“We saw an opportunity to, every two years, do something interesting around bringing all the teams together,” he told Newstalk ZB’s Jason Pine. “We could create some more tension around those games in July and November and have a global champion at the end of it, in a slightly different format to what we see at the World Cup.
“It provides the fans something to [use to] compare the two hemispheres and how they’re tracking throughout the last six months of any given year. We think it would be fascinating and there will be some great storylines around it.
“Over time, hopefully it grows the strength and identity of a real competition.”
Robinson had been working closely with the Rugby Players’ Association to consider athlete welfare and said each team’s workload would remain the same in Nations Championship years, aside from the addition of a grand final.
Travel complications belong largely to the Northern Hemisphere sides given the different timezones they would encounter each July, but Robinson said those drawbacks would be outweighed by the benefits.
“Any opportunity for the best to be playing against the best, to have something meaningful associated with these games, will be something [the players] will be really excited about,” he said.
“When you look at the next five years for the All Blacks, with the Lions not long after the next World Cup, it’s a pretty exciting time for our players with the level of competition coming.”
That competition does not initially extend to the emerging nations outside of the new big 12, who will be left to face one another in a proposed second-tier competition.
The format and participants were yet to be confirmed, but Robinson stressed the emerging teams would not be altogether barred from the top table, with promotion and relegation between the two competitions hoped to be in place by 2030.
He said: “There’ll be a similar concept stood up as soon as reasonably possible — hopefully to hit 2026 as well — and that’ll give the emerging nations the opportunity to not only get more regular competition among themselves, but then step up and have that right to play promotion-relegation.”
Robinson said there had been strong interest from broadcasters and the new competitions would “create more value” across the global game. Financial considerations aside, he pointed to research showing fans had expressed a desire in the proposal, and it would not detract from the World Cup.
“We think there will still be a very distinctive feel to the World Cup,” he said. “They will be quite different in their dynamic and how they work — different format and different timescale.”
