Australia and New Zealand reach a Super Rugby financial deal

Unhappy with the income distribution from Super Rugby, Australia threatened to stop playing the competition. An agreement was finally reached with New Zealand on Friday.

Last September, Hamish McLennan, president of the Australian Rugby Union (Australia), raised the possibility of his country’s teams participating in Super Rugby withdrawing from the competition. The reason: a disagreement with his New Zealand counterpart over the distribution of tournament income from southern hemisphere provinces (not counting the South African teams that compete in the URC in Europe).

However, on Friday, the two federations reached an agreement that guarantees the preservation of Super Rugby until 2030, in its current form, with the Australian and New Zealand teams, in addition to Moana Pacifica and Fiji Drua.

Under existing agreements, New Zealand Rugby has earned more income from broadcasting matches, via Sky, than its Australian counterpart, which is linked to Stan, a streaming service. These contracts run through 2025.

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Women’s Super Rugby DraftAccording to the New Zealand media, Rugby Australia is denied a 50% revenue split for each of the parties involved, but will receive NZ$3-4 million annually until 2025. After that, the contracts will be renegotiated.

In addition, Super Rugby will now be governed by a nine-person board, with a chairman, four directors and four representatives (one for Rugby Australia, one for New Zealand Rugby, and the other two for the Australian and New Zealand Players Associations). One of the first tasks of this new board will be to study the creation of Women’s Super Rugby.

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