Rugby: financial agreement between the Australian & New Zealand federations for Super Rugby Pacific

New Zealand Rugby and Rugby Australia have extended their joint venture concerning Super Rugby Pacific by six seasons (2025-2030), announced the two federations on 02/12/2022. The 2023 season of this competition includes five Australian, five New Zealand and two Fijian franchises.

Hamish McLennan, president of the Australian Federation, had raised the possibility that his country's teams involved in Super Rugby Pacific would withdraw from the competition due to the domestic media rights agreements in force on 12/09/2022.

Rugby Australia was seeking a fair share of the TV rights revenue, while New Zealand Rugby's broadcaster Sky (pay-TV) currently pays New Zealand Rugby more revenue than Rugby Australia receives from its deal with Stan Sport (pay and free-TV group Nine's OTT platform), the broadcaster of Super Rugby in Australia.

While Rugby Australia has been refused a 50-50 split of revenue, it is now set to receive NZ$5m (€3m) annually from its New Zealand counterpart until 2025, according to local media reports. Broadcast contracts will then be renegotiated for the 2025-2030 cycle.