Super Rugby organizers SANZAR have announced that they have a “preferred model” including Argentina for the future Super Rugby format beyond 2015 that will be put forward for approval.
SANZAR’s Executive Committee met in Sydney on Thursday to discuss the future of Super Rugby including possible formats that could be presented to broadcasters.
rugbyweek
Speaking after the meeting SANZAR CEO Greg Peters said, “Today’s meeting was another important step in deciding the future of Super Rugby. ”
“Encouraging progress was made and we now have a preferred model that involves six teams from South Africa and a new team from Argentina,” said Peters.
“The model will now be taken to the National Unions for approval before SANZAR presents its final position to broadcasters and fans in due course.”
The current Super Rugby broadcast agreement expires at the end of 2015 and the tournament is expected to expand to include the sixth South African franchise the Southern Kings.
The inclusion of a team from Argentina would take the number of teams to 17 so local derbies could be dropped and Super Rugby could go back to it’s original format of every team playing the other teams with venues alternating year on year.
Will be glad if Argentina could have a Super Rugby side, on condition that SANZAR does away with the Conference System and teams play against EVERY other Super Rugby side (doing away with too much derby stuff).
A single round against all other 16 participating sides… gives you the same number of Open Round games as currently played… and then the play-off’s, semis and final.
No difference to the lenght of the Super Rugby season either.
I have to agree the local derby’s has to go. Only one game per team. I would rather see the following though.
Have 6 teams of each SA, AUS and NZ and two from ARG….or 6 teams from SA & NZ, 5 teams from AUS and 3 from ARG. This gives 20 teams. Break into two groups of 3 teams from SA, AUS & NZ and 1 team from ARG. which will then make 2 pools of ten with the top 2 finishers going into a semi final scenario. This will not decrease the viewing so will not effect any broadcasting costs ext. But players will be fresher and less prone to injury. As there will be a average of 9 games per season and 11 if your team does go the distance to the final.
If they do implement the “play every team once” system which is most likely……..I would then like to see a proper player rotation system ENFORCED!!!!!!!!! where a player is only given a certain amount of game time credits per month or season. For example having a player limited to say 180 minutes of rugby per month. This will then see a much more interesting approach by coaches where they will have to ensure that players are rotated correctly to have the best available at play-off and final time.
Whether we want to agree or not players are playing too much rugby and this is going to cause selection headache’s at national level. NZ have quite some depth this is why they are not badly affected by injuries, in SA however players get over played and this does come with the cost of depth not developing due to lack of game time. The same in AUS where players are going through the same thing.
Good to see that this horrible conference system will go. At least the Aussies are not so stuck on the conferences, as they have finally set up their own domestic league.
@ Lion4ever:
Good luck with your team this year, the boykies are looking good! I hope they have a solid run this time out, they deserve a break from all the bad luck they had to endure lately.
Does Argentina have any money? It’s very nice from SANZAR to include them, but it doesn’t make business sense. They must find ways to compete with the euro and yen.
@ leon:
What will likely happen is that the ARG side included will be based in SA for the competition like with the Pampas in the Vodacom Cup.
The smartest thing to do in this case would be to use the games where they are included as double headers foe example. So let’s say that they will be a pre match at Ellis Park or Loftus. This way you pay for both games and then they should look at some profit sharing of some sorts.
Having all the teams fly to ARG for one game is stupid in any case.
@ Timothy Bornman:
As I understand, SANZAR make it’s money out of broadcast deals. How much more will broadcasters pay to televise an Argentina game? Will an extra broadcaster come onboard?
@ leon:
I doubt that. As the time zone is to big. So they will lose in the sense that when other teams in ARG nobody will be watching as it will be 23:00 over here. So the best will be to base the side in one of the current Super Rugby countries and work from there.
The problem however is exactly in your 1st sentence. And this is that SANZAR have become money hungry as does not care about the game anymore. This is why players are frequently injured for long periods. SANZAR does not care as long as they make the bucks the rest can do or say whatever they want. This is much like most things in the world.
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