Allan Alaalatoa of the Brumbies leads his team onto the field during the Super Rugby Pacific Semi Final match between the Blues and the Brumbies. Photo / Getty Images.
Allan Alaalatoa of the Brumbies leads his team onto the field during the Super Rugby Pacific Semi Final match between the Blues and the Brumbies. Photo / Getty Images.
Super Rugby Pacific is set to make one giant post-season change by effectively firing Sanzaar as manager of the competition.
The vexed Sydney-based body will be replaced by an independent transtasman governance group that is expected to have a remit to drive commercial revenue for the competition, oversee rules andregulations, shape the future strategic direction and generate fan-first initiatives.
The move is happening as the key initiative in a strategic plan to win back fans and return Super Rugby to being the world's best club competition rather than an elongated trial for the All Blacks and Wallabies.
It is also being viewed as a means to provide Rugby Australia with greater confidence that they should remain part of Super Rugby beyond 2023 – following news that some of their board are keen to pull out in 2024 and build their own domestic competition.
RA chairman Hamish McLennan told Fox Sports that they are strongly considering ending the partnership after 2023.
"We'll honour our commitments in '23 but we need to see what's best for rugby in Australia leading up to the RWC in Australia in '27," McLennan said.
"All bets are off from '24 onwards with NZ."
Parting ways with Sanzaar, which has run, managed and administered Super Rugby since its launch in 1996, is the second biggest change in the competition's history behind the unilateral decision by New Zealand Rugby in 2020 to no longer include South African teams.
The decision to set up a new company to run Super Rugby has been driven by a newfound desire among the national unions of New Zealand and Australia to give the competition a stronger, independent identity and the clubs greater say and control in what they want.
Sanzaar, which runs with a small body of full-time staff based in Sydney, is governed by a nine-person executive committee, eight of whom are the chief executives and chairs of the New Zealand, Australian, South African and Argentinean national unions.
Luke Reimer of the Brumbies is tackled by Tom Robinson (L) and Mark Telea of the Blues during the Super Rugby Pacific Semi Final match between the Blues and the Brumbies. Photo / Getty Images.
It is deemed by the clubs to be conflicted as it primarily exists to protect and promote the interests of the national bodies it represents and its decision-making over the last two decades has reflected its desire to put the international game ahead of Super Rugby.
Super Rugby has been detrimentally impacted by ongoing national body-enforced restrictions on how often specific test players can play, the granting of sabbaticals to chosen individuals so they can skip seasons and yet still be eligible for test rugby and in 2007, NZR sanctioned a plan to keep 22 All Blacks out of action for more than half of that year's competition.
The competition has also been a victim of ill-conceived expansion plans that were devised by the national bodies and in the last few years, Super Rugby has experienced a sharp drop-off in audience interest, with stadium attendance and broadcast figures both in decline.
While Sanzaar will continue to manage the Rugby Championship, its conflicted governance and failed history has left it as an untenable option to continue to manage Super Rugby.
The new body, which as yet does not have a name, is expected to have a small number of full-time staff – operating under secondment from their national bodies at first - on both sides of the Tasman, who will be overseen by a board of directors drawn from New Zealand and Australia.
Nominations for the board have already opened and the final composition is likely to include a professional player representative and someone with extensive political experience as the competition is looking to forge closer ties with the governments of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and New Zealand and Australian states.
The primary focus for the new group will initially be establishing a new, unified marketing, communications and digital strategy for Super Rugby.
As a sign of how poorly Sanzaar has performed, the competition doesn't have a universally-recognised official source of information where fans can find fixtures, team news, statistics, and highlights.
Nor does it have a centralised communication team empowered to unveil key initiatives and happenings – but instead some updates come via Sanzaar's media officer, while others are left to the national unions of New Zealand and Australia.
One other key priority for the new company will be to quickly become a leading voice in establishing a global club championship.
Negotiations have already begun at World Rugby level to free up space in the international calendar for potentially a biannual competition where the leading Super Rugby clubs are pitted against their equivalents from Europe and Japan.
The possible financial returns from such a venture are significant and the Super Rugby clubs, aware of how previous attempts to launch something of this scale have failed, want a strong advocate around the table to represent their interests.
The new company is hoping it will have a board in place by August this year.
