A snapshot of the rugby landscape over the next 5 years

Rugby is barreling along at 100 miles an hour on and off the field. With so much critical stuff going on it can sometimes pass you by and the next 60 days are massive — Rugby World Cup bids for 2015 and 2019, the Sanzar expansion of Super Rugby and the Tri-Nations to Four Nations and a slew of other Northern Hemisphere games are plunked down in a kind of a bizarre game of rugby Monopoly, all to determine what you and I and millions like us are going to watch, week in and week out, over the next 5 years.

From mid-May to mid-July all this will be determined and the monies involved are just staggering if one adds them all together. A monster collective value of more than R10 billion. How is that for a game played for 80 minutes with an oval ball?

So I thought a little condensed version of all this would help — so you can play this game of rugby trivia, so that when you are next at your club, with mates, at home or at the local watering hole, you can share these rugby dynamics.

This will make you, the rugby aficionado, as smart or even smarter than the rugby secretariat attending all these meetings, upon meetings, upon meetings, here, there and everywhere — and here, right here, we have nailed it.

1. Northern Hemisphere:

a. 2015 Rugby World Cup bid — England — submission May 13.
b. British & Irish Cup: A brand new 24-team British & Irish Cup will take place in 2010. Twelve teams from the English Championship, six from the Welsh Principality Premiership, Irish provinces Munster, Leinster and Ulster and three Scottish sides will compete for the inaugural trophy. The teams will be divided into four pools of six, playing over five weekends during the Autumn International and RBS 6 Nations windows, with semi-finals and finals on April 24 and May 15 respectively. This effectively rules out any possibility that SA Rugby had of playing with the Northern Hemisphere as an alternative to the Sanzar expansion plans for the Super 14 from 2011 to 2015. That door is now firmly slammed shut on any options in the Northern Hemisphere for the next 6 years.
c. The major Celtic rugby tournament, the Magners League, which consists of four Irish provinces (Leinster, Munster, Connacht and Ulster), four Welsh regions (Cardiff Blues, Newport Gwent Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets) and two Scottish sides (Glasgow and Edinburgh) has a season that starts in September and ends at the end of May. The Magners League season, therefore, starts when the Currie Cup is reaching its finals and ends around about the same time as the present Super 14 season when the South African replacement of Super Rugby finishes. The Magners League announced that it was considering expanding to include two Italian sides. The Magners League is used by Ireland to confirm their two teams to take part in the lucrative Heineken Cup tournament.

2. Southern Hemisphere:

a. 2015 Rugby World Cup bid — South Africa — submission May 13. Other bidders are Japan Rugby Union with games to be played in Singapore and Hong Kong.
b. Sanzar: 2006 to 2010 $323 million deal — SA Rugby benefited by 40% with R1.4 billion — this would likely increase to R1.5 billion for the next 5 years and this is in jeopardy. Deadline on this is June 31 2009.
c. ARU and NZRU have an Anzac tournament structure and broadcast package in place for a Pacific Rim tournament to replace Super Rugby from 2011 to 2015
d. Naturally, key in all of this, is the broadcast funding for rights fees from News Corp (Australian), the lifeblood of the Sanzar unions and with SA Rugby having no substitute or replacement sponsor of the scale of R1.4 billion, post 2010, they are almost all out of options, unless they promote a conflict-free solution to Sanzar on May 14 and run with either a 6-team apiece for a Sanzar Super 18, or with another variant of a Super 15 with a promotion and relegation system to keep the competition hot and fired up for the paying broadcasters and spectators.
e. If the more popular option of the Super 15 is selected, with relegation and promotion, as it normally happens in international competitions, this should lead to three Tri-Game playoffs in each of the 3 Sanzar countries, right after the Super 15, or even during the Super 15, as the last-placed teams will be out of contention and then a smaller lower level competition, a Super Rugby lite if you will, during the Super 15, for those 3 Sanzar franchises outside of the Super 15.
f. This would mean that each of the Sanzar countries would have 5+1 franchises, with the extra, plus one, or sixth franchise, which would likely include an extra franchise from Australia out of the Gold Coast (as Melbourne is the favoured 5th Australian franchise) one from New Zealand from either Northland or Hawkes Bay and the ever present Eastern Cape franchise, now known as the Southern Kings.
g. Playing an expanded Super Rugby tournament in “d” or “e” above, from February to May enables the Super 15, with a Super 7 and a Tri-Game Series to be played in each of the Sanzar countries and delivers a conflict-free solution and secures a $500 million plus broadcast deal for all 3.
h. Argentina: IRB want Argentina included in a 4-Nations from 2012 and a lower level Super 7 Rugby series with the above franchises plus Argentina, Pacific Islands and Organisation of Africa Rugby unites over 12 rugby unions in the Southern Hemisphere and offers additional rugby content for broadcasters to sell to advertisers.
i. The Currie Cup is safe and secure with this tournament fixture list and the 14 SA Unions can play on uninterrupted.

As I said, the next 60 days have been brewing for years and finally we get to see how our rugby future will be determined.

For example a brilliant rugby player at 16 years today could be the future Springbok, All Black or Wallaby in just 4 to 5 years, so this is serious, really life-altering stuff.