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Why flick the Sunwolves? They're in by far the biggest economic market out of all the Super Rugby teams, and they're in our time zone! They're also good to watch. Removing teams is not the ideal solution IMO. It'll create a lot of resentment and drama, and will set rugby back in the regions...

I agree with Braveheart that if super rugby was suddenly on FTA every weekend that there probably wouldn't be a noticeable boost in popularity. You only have to look at the AFL's TV ratings in Sydney for example, they're still not that good (and nothing near the NRL ratings) despite decades of...

I don't think there's any chance Australia or New Zealand could have 8 teams each and pay the players what they currently do. I'm also not convinced that separating Australia and New Zealand teams in the regular season portion would be a good thing. Our players definitely benefit from playing...

I hope it happens WCR! The only chance SANZAAR have of competing financially with European Rugby in the long term, and keeping world class domestic based teams in each country, is if we continue to expand our major tournaments into larger world markets. Japan is the most obvious case - the...

Shared colonial history, matching seasons and because the only strong rugby nations outside of Western Europe have traditionally been Australia, NZ and South Africa. Lets face it, when people talk about Northern vs Southern hemisphere in rugby they generally mean UK & Ireland plus France vs...

Longitude matters more than latitude for fans. And from an Australian rugby perspective you'd certainly hope that in the long term world rugby doesn't split into southern and northern hemisphere tournaments because the South would be the very poor cousin! We should at least get Japan in our...

A genuine European championship between world cups would be great. But Germany would be a very lucrative market for the 6 Nations to crack so if they get to a decent enough level I think they'd be straight in. Apparently the world cup and the rugby sevens at the Olympics rated quite well in...

Spain also upset Russia overnight so it seems 2nd tier European rugby could be getting shaken up a bit. Also I bet if Spain and especially Germany get to the level of Georgia that they'll be included in an expanded 6 Nations pretty quickly.

But is this really the best strategy to maximise their bottom line? Surely the majority of people would want to go for 1 day and not many of them would buy a 2 day ticket that's going to go to waste. They're relying on people going out of their way to find others to pay half and go the other...

Not offering 1 day tickets is insane. What are they thinking? Surely they'll make them available in the next week or so.

Well that's not the case at least with TPG, and a quick look at some other cheaper ISP's seems to suggest unlimited means unlimited (they have other plans for 50-200GB where it drops down to 256kbps after you pass the limit). Maybe that's not the case with the likes of Telstra, but that's why...

Unlimited broadband is offered by everyone now and it isn't that expensive in Australia anymore. I pay $60 per month with TPG for unlimited. And there are a bunch of ISP's charging around the same price, some are even a fair bit cheaper like Dodo.

I don't think Pro Rugby will come back from this, seems they've lost the goodwill they had. It's a shame as a few of the teams showed real promise of developing a fan base. I think there could be an opportunity for SANZAAR to step in and work with the Canadian and US unions to fill the gap. I...

Fittler did pretty well in the 9's a couple of years ago at about the same age and neither Latham or Larkham would put their hand up for it if they thought there was a chance of embarrassing themselves. I doubt either will get a huge amount of minutes and they'll avoid getting tackled with the...

Hopefully he comes back fine, but it can be really bad. I'm a big tennis fan and a few top players have had it. It basically ended Roger Federer's main period of dominance in early 2008, but he was relatively lucky compared to Robin Soderling, who caught it in his prime in 2011 (he was 26 and...

I doubt that a Fijian team would be in a position to negotiate a proportionally equitable share of the broadcast revenue, but they'd be entitled to something. And as said above, money would go a lot further in Fiji. They would bring added value to any TV deal because their matches would provide...

I don't think Tonga would be any chance of being able to support a Super Rugby team. Same as Samoa. Fiji has a chance because of its much bigger population. It'd be more realistic to have a PI team based in Auckland or Western Sydney that played the odd game in Tonga and Samoa.

Brilliant news!! If they really do have that level of investment behind it you'd have to think it will happen.

Fair enough, but there are other reasons too. If it's north / south then it's very heavily skewed towards the north in terms of competitive teams and the size of the markets involved - and thus the commercial potential. A southern hemisphere tournament would be a very poor cousin. This would not...

I think it's changing. See Japan being added to Super Rugby. Pro Rugby in the US is also playing a season much more in line with our season. The main issue is that outside of world cups it's not really ideal to have games played in the middle of the night for any of the fans in the...