NZ Rugby hints at cutting number of pro teams

By Liam Napier

New Zealand’s rugby landscape could be on the verge of a major shake-up with a leading executive signalling the country cannot sustain the same number of professional teams.

New Zealand Rugby (NZR) boasts around 280 fulltime professional athletes across the men’s and women’s game. While there is significant duplication with those who play Super Rugby and represent national teams, the provincial unions pay around 300 players each year.

In any industry, those figures represent a lot of mouths to feed.

Financial sustainability looms large over NZR, and all global unions.

Rather than seek to reduce the overall player pool and depth of talent, NZR general manager of professional rugby Chris Lendrum, in an interview with the Rugby Direct podcast, put the 14 provincial unions on notice of potential cutbacks by stating his belief that New Zealand’s professional landscape is not sustainable as it stands.

“I’m not sure about [the number of] players. Teams wise we’ve got too many professional teams in New Zealand,” Lendrum said. “We’re talking about a country of five million with 19, 20 different men’s XVs teams, and a couple of sevens teams. That feels instinctively too many.

“There’s some cities in New Zealand we’ve got more than one professional rugby team and infrastructure from a high performance perspective that supports more than one team in those places.

“That’s where I feel we can get better and reduce some of the duplication from our system. Exactly what that looks like I’m really open to.”

In its latest attempt to address the costly funding model NZ Rugby is reviewing the men’s pathways. This piece of work is designed to tackle how much is being spent on multiple academies, to streamline the development pathways and clearly define the roles of provincial unions and Super Rugby franchises.

At present the provincial union salary cap is $1.1 million per year, although not all teams reach that threshold.

Due to NZR budget constraints, collective provincial union funding could be cut by $3.6 million in the next two years.

As part of the pathway review, provincial unions could be asked to focus on development and community, with the prospect of contracting players potentially moving away from the provinces to a more centralised national model.

The pathways review also comes at a time when Sky could significantly reduce its broadcast deal with NZR which, in an already challenging climate, would spark further financial pressure.

The upshot is the provincial unions could soon find their status downgraded from semi-professional to somewhere closer to amateur.

Reducing the overall number of teams may also be on the table.

“There will always be a critical place for the NPC in New Zealand rugby,” Lendrum said. “Being able to aspire from your club team to wear a representative jersey is a fundamental part of the fabric of New Zealand rugby and it should always be.

“That level is not, though, going to aggregate our players up tight enough to prepare them to play for the All Blacks.

“You could run a very similar argument for the women’s game. Farah Palmer Cup is a wonderful competition with community and representative spirit at the heart of it but it’s not enough to prepare our Black Ferns to play the Red Roses at Twickenham.

“We’ve got to concentrate on our best talent and get them ready to play internationals and we’ve got to provide good, engaging competition for our fans so there’s a bit to work through.”

“It’s not the first time we’ve had a crack at it, as everyone knows. Hopefully the conditions are right. I think there’s a real will and understanding in rugby now about what it is we’re trying to achieve so we’ll see how we go.”

Before any changes are signed off, New Zealand Rugby and the provinces must first emerge from a messy governance standoff that could require the entire national board and chair Dame Patsy Reddy to stand down.

Lendrum on other topics

Whether sabbaticals are working:

“You’ve got to acknowledge it’s not perfect but consider the alternative. The Hurricanes will have Ardie Savea back next year. The alternative is they never have Ardie Savea again.

“You’re the first person who has talked to me about Ardie Savea and the Hurricanes for months because of the quality of new blood and youth coming through and how well that team is going at the moment. Look at Brad Shields, Devan Flanders, Peter Lakai, Brayden Iose – and they’re top of the table.

“Sabbaticals do have those fringe benefits which is real and right in front of everyone watching Super Rugby Pacific at the moment.

“Some of those players will push for the All Blacks this year and that is the beauty of the New Zealand system. It’s part of our job to make sure that conveyor belt is still running.

“We’ve got to acknowledge we’re a tiny little country at the bottom of the world with less money than all of our main competitors so we’ve got to be smart about what we do. We can’t have everybody here all the time. Sabbaticals we think are the best way to balance everything in the system.

The prospect of an ANZAC test between the All Blacks and Wallabies:

“It’s an idea that’s got real merit from a fan perspective. That’s a time of year where we feel pretty patriotic and engaged. There’s a lot of stuff to work through in order for that to happen in particular we need to think about how each team would prepare and what that means for Super Rugby clubs.

“We need to do some research. It instinctively sounds like a good idea from a fan perspective but we probably need to talk to the fans rather than relying on people like me.

The future of Super Rugby Aupiki:

“What we’d like to do in 2025 is work with our partners at Rugby Australia and look to bring some Super W and Aupiki together. That might look like maybe some preseason, maybe a winner v winner if we can align the two competition windows. We know for the women’s game to grow we need more high quality games.”

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission