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The Sydney Morning Herald have revealed details from SANZAAR’s 2030 Strategy paper, uncovering potential plans for further Super Rugby expansion, including adding a fourth conference featuring teams from existing competitions.
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Super Rugby’s version of an All-Star game and the concept of a southern hemisphere side similar in style to the British and Irish Lions are also reportedly detailed in the paper.
According to Sydney Morning Herald, SANZAAR is committed to the current Super Rugby format until 2020 but are weighing up five options moving forward.
The options cover all bases including competition contraction, retention and expansion – though expansion options outnumber the others.
One of the options for expansion would see a 20-team, four-conference format, with the expansion drawing from “new teams or teams from an existing competition”.
The recently launched Major League Rugby in the United States stands out as a prime candidate. The MLR has partnered with major broadcaster CBS and the competition looks significantly more promising than the ill-fated PRO Rugby competition – America’s previous crack at a professional league – that lasted just one season.
The strategy paper also covers women’s competition, stating that “in time, any competition could become a SANZAAR competition and be wrapped into the commercial arrangements of SANZAAR.”
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This statement is relevant in the context of potential Super W expansion, which is currently only contested by Australian teams.
Only time will tell which direction the competitions shift, and whether any of the more extreme concepts like the southern hemisphere Lions team or a fourth Super Rugby conference come to fruition.
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