In just a year and one campaign, the United Rugby Championship (URC) has killed the romance of a Super Rugby brand that was still trading on its glory days of the late ’90s and early 2000s, ignoring the reality of a financially and physically nonsensical tournament.
When Super Rugby began it was great — a tournament unsaturated, simple and full of quality. That was far from the case by the end of its 25 years and South African involvement made less and less sense, given travel times and lack of player depth across five franchises.
Moving SA’s regional participation into the northern hemisphere was always going to be the best thing for this country’s rugby and the past few months have proven this to be true.
The success of the Stormers and Bulls, with national representation from individuals playing in the URC, should bury any thought of looking in the rear-view mirror. The URC is the future, and the future is now.
It is only going to get better, considering the tournament kicked off on the back of Covid-19-induced chaos and still managed to enlist a record-breaking audience of 36.4-million over 7,000 hours. That audience base is a 169% increase on 2020/21 Pro14 and Rainbow Cup campaigns combined.
South African players want to stay at their domestic franchises because of the quality of rugby, European exposure and travel, and because the longest flight they’re taking is a 12-hour direct, not a 24 hour, three-stop struggle to get to Auckland or Dunedin.
Just imagine how the 2022/23 season is going to look. For an inaugural tournament the URC was a spectacular success. For SA it was a spectacular success. Rubbish to the claims that an exit from Super Rugby would see a drop in quality because what the Stormers and Bulls had to beat to secure the all-South African final at the Cape Town Stadium was Ireland’s best, and it was these Irish players who would, a couple of weeks later, combine to win a three-Test series against the All Blacks in New Zealand for the first time in history.
South African players want to stay at their domestic franchises because of the quality of rugby, European exposure and travel, and because the longest flight they’re taking is a 12-hour direct, not a 24 hour, three-stop struggle to get to Auckland or Dunedin.
Player retention is strengthening SA’s domestic ranks, having a knock-on effect on lower levels where younger guys are nurtured through at the right pace, as well as centralising the pool for Springbok selection.
It can only get better in the URC in the 2022-23 season and it will also be more enthralling because of SA’s presence in the Champions and Challenge cups. The Cheetahs and Lions have been included in the latter, while the Stormers, Bulls and Sharks have qualified for the prestigious big dance that is the former.
South African supporters will also get to see teams from France and England play in SA for the first time. South African rugby must feel vindicated in its decision to finally make the move up north because the form of the teams, strength of South African rugby and tournament viewership numbers — boosted largely by South African involvement — all demonstrate the success thereof.
The Stormers grand final win against the Bulls saw a record 1.25-million tune in, with 41% of viewership from outside SA.
For those who questioned this country’s involvement, these figures ended that discussion. Not only did South African teams drive the audience in seven of the 10 most-watched matches, but champions the Stormers were the most viewed team in the league at 7.2-million.
• Mark Keohane is the founder of keo.co.za, a multiple award-winning sports writer and the digital content director at Highbury Media. Twitter: @mark_keohane
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