The Super Rugby competition kicked off in 1996 – we are about to enter its 14th season.
As a football competition, it ranks highly again other major non soccer club football competitions.
Yet its owners, SANZAR, run it as an afterthought to other activities and it is hard to see how they could be any more useless when it comes to promoting one of the world’s major competitions.
We live in an Information Era where people use the internet top get most of their information.
Every other major club football competition has a website for its competition. There is no Super 14 website.
Why ? Because the SANZAR partners have no cohesion, no vision and are obsessed with their own insularity.
No other major football competition is run without having an organisation of full time employees committed exclusively to running the competition. Yet SANZAR has no organisation – it is instead a collection of senior exectutives of rugby national unions, none of whom trust each other.
The rugby Super 14 competition needs a lot of work to move forward yet it is stiffled at every step by the greed, stupidity and insularity of its owners. Even the simple issue of how many teams should make up its final system was not resolved in a progressive manner due to local stupidity.
There are many issues that SANZAR needs to address if it wants to maximise the value of the Super 14 competition. These will never happen – but its a nice wishlist.
1) The SANZAR partners need to create an organisation that runs the Super 14 and Tri Nations competitions. This organisation needs to be comprised of full time paid employees from all walks of life – not be just a couple of self interest appointees from the SANZAR members.
This organisation needs to given control of the Super 14 and operate in the same way that the NFL, AFL and other major organisations operate.
2) SANZAR needs a single website for its super rugby interest rather than leaving it up to the feeble efforts of the SANZAR members.
3) SANZAR needs to expand the Super 14 competition as quickly as possible and into profitable markets- not emotional markets.
4) SANZAR needs to seriously have a look at the Super 14 rule book to introduce a more stop start pattern into the games flow so that greater advertising opportunities are available.
