Rugby Championship expansion unlikely, All Blacks set to tour SA

Sunday, 17 March 2024

• Sanzaar in midst of “strategic review” for 2026-2032.

• All Blacks-Springboks tour to impact Rugby Championship in 2026.

• Japan, Fiji to beat Samoa, Tonga, Uruguay into Nations Championship.

The Rugby Championship is likely to remain a four-nation competition for the foreseeable future, but Japan and Fiji are very much on track to be included in the new Nations Championship competition to begin in 2026.

Sanzaar chief executive Brendan Morris told Stuff that the organisation was in the middle of mapping out the future of the Rugby Championship from 2026-2032.

Potential expansion would be part of that process, but significantly Morris said the proposed All Blacks tour of South Africa in 2026, and the reciprocal tour of New Zealand in 2030, was playing a major part of the analysis.

“We're in a strategic review stage of, ‘What does The Rugby Championship look like going forward’?” Morris told Stuff.

“There's a lot of narrative out there at the moment around the South Africa and All Blacks potentially touring each other in 2026 and 2030.

“So we're in the middle of a strategic review of what is actually The Rugby Championship from 2026 to 2032, and expansion - or not - would be certainly part of those discussions.“

Well-informed sources have told Stuff that expansion is unlikely.

The Rugby Championship and the Six Nations have traditionally been wary of opening the door for new entrants, with only Argentina and Italy being added over the past two decades, and it has taken the latter 23 years to be competitive.

The Sanzaar nations also have their own pressing high-performance and commercial needs.

New Zealand Rugby needs to grow revenue after taking on an investment partner in Silver Lake, and is keen to expose more players to the unique challeneges provided by SOuth AFrican teams.

Meanwhile, SA Rugby chief executive Rian Oberholzer revealed last month that they had “zero reserves”, despite the Springboks winning back-to-back Rugby World Cups.

The appetite for All Blacks-Springboks tours is therefore significant, and while New Zealand Rugby has been measured in its public statements Stuff understands it is increasingly confident that an eight or nine-game tour will go ahead, featuring three or four tests and midweek games.

That will not come without complications, however, and the format of the Rugby Championship is likely to be impacted in those tour years, with obvious implications for Australia and Argentina.

Morris said work was being carried out to assess the big-picture impact on the competition as a whole.

“It’s the intangible value propositions that [tour] impacts,” Morris said. “The fans get the consistency of TRC year-in, year-out being the same format.

“Is that important to people, and if not what is the value, the uplift or the damage, of that being disjointed over the cycle.

“So, there's a fair bit of commercial analysis going on around around. What does the future look like for all four partners.”

While Japan and Fiji appear destined to be locked out of the Rugby Championship, they are set to get the green light by the middle of the year for the 12-nation Nations Championship starting in 2026.

Sanzaar has been asked to select two countries to join the All Blacks, South Africa, Australia and Argentina as southern hemisphere participants, and Morris all but confirmed that Fiji and Japan were the best fit.

“There's no secret that Japan and Fiji would be the two most logical at the moment,” Morris said.

“But we need to go through a transparent process so that the those unions that don't get in understand why they haven't been chosen in the first instance, what it takes to get in, and what their pathway to get in in the future.

“I'm really talking about Samoa, Tonga and maybe to a lesser extent Uruguay… because again, the competitions are not in a position to be underwriting or subsidising.

“So, there's a fair bit of work to be done and we're hopefully looking at an end-of June, early July decision.”

Japan and Fiji will also take part in the World Rugby-backed Pacific Nations Cup, which also features Canada, Samoa, Tonga, and the USA.

That competition will take place in August and September this year.