Sanzaar boss looking to
Restoring integrity will be the major focus when powerbrokers gather to decide Super Rugby’s future in March.
Sanzaar boss Andy Marinos, in an interview with the Herald, has all but confirmed change is again coming to the future format and structure as poor crowds, disillusioned fans and worrying television viewership figures appear to finally hit home.
Returning to a round-robin format is heavily favoured but discussions are ongoing — specifically around whether the Sunwolves should be retained — and the final blueprint remains sketchy.
Sanzaar’s board is due to next meet in March and the four member unions are expected to then seek a unanimous agreement to change the competition structure.
Marinos was confident New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina would map a path forward from 2021 at the meeting.
“I’d like us to be in that position,” Marinos said. “We don’t have the luxury of time on our side and if there are going to be any changes to the competition structure, we need to know what that is going to look like because we’ve got to start some faceto-face engagement with our broadcasters during 2019.” Expansion is off the table for now. This alone represents a major backtrack for an organisation once hell-bent on world domination.
Unfortunately, though, no expansion means no Pacific Island team.
The financially constrained Fiji-led bid could not commit to demands for $18 million (US$12m) per season and so the door remains closed.
“We’ve done feasibility studies around putting teams in North America and the Pacific Islands and we’ve seen the metrics aren’t really stacking up for us but that doesn’t mean we won’t look at taking our product into those markets in the form of regular season games or preseason friendlies.”
On the Pacific Islands, Marinos makes it clear their continued exclusion comes down to one factor.
“The commercial model to underpin it is critically important and then you look at that on the other side from a high performance perspective where are you going to balance another team and are you going to get the Tongans, Samoans and Fijians all part of that ecosystem?
“Economically it just didn’t make sense. . . the health of the national unions is not such that we can continue to strategically invest into new markets. Those other markets have to be able to pay for themselves and underpin the performance of their participating team.”
Belated lessons have been learned from the way Sanzaar ploughed headfirst into Japan without first ensuring proper links between the Sunwolves and Japanese Rugby Union. Four years on, the landscape is much the same and the Sunwolves’ future is therefore under threat after finishing bottom with three wins from 16 games last season.
“In retrospect, we hadn’t really gone too deeply when we moved into the Asian market. There wasn’t the