S18 on its way

[PaarlBok]

As expected we are well on our way to a S100 in the future.
http://www.espn.co.uk/super-rugby-2013/rugby/story/193559.html

Super Rugby chiefs are seriously considering a significant re-vamp of the competition that will see the current the three-conference system split into two in 2016 and lead to the introduction of two teams from Argentina.
Australian and New Zealand sides will join together in their own conference while South Africa will combine with Argentina in a proposed Super 18 model. Governing body SANZAR are also committed to ensuring recently relegated Southern Kings will be one of six South African teams and leading officials also say there's the possibility of Japanese teams being added in three years' time, but there's plenty of work to be done.
SANZAR aims to finalise its next model by the end of the year, but officials have much to consider before deciding its preferred model. SANZAR chief executive Greg Peters said the timeframe for the competition - currently played over 21 weeks, including three weeks for play-offs - could not be extended, which makes it virtually impossible to keep the current structure if new teams are added as all three national unions want their derby matches to played home and away.
With the rigours of travel to and from South Africa combining to make player welfare a bigger issue, the simplest solution is to create a two-conference split. That would see the Australian and New Zealand teams each play their four derby rivals home and away and the five sides from the other country once for 13 matches before the conferences come together in a six- or eight-team finals series.
Australian Rugby Union (ARU) chief executive Bill Pulver, who is also on SANZAR's executive committee, said the union hadn't decided on its preferred model, but he stressed that five Australian teams would remain in the competition.


"The Kings have 32% of the playing population, and 72% of that is coloured. We understand the need for six teams in South Africa."SANZAR chief executive Greg Peters




"We're trying to keep a very open mind to what this structure looks like," he said in Sydney. It's more likely two new Argentinian teams, rather than one, would be added to what would become an eight-team South African/American conference.
The heavy political pressure for South Africa to have six teams intensified with the Port Elizabeth-based Kings losing a tightly-fought two-match relegation play-off against the Johannesburg-based Lions.
"We really understand the desire for that from South Africa," Peters said. "The Kings have 32% of the playing population, and 72% of that is coloured. We understand the need for six teams in South Africa."
The inclusion of Japan before it hosts Rugby World Cup 2019 would generate massive commercial benefits, but there are logistical problems in fitting them into the Australasian conference.
SANZAR and the ARU are also pushing for the June international window to be moved to July to ensure Super Rugby can be played in one complete block instead of being interrupted for Test matches before the play-offs.

 

[Zander]

This is more like it. More local content.

 

[TOCC]

More local derbies and less a midseason break for the inbound tests.... That's all I ask

Oh, and some FTA coverage on Ch10

 

[kiap]

It could work.

The Kings are back!

 

[Blue]

Ugh.

Too much rugby already.

 

[JSRF10]

Ugh.

Too much rugby already.

Blasphemy there is never enough rugby!

 

[flat_eric]

If you are going to go down that path you might as well just have two separate competitions. If you are not going to play teams in the other conference during the regular season due to logistics and maximising local derbies, then you might as well keep it that way in the finals.

 

[TOCC]

If you are going to go down that path you might as well just have two separate competitions. If you are not going to play teams in the other conference during the regular season due to logistics and maximising local derbies, then you might as well keep it that way in the finals.

Seems to work pretty well for the Super Bowl/NFL...

I think it's a fantastic concept, you can have the conference champions and then have the Super Bowl equivalent final..

 

[USARugger]

Seems to work pretty well for the Super Bowl/NFL.

I think it's a fantastic concept, you can have the conference champions and then have the Super Bowl equivalent final..

NFL teams play many out-of-division as well as 4 out-of-conference games during their regular season.

For example, this year the Eagles play the Redskins/Cowboys/Giants once home and once away. They also play the Chargers, Chiefs, Broncos, Buccaneers, Raiders, Packers, Cardinals, Lions, Vikings and Bears.

These OOD games come from multiple sources. 4 come from another division within the conference on a rotating three-year cycle. 4 come from a division in the other conference on a rotating 4 year cycle (2 conferences, 4 divisions per, 4 teams per division). The last 2 come from intraconference based upon last years placing.

 

[Bardon]

The proposed new format also leaves the door open for a format more akin to the HEC albeit with more games. Possibly in the future there could be 4 pools with 2 each for SA + ARG and NZ, AUS & Japan.

I think it's good that they are planning for the future and aren't retraining their thinking by trying to keep the current format no matter what.

It's interesting to note that there are no details of how the SA & ARG pool/conference would work under this proposal. The Aus & NZ one is pretty straightforward as there's an even number of teams from each country.

How they handle a 6-2 split between SA & ARG while giving each team an equal number of games, especially if the SA teams want home and away derby games against every other SA team.

I suppose everyone could just play each other home and away. But that would mean the teams in that conference would have 1 extra game played going into the finals.

 

[PaarlBok]

The proposed new format also leaves the door open for a format more akin to the HEC albeit with more games. Possibly in the future there could be 4 pools with 2 each for SA + ARG and NZ, AUS & Japan.

I think it's good that they are planning for the future and aren't retraining their thinking by trying to keep the current format no matter what.

It's interesting to note that there are no details of how the SA & ARG pool/conference would work under this proposal. The Aus & NZ one is pretty straightforward as there's an even number of teams from each country.

How they handle a 6-2 split between SA & ARG while giving each team an equal number of games, especially if the SA teams want home and away derby games against every other SA team.

I suppose everyone could just play each other home and away. But that would mean the teams in that conference would have 1 extra game played going into the finals.

The Arg teams will probably based in SA for the tournament. Same as what they do in the Vodacom Cup. I'd love to see the SA teams see this matches as part of our CC to make our season shorter.

 

[Quade Cheapshot]

The Arg teams will probably based in SA for the tournament. Same as what they do in the Vodacom Cup.

The same should apply to the NZ/Oz conference, to accomodate Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.

It's a travesty, no, an injustice, that those three nations aren't even a part of the conversation.

 

[biltong]

If SARU falls for this I seriously question whether they know what is best for SA rugby.

OZ get what they want, play NZ teams, no travel to Africa, the TV revenue is still split evenly, and what do we get, two amateur Argentinian teams?

Might as well play Currie Cup then and keep the revenue inhouse.

 

[Running Rugby]

I'm not particularly interested into getting into the logistics of who should have teams and why. My concern with any expansion moves is the maintenance of the quality of the competition.
Any Australian sport fan who evenly remotely follows AFL will know that they have recently expanded their competition. Two extra teams has resulted in blow out games and a lopsided competition. There appears simply not to be the quality of player to have a successful 18 team competition, and the AFL are apparently the best governed sporting organisation in Australia.
My concern is that with any expansion, we could dilute the quality. Yes, we have a greater player pool than the AFL, but with the richer European and Japanese markets steadily poaching high class players into there competition can we really sustain more than 15 teams. To do so we need more money, much greater collaboration between the SANZAR partners and probably the implementation of a global season as previously raised.
We need to have a vision for Super Rugby, is it a competition for all, or is it an elite representation of Southern Hemisphere rugby?

 

[Brisbok]

If SARU falls for this I seriously question whether they know what is best for SA rugby.

OZ get what they want, play NZ teams, no travel to Africa, the TV revenue is still split evenly, and what do we get, two amateur Argentinian teams?

Might as well play Currie Cup then and keep the revenue inhouse.

Agreed! What benefit is there for South African rugby in this arrangement? This will only further strengthen the two/three bigger unions in SA and weaken the remaining three/four. The same teams will represent South Africa in the cross-conference finals each year, reaping all of the financial benefits and adding even more incentive for all the most talented players to be playing for these teams.

The major benefit of Super Rugby as it stands at the moment is playing quality opposition week in, week out (although admittedly even this has been diluted somewhat in recent years with a continued emphasis on expansion at all costs). If you are largely taking this element out of the equation, what's the point?

 

[en_force_er]

Financial models aside, I like this idea.

I think we should make the leagues quite independent, as in they have their own finals serieses. Then "Super Rugby" can be a champions league type tournament.

Plenty of us are guilty about raving about expansion a little too much. But, at the end of the day it's perfectly possible for those Fijian, Tongan, and Samoan Development sides of locals to have a spot in this tournament. Specially if their commitment is only for 3-6 pool games a year, plus maybe (but probably not) finals. If the big boys of NZ, Aus, and SA want to run their also rans, so-be-it, it happened for years in the Heineken Cup and it really does benefit the minnows. Hell, it even becomes more realistic to finance a US/Canada based professional team when it's only a handful of games a year.

Maybe even Japan could get some champions league spots conditional of them reducing their league from 14 to 8 teams (seriously, how will they ever get any better with their talent spread over 14 teams).

Just some thoughts.

 

[en_force_er]

FURTHERMORE I'd like to say I'm firmly in the IT'S UNREALISTIC TO HAVE THE PACIFIC ISLANDS OR NORTH AMERICA SUPPORT SUPER RUGBY TEAMS camp.

But really, 3-6 "champions league" games could be seen as fixtures and could be seen as development fixtures and be partly funded by the IRB to offset costs. They basically do it now for this and that tournament anyway.

 

[wamberal]

If you are going to go down that path you might as well just have two separate competitions. If you are not going to play teams in the other conference during the regular season due to logistics and maximising local derbies, then you might as well keep it that way in the finals.

No, the main thing from a revenue point of view is to give the Saffers something to watch that they actually will have an interest in. If they are two totally separate competitions, potential tv revenues will be diminished, especially from the Republic.

Not to mention the potential revenues from the finals stage. Money, money, money.

 

[Cpt Crow Eater]

Any Australian sport fan who evenly remotely follows AFL will know that they have recently expanded their competition. Two extra teams has resulted in blow out games and a lopsided competition. There appears simply not to be the quality of player to have a successful 18 team competition, and the AFL are apparently the best governed sporting organisation in Australia.

To be fair to the AFL, the only reason those two teams have provided lob sided results is because their teams have been created using nothing but top draft picks from the last few years. This means you have almost two whole teams of barely out of school teenagers competing with big dogs who have been consistently competive for ages. Also 2 teams in two years is a tough ask on local talent.

The AFL has the money to bankroll teams in deficit until they come good and are prepared to stick with them until they're succesful. They are aiming for expansion and to get kids to swap codes and in the long term it will work. Its not about quality of players, its timing and opportunities. When you think of the programs they will be implementing in these areas such as oz kick and having professional players come to their schools and teaching the kids then you realize what we're up against.

To be honest, I think in Oz we need to work hard on growing the game out of the traditional home states. All this talk of growing the game is great, but it's not really developing growth here in oz. People complain about Aussie depth, but the stocks will get thinner and thinner as the other codes offer our players more opportunities.

Between Northern Territory, South Australia and Tassie we have around 2400 regstered seniors and over 2000 juniors playing rugby.

We're pushing 5000 players who given proper coaching and development, a proper pathway and professional programs could be the beacons to grow the game domestically.

I'm an eternal optimist and I'll never be happy until South Australia has or is a member of a professional rugby team, but can we get our own house in order before we talk of growing the game in other countries?

I grew up playing and following Aussie rules. I was used to the Crows and local SANFL teams coming to our schools, signing autographs and teaching us skills. It wasn't until I travelled that I even knew what rugby was and I've been hooked ever since.

It took till I was an adult to even know what rugby union was. How sad is that???

 

[wamberal]

If SARU falls for this I seriously question whether they know what is best for SA rugby.

OZ get what they want, play NZ teams, no travel to Africa, the TV revenue is still split evenly.

Has anything been said about the revenue split? Let us hope that the pie is big enough to keep everybody happy.