Super Rugby is a-changing.
From 2016 the new revamped competition will have two divisions with four conferences.
The Eastern Division will be split into two conferences – with five teams from NZ and five from Australia.
The Western Division will have eight teams, including last year’s bottom-placed team the Southern Kings, one new team from Argentina and an eighth team; probably from Africa or Asia or perhaps even Southern Europe.
The only things that seem certain is that the 18th team will not be based in the Pacific. And that a South African team – probably – won’t finish last.
It should also see more games played in Australia and New Zealand every weekend.
Whether it is any better than the current model, or the Super 12 for that matter, remains to be seen.
It’s certainly a bold new plan. A very confusing, bold new plan.
There are obvious issues with the proposed plan with a competition that will have 18 teams who won’t all play each other, spread over two divisions, four conferences and probably three continents.
The NZRU have listened to players’ requests and have lowered the number of local derbies each team will play from eight to six each season.
So each year the New Zealand teams will play each other Kiwi team once, and two of them twice, as well as the five Australian teams and all four of the teams from one of the conferences from the Western Divison (they will then play the other Western Division conference next year).
That’s 15 games a season. Are you keeping count?
But because the Western Division has eight teams, they will each play grand total of 14 games a season per team, one less than the Eastern Division, so they’ll might have to play a catch up game against someone.
(If you’re the top Western team ranked team, cross your fingers and hope you extra match is against an easybeat).
Or, because the playoff teams are likely to be decided based on the Division and Conferences, they may just say Western teams play 14 games and Eastern teams play 15.
So best hope that nothing bad (or good depending on where you sit) happens in that extra game for Australasian teams.
It’s confusing, unwieldy and going to be a hard sell to the fans.
But Sanzar is hell bent on maximizing the broadcasting dollar.
Their theory is that more is better and expansion is the answer, despite signs the public’s interest in the competition is waning.
Super Rugby’s talent pool is stretched as it is, and giving yet another team to South Africa when teams from the Republic currently sit in 13th, 14th and 15th on the ladder certainly doesn’t make sense competition wise.
And would a team from Argentina or Japan do any better? Would a team based in the Pacific Islands be able to compete better?
In all likelihood broadcasters will lap it up. On the face of it it makes good business sense for Sanzar, especially if it will open up new markets for where they can market Super Rugby.
It would be great if Super Rugby was stripped back down a simple competition that the fans can easily follow, but we're caught between a rock and a hard place.
NZ rugby, the All Blacks and the players need the broadcast revenue that South Africa and Super Rugby brings, but will it be worth it if the fans don’t turn up to actually watch their favourite players play?