SANZAAR to cut 3 teams in 2018

[Kiwiwomble]

I think it's to do with the extra internationals too...although that's just playing the same guys just in their international jerseys...

I rather have a proper super comp and less internationals I think

 

[CocoPampas]

I get the difficulties with travel, but they managed it from 1996 to 2010, a total of 15 years.

But in 2010 the travel factor actually was a big claim from the players, and now 2 new countries have been included in the equation.

- - - Updated - - -

No one's going to be happy with any given solution but if we expand the competition to that degree we are going to have no choice but to create a Heineken Cup/Champions League type format. When you get 20+ teams across 4 continents, it's just not possible for all the teams to play each other.

Sure, but I prefer the conference concept than the Cup concept. Because you need guarantee a minimum amount of matches for all the teams.
This is why I think that having 4 conferences is a better aproach than having only 3.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

Edit: said something and then did more research and I realised I was wrong

 

[smartcooky]

I get the difficulties with travel, but they managed it from 1996 to 2010, a total of 15 years.

From 1996 to 2005, there were only 12 teams (Super 12) - 5 NZL, 3 AUS, 4 SAF. The whole competition was only 13 weeks long including the post season.

South African teams would play no more than four teams away from their home country either
- One AUS team and three NZL teams, or
- Two AUS teams and two NZL teams.

This meant a 4½-5 week tour

After 2005, an extra SAF and AUS team was added (Super 14) so the length of the competition was extended out to 16 weeks including the post season and a bye round

For south Africa the travel schedule was increased by up to 20%.
- Two AUS teams and three NZL teams, or
- Two AUS teams and two SAF teams.

It was about this time that concerns were starting to be expressed about travel.

 

[stadetousain90]

Only in Australia...

Also in NZ, I think. I am thinking solely of timezones. NZ-AUS is just more convenient.

I also believe that North Americans, like myself, would have a harder time getting into a NZ-RSA competition. Although, I am aware that it probably wouldn't matter to y'all.

 

[nik]

Makes me wonder :-

1. why New Zealand can keep their players and be competitive with half the money of the South Africans?
2. why have a conference system if it means more games, especially when the conference system appears to be unpopular with fans?

1. NZ still want more money. They are definitely not happy with the money they get - hence ABs go around playing matches in Chicago etc. I don't think they can get a greater piece of the SANZAAR deal pie - this probably due to viewership in each country. However if the SANZAAR deal increases in total - than NZ gets a bigger cut proportionally. This is driving change behind the sudden Super Rugby structural changes. Estimates must have indicated that the next deal isn't going to be good enough which will result in more players being bled to european clubs. We are just managing to keep the front line ABs. But our fringe and bench players are getting pillaged. Cruden, Luatua TKB could all go and play the next world cup. But NZR just cannot compete if the players is 2nd 3rd etc. in the pecking order

2. Whilst the conference structure is not popular - the derby matches in South Africa seems to get the the greatest number of viewers - hence more money from broadcasting point of view.

 

[stadetousain90]

Whilst the conference structure is not popular - the derby matches in South Africa seems to get the the greatest number of viewers - hence more money from broadcasting point of view.

Oddly enough, all the South Africans I talk to tend to complain about the derby matches in Super Rugby. They claim it is too similar to the Currie Cup, and hence, not as important as playing the Kiwis.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

No one's going to be happy with any given solution but if we expand the competition to that degree we are going to have no choice but to create a Heineken Cup/Champions League type format. When you get 20+ teams across 4 continents, it's just not possible for all the teams to play each other.

That or make it a two tier competition. I'd love a top 12 and bottom 12 with promo/relegation matches and the top two of the bottom tier to be positions 7 and 8 for play-offs.

Makes me wonder :-

1. why New Zealand can keep their players and be competitive with half the money of the South Africans?
2. why have a conference system if it means more games, especially when the conference system appears to be unpopular with fans?

If I remember correctly the Aussies pushed for conferences and derbies so that SR could act as a substitute for not having had a domestic league. The effect in SA has been that we just have to watch the derbies but it becomes too much and then the Currie Cup suffers becuase you get tired of watching Stormers vs Bulls if it happens 5 times a year.

As for your first question. A whole lot of that has to do with the centralized structure of the NZRU and SARU essentially being a money bag for corrupt officials from 14 provinces in SA. SARU has a mandate to funnel money into previously disadvantaged communities but I am sorry to I am very skeptical and wondering how many hands dip into the purse while the money gets 'directed'. The SARU CEO, Jurie Roux, is also dodging financial fraud charges in a way that'd make Jacob Zuma proud.

 

[TRF_heineken]

Makes me wonder :-

1. why New Zealand can keep their players and be competitive with half the money of the South Africans?
2. why have a conference system if it means more games, especially when the conference system appears to be unpopular with fans?

Remember that not all that money goes to the union, it goes to the broadcaster and to the union, and then distribution takes place.

The other issue is that New Zealand uses centralised contracts where the NZRU gives contracts to the players, whereas South Africa's franchises have the contracts with their players, not SARU. So when distribution takes place, each franchise gets a portion, and then the franchise pay their players. The watering down of money becomes less and less by the time it reaches the player's pocket. It's one thing that SARU is looking at changing and also introducing the centralised contract system.

Because the fans want the old strength vs. strength system back from the Super 12 and Super 14 days. Where every team played once against each other, and the teams that got the most points on the log, would go through to the playoffs.

With the conference system, All the teams miss out at playing all the teams, ie. Each SA team will miss out at playing one AUS and one NZ conference team. The possibility is that some teams will be more advantaged from this. For example, the Lions miss out on playing the Force and the Blues, who are currently the 2 weakest teams in their conference, so the Lions will play the tougher teams in that conference, which could mean that they miss out on at least 10 Log points. Whereas the Stormers miss out on playing the Brumbies and the Chiefs, so they get an easier route and miss out on playing the 2 strongest teams in their conferences. They have a bigger chance of getting more log points.

Oddly enough, all the South Africans I talk to tend to complain about the derby matches in Super Rugby. They claim it is too similar to the Currie Cup, and hence, not as important as playing the Kiwis.

Oh I wouldn't say that. Yes, our Derby matches are gruelling, but they are very important, and for me the main priority for SA teams. Then the Kiwis and then the Aussies, followed by the Sunwolves and the Jaguares.

I think many of us have the thinking that the Derby matches show which players are going to be in the Springbok jersey. As we see the Super Rugby as the trials for the International season. Then we look at how our guys do against our biggest rival, the All Blacks, so we see how our guys do against their teams. We measure ourselves against the All Blacks, and no other team, so we don't really care what happens in the other matches. As long as we can be competitive against NZ, and have a chance at beating the All Blacks, we will be happy.

 

[saulan]

Also in NZ, I think. I am thinking solely of timezones. NZ-AUS is just more convenient.

I also believe that North Americans, like myself, would have a harder time getting into a NZ-RSA competition. Although, I am aware that it probably wouldn't matter to y'all.

Yes, but that loss in New Zealand from lack of Australia doesn't outweigh the loss of South Africa's viewers. and on the North American front, you guys have a hard time getting into the competition already, my friend in LA has no interest in attempting to watch it because it's apparently a mountain of a cost to watch through the services available. In addition, that North American factor doesn't outweigh the European factor, who already have a strong interest in watching rugby, which would suffer if SA were dropped.

Oddly enough, all the South Africans I talk to tend to complain about the derby matches in Super Rugby. They claim it is too similar to the Currie Cup, and hence, not as important as playing the Kiwis.

I disagree with Heineken on this. It is too much, and clearly people in South Africa do feel this way because of the weigh South Africans have stopped attending and watching Currie Cup matches. Super Rugby matches give us two clashes between some teams at the start of the year, but by the time we get to the Currie Cup, we have seen it already and now we may watch it another three times? If we scrap the double derbies in Super Rugby I am sure we will have more interest back into the Currie Cup. We didn't want them, Australia did because they had no other domestic league to follow.

 

[TRF_heineken]

I disagree with Heineken on this. It is too much, and clearly people in South Africa do feel this way because of the weigh South Africans have stopped attending and watching Currie Cup matches. Super Rugby matches give us two clashes between some teams at the start of the year, but by the time we get to the Currie Cup, we have seen it already and now we may watch it another three times? If we scrap the double derbies in Super Rugby I am sure we will have more interest back into the Currie Cup. We didn't want them, Australia did because they had no other domestic league to follow.

There would be a lot of mixed reactions on this matter. And I just gave my opinion as I see it.

But for me personally, the issue is more of a financial one than an overload one. For example. Every year I try to attend a Springbok match, and I try to be part of a group as I have to travel at least 300km's to the nearest stadium where they play. So the cost involved is a lot.

I wouldn't go through that hassle for a Currie Cup game, so me and my friends are automatically out of the picture, because the cost involved of going to the game itself. But that doesn't necessarily mean we don't watch the game, we'll watch it from home.

The issue is that at the moment, our Country's financial climate limits you so much, that there just isn't enough money to go to matches as often as we used to in the past. I used to attend at least 2 Super Rugby matches at Loftus every year, but I haven't been financially capable to do that the last 3 years.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

I'm also against the conference system. I'd rather all teams play each other once. Variety in SR, derbies in CC. I mean you still get to play your countrymen but ech team once apart from play-offs is enough for SR for me.

 

[Jaguares]

As an outsider I think the most credible rumours I have heard are Kings, Cheetahs and Rebels cut, with Brumbies relocating to Melbourne. Melbourne has a population roughly the same as Scotland and NZ whereas Canberra is only 350,000.

I think this will be a bad decision in the medium to long term for SA and Oz rugby. SA because the Lions and now Stormers are already showing they can compete at the top level and therefore SA can support 6 teams and still compete for the ***le. Bad for Oz because they are living in another planet to me if they think they are magically going to compete with one or two less sides. Their best bet of regaining their standing internationally is long term investment in the big cities of Perth and Melbourne. Plus, if it reverts to round robin we can probably rule out seeing an Oz side in the playoffs for the next decade.

The Chiefs losing Cruden, Lowe and Rennie is a sign of things to come and increased European poaching will naturally bring the NZ clubs back into the clutches of the SA ones as Europe can now poach A rated NZ talent with the widening gulf in TV money. There was no need to cut teams to try and "level the playing field".

The Rebels have private owners. They want to sell their license for 3.75 million USD or something like that but the ARU doesnt have the money.

And yes, Melbourne is the second largest city in Oceania and I heard that is going to pass Sydney in population in the next decades but is a very competitive sports market, it's the Aussie Rules heartland. Most of the Victorians are mad AFL supporters. That market is even hard for the NRL and they have more money to invest than the ARU and League in OZ is 5 or 6 times bigger than Rugby Union. Melbourne Storm has more members right now but they are far away of the biggest AFL teams and most of their players are from QLD or NSW, they can't produce their own players. And it's probably that many of their supporters are Kiwis expats, as you can see in the Rebels games, who prefer watch NRL/Super Rugby over AFL.

 

[Jaguares]

I think you are mistaking ineptitude by the Oz union to nurture talent and engage the public with a cast iron excuse to withdraw from markets of massive potential. There is not a 100% physical crossover between ideal body types for AFL, NRL and Super Rugby. Of course it makes it harder for Super Rugby clubs to compete for crossover talent but in cities of 2 and 5 million with Perth and Melbourne there is plenty of physical specimens to choose from and the physical priorities of AFL (e.g. a big boot and vertical leap) are only a small facet of union play.

I think talent from nations like Georgia, Argentina and now Brazil would cost buttons and improve squad depth.

And they are still retaining conferences (correctly in opinion) so this will do nothing to reduce the media clamour of "I can't understand four conference tables"!

You all make fair points, they just aren't ones I think outway retreating at a time when rugby globally is proving increasingly popular.

Let's flip this around. What do those in favours of this development expect to be the benefit next year? An Oz side that is better than the worst NZ side? An Oz side in the semis? An SA champion? I'd be interested in folks predictions of the improvements that will arise in the short, medium and long term from this move. What can we expect from it?

You don't understand the point

Australian sporting market is something like this:

Victoria: AFL
Western Australia: AFL
South Australia: AFL
Tasmania: AFL
Queensland: Rugby League
New South Wales: Rugby League
ACT: Rugby Union/Rugby League

Probably ACT is the only state where rugby union is at the top, the smallest state, where the Brumbies just have to compete against the Raiders. The most succesful Aussie Super Rugby franchise against an average NRL club, and the fight is almost a draw, they have the same fan base. Canberra doesnt have any soccer team or AFL team. In QLD and NSW, Rugby Union is the younger brother of Rugby League. The Broncos are probably the most popular NRL club and they have more supporters than the Wallabies. They play their average games at Suncorp stadium in front of 30k/40k people, meanwhile the Wallabies are struggling to get 40k for a Bledisloe test match every 2 years there.

NSW have ten NRL clubs and most of them are the same size as Waratahs, the only Super Rugby franchise there. Sydney Roosters have the same amount of supporters but then you have Rabbitohs, Panthers, Sharks, Bulldog, Dragons, Manly, West Tigers and others 4. And the difference in elite talent is big between both codes.

An easy example. For the WC 2015 two of the best backs in both codes competed for the Wallabies fullback spot. One of the best backs in recent years of Aussie Rugby Union (Kurtley Beale) against one of the best NRL backs in recent years (Israel Folau). And eveybody knows that Izzy won that battle, that's the difference between League and Union in OZ. I mean, Union is good there but League is even better.

An State of Origin team with Rugby Union knowledge would smash the All Blacks. Top NRL players like Andrew Johns, Johnathan Thurston and Cameron Smith playing Rugby Union for years could have been better than Richie McCaw or Dan Carter. But NZ only has 5 Super Rugby franchises, the NRL has 15 franchises/clubs, plus the traditional Super Rugby franchises like Brumbies, Reds, Tahs and you have something like 18 professional sides with the same size of any NZ franchise.

 

[galumay]

One thing all this passionate diescussion shows is that there is no easy solution to the problems facing Super Rugby and there are just about as many ideas about what is wrong and how to fix it as there are people talking about it!

All of this implies its extremely unlikely SANZAR's changes will end up anything more than fiddling round the edges, we will not have addressed the underlying issues and still retain things like the unpopular conference system. I dont see the basic proposal of 3 less teams changing anything going forward, NZ will still dominate, Aus & SA teams will still muddle along and the experiment with SW and Jaguares will be no less unsuccessful.

Even after reading 5 pages of high quality discussion about the changes and other possible ideas, I am still of a view that nothing will materially change unless the whole concept of Super Rugby is redesigned from the start, with the first step being to detirmine whether its even practicable to have a Southern Hemisphere rugby comp involving such geographically distant countries.

 

[smartcooky]

I am still of a view that nothing will materially change unless the whole concept of Super Rugby is redesigned from the start, with the first step being to detirmine whether its even practicable to have a Southern Hemisphere rugby comp involving such geographically distant countries.

It worked well from 1996 to 2010 when it was Super 12/14. It would have worked well as Super 15 if they had stuck to the same formula; full round robin with the top six on merit playing in the post season (which was the NZRU's proposal).

The ARU wanted a Conference system because they lacked a second tier competition due to the fact that, with a massive dose of short-shortsightedness, they dumped the one they already started, the ARC .in 2007 SARU also wanted a Conference system, but their reason was to get at least one guaranteed home post season match.

The original idea of the Conference system was that everyone would play the other teams in their own conference twice (one home, one away) and then they would play all of the other ten teams in the other two conferences once, five at home and five away. Unfortunately, SARU threw a spanner in the works because they steadfastly refused to start Super Rugby early enough, and refused to let it run into the beginning of their Currie Cup, which the did not want to move. The result was that we ended up with a half-arsed version of a Conference system in which some teams didn't meet at all.... it was flawed from the outset, and the mechanics of the system we ended up with (reserved post-season spots for Conference winners plus wildcards) was purely down to self-interest from the ARU and SARU. Had SANZAR adopted a proper Conference System, things might have worked a lot better.

Things got even worse when South Africa, in a fit of pork-barrel politics, demanded a sixth team but still refused to compromise on start dates each season, which meant they had to shoehorn the season into an even more complicated Conference System.

They (SANZAR) had a really good competition in Super 12/14. It was functional, credible, fair and easy to understand, but the whole expansion thing has been a completely mismanaged cock-up. IMO, as a competition, it has gone downhill since 2011.

 

[The Jones Boy]

I'm fine with the three teams chosen leaving the comp.
I just wish the Rebels could go as well.
Stronger teams makes for a stronger competition and for the fans more enjoyable rugby.
It also leads to stronger national teams.

 

[mdaclarke]

It worked well from 1996 to 2010 when it was Super 12/14. It would have worked well as Super 15 if they had stuck to the same formula; full round robin with the top six on merit playing in the post season (which was the NZRU's proposal).

The ARU wanted a Conference system because they lacked a second tier competition due to the fact that, with a massive dose of short-shortsightedness, they dumped the one they already started, the ARC .in 2007 SARU also wanted a Conference system, but their reason was to get at least one guaranteed home post season match.

The original idea of the Conference system was that everyone would play the other teams in their own conference twice (one home, one away) and then they would play all of the other ten teams in the other two conferences once, five at home and five away. Unfortunately, SARU threw a spanner in the works because they steadfastly refused to start Super Rugby early enough, and refused to let it run into the beginning of their Currie Cup, which the did not want to move. The result was that we ended up with a half-arsed version of a Conference system in which some teams didn't meet at all.... it was flawed from the outset, and the mechanics of the system we ended up with (reserved post-season spots for Conference winners plus wildcards) was purely down to self-interest from the ARU and SARU. Had SANZAR adopted a proper Conference System, things might have worked a lot better.

Things got even worse when South Africa, in a fit of pork-barrel politics, demanded a sixth team but still refused to compromise on start dates each season, which meant they had to shoehorn the season into an even more complicated Conference System.

They (SANZAR) had a really good competition in Super 12/14. It was functional, credible, fair and easy to understand, but the whole expansion thing has been a completely mismanaged cock-up. IMO, as a competition, it has gone downhill since 2011.

Agree 100%, If I were in charge, I would ditch the conference system and only 2 teams (1 South African (Kings) and 1 Australian (Rebels/Force)) Then each team would play each other once, 15 games plus play offs. Ideally I'd like to go to 15 and ditch the Sunwolves but I understand the fear is that the Japanese teams will start poaching players again.

If we had to have a conference system then I'd do as suggested, play each team in conference twice and every other team once. At least then each team players every other team.

 

[InsaneAsylum]

Australian wont be losing any teams anytime soon, the only thing that will be losing is the ARU

 

[die_mole]

I think SANZAAR needs to figure out what they want Super Rugby to be. Until then we are going to be having arguments about expansion/contraction/season format every single year.