, Fiji and Auckland. Those destinations are not bad places to live for what is essentially a four-month competition.
Australian and New Zealand citizens can move freely and work between the two countries, however Fijian players may be subject to visa-requirements.
The length and maximum salary permitted for draft picks would need to be agreed between teams and player associations, but high draft picks would have to be rewarded more than what young Super Rugby players are currently.
If a top prospect can be rewarded handsomely at 21 years old, the incentive is there to take up deals with weaker teams.
A three-year max length deal allows for the player to reach free agency at 24-25 years of age where they could choose to return home or move to another team of their choice.
A proper free agency signing window would allow for players to reach the end of an agreement and test the market should they desire to do so.
Inter-league player movement is great for the competition to maintain the media spotlight and keep fans engaged, which currently is nearly non-existent. It creates theatre, fuels rivalries and a cycle of fan interest that is currently missing.
Every player and coach lost to European leagues, and now Japanese leagues, diminishes Super Rugby.
When Beauden Barrett left the Hurricanes for the Blues, his transformation from hero to villain and the emotional response from the Hurricanes fans added a sense of tribalism and meaning.
His return to Wellington in 2020 produced one of the biggest crowds at Sky Stadium for a Hurricanes’ game in years.
That is the pulling power of a good storyline that seems to be lost on rugby administrators currently. Narratives draw in viewers and become part of the on-field story.
Barrett’s deal was good business for the Blues and there was a silver lining for the Hurricanes, but that still wasn’t capitalised on enough with promotion.
Keeping high-profile names within the Super Rugby eco-system has to be a priority for both New Zealand Rugby and Rugby Australia.
Once interest is re-captured in the competition and the commercial value grows, more options become available.
Salary caps for clubs will rise, growing a bigger pie to ward off suitors in Japan and France.
Top NRL prospects may actually have to consider the Super Rugby draft if it means a much bigger payday than a bargain basement squad deal.
The Chiefs-Crusaders clash was great, but shouldn’t that be happening every week? Super Rugby doesn’t have much to lose anymore but has everything to gain.
A total re-model by adopting a draft and free agency will move the competition towards an entertainment product unrivalled in either code.
For Rugby Australia and New Zealand Rugby, they have to think bigger than the Wallabies and All Blacks.
There is a professional league they could own which could be worth a lot more.
Comments on RugbyPass
After their 5/0 start, I had the Crusaders to finish Top 4 only…they lost the plot in Perth but will reload and back themselves vs 4th placed Rebels…
3 Go to commentsBoth nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world. I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen. I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
3 Go to commentsIt will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
2 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
3 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
28 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
3 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
3 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to comments