Rebels’ demise presents an opportunity
Melbourne team and one other have to go from uneven comp
Deep down, everyone with prolonged exposure to Southern Hemisphere rugby in the past decade knows Australia can’t sustainably run five professional teams.
The Australians know this, too, but a combination of pride, stubbornness, misplaced ambition — and possibly also a sense of belligerence to not be bullied by their bigger-little brother across the Tasman — has seen the administration doggedly scrap to keep five professional teams no matter the cost.
Australia’s problems are New Zealand’s problems, and so the Rebels’ financial predicament — with reported debts of $20 million and cash assets of $17,000 — is as much a concern in Auckland as in Melbourne and is the reason why there was a sense of calamity hanging over the Super Rugby launch this week.
But perhaps the seemingly imminent collapse of the Rebels is the incontrovertible evidence required to force a hard change in attitudes and bring Australia and New Zealand together in a unified partnership, and could be seen as a golden opportunity to quickly fix many of Super Rugby’s enduring faults.
That Super Rugby has seen steady declines in its overall attendances and broadcast audiences is largely due to hubris and decisions to keep adding teams between 2006 and 2016.
Expansion and globalisation killed tribalism, created disjointed scheduling, placed an immense travel burden on the players, sent costs spiralling and created a labour demand for which there was not a supply.
The net effect was the creation of enormous disparity.
The arrival of Covid and the enforced creation of Super Rugby Pacific has alleviated the travel burden and created a universally fanfriendly viewing schedule.
But it hasn’t brought labour demand and supply into equilibrium or solved the disparity issue to create the sort of competition-wide, meaningful rivalries that will re-engage fans.
Unless or until Super Rugby Pacific can begin each season with at least 80 per cent of its participants viewed as potential champions, it will be stuck in this cycle where it can’t grow its audience and win new investment.
The existing broadcast deal expires in 2025, and that will make it tempting for administrators to look at ways in which they can keep the Rebels alive to avoid muddling through next year with 11 teams — an ugly concept given the complications this presents with the draw — and facing a reduced payment from their rights holders.
Separately, they are already looking at how they can revamp the competition in 2026 as part of their negotiations over the next media rights deal, and again the natural inclination will be to try to hatch a plan to sell broadcasters a 12-team competition — be it with a revived and restructured Rebels or a new entrant.
Melbourne has made it patently clear it doesn’t love rugby and the competition has such endemic issues linked to its lack of competitiveness.
However sobering, deflating and ego-bruising it may be, rugby administrators need to accept the game is going through a period of retrenchment — clubs have gone bust in England and the United States — and it needs to descale its ambitions, lower costs and buy into the idea that less is more.
For Super Rugby, that means not only terminating the Rebels, but axing one more team ahead of the 2026 season.
Downsizing is the right path — the only path — and the demise of the Rebels is a short-term threat but a long-term opportunity.
Last year, there was a huge upswing in broadcast numbers in New Zealand when Kiwi teams played each other, which illustrates fans will tune in when they are confident they will see drama and spectacle.
Super Rugby works when fans can’t predict the outcome and when they can buy into a genuine and historic rivalry, and it’s only Kiwi derbies that produce the right, fertile conditions for fan interest to grow.
Cut the Rebels and ditch one more team, and in time, every Super Rugby game will have tension, meaning and credibility.