So it seems that the New Zealand All Blacks will be 12.5% owned by a private firm form the USA. A national team owned partly by another nation! And the Wallabies may be following this plan. This is absolute madness.

OK, so Rugby Australia recorded a massive loss during the pandemic. They weren’t on sure footing before COVID-19, but bygones. There was even talk about them returning to amateur status. I wonder how many players would have stuck around for that….

The answer for world rugby is staring them in the face, but yet they still refuse to see it. The answer is their own subscription network. It may be the only way rugby will survive.

The top sixteen ranked countries in rugby union - the teams you’d expect to fight it out for the next World Cup - are as follows. South Africa, New Zealand, England, Ireland, France, Wales, Australia, Scotland, Argentina, Japan, Fiji, Georgia, Tonga, Samoa, Italy and the USA.

According to Population by Country (2021) - Worldometer (worldometers.info) the combined population total of these countries is 793.3 million people. Let’s be conservative and say just 1% of that population is a big fan of rugby union. That is just shy of eight million people.

Now, let’s say all of World Rugby got together and agreed that for $10 a month, those eight million fans could watch all domestic competitions. Every nation’s competition would gain greater exposure to the world, and their best players, and up and coming players, would have the eyes of the world upon them. They could also watch all test matches outside of the major competitions. $10 a month? Sign me up.

Sure, keep the World Cup and the Bledisloe Cup and the Six Nations for mainstream media. That brings in revenue and brings in eyes that may not be too interested in say, Gordon V Eastwood in the NSW comp. But have replays of the big matches on the new streaming service. And have the historical matches on there too. I’m not sure who owns the rights to previous international rugby matches, but do a deal with whoever it is. Have World Cup and Six Nations histories on your channel. Have the Bledisloe Cup history on your channel. You can’t find much of it on YouTube now, so why not?

To recap, if World Rugby went this way they could conservatively trouser $80 million dollars per month. $960 million dollars per year. How many junior clubs could benefit from that? How much could be spent in other rugby union nations that are developing?

It just makes sense.