One competition. Nine Super Provinces. No more two tiers. Merge the NPC and Super Rugby into a single professional game that brings top-flight footy back to the provinces and protects the money meant for grassroots. Nine pro teams instead of five means more opportunities, more talent kept at home, and deeper stocks for the All Blacks.
Super Rugby and the NPC merge into a single professional league. No more forgotten second tier.
Up from five, so top-flight rugby and the All Blacks return to the provinces.
Competitive pay and more opportunities keeps Kiwi stars out of Japan, France and the NRL, and deepens the All Blacks stocks.
The whole men's pro game, provinces plus All Blacks, costs under 40% of what NZR already spends.
Like the sound of it?
New Zealand currently runs professional rugby twice over. Super Rugby finishes, then the NPC kicks off during the All Blacks' test season, a second-tier comp, missing the best players, struggling for the attention its history deserves.
The problems:
The problems:
Neither is financially sound. NZR's independent governance review found NPC matches cost about $200,000 each to stage for an average paying crowd of just 2,000[5], losing money on nearly every game. The Super franchises fare no better: the Hurricanes lost $1.4m in 2023 and $700k in 2024, and were bailed out by NZR heading into 2026[6].
The fix isn't to prop up both. It's to make them the same thing.
The NPC unions and the Super Rugby clubs merge into nine Super Provinces. No more separate provincial unions or Super clubs sitting alongside each other, they become one. The franchise identity and the provincial identity stop competing. The NPC no longer exists, but its traditions and history carry over, and Super Rugby is elevated back to the best domestic competition in the world.
Merging unions isn't theory. The Tasman Mako were formed in 2006 by combining Nelson Bays and Marlborough[7], two small unions that, together, became a genuine force, winning back-to-back NPC titles[7]. A well-built merger doesn't dilute identity; it creates a stronger one.
The remaining five places stay with the established Australian and Fijian sides: the Brumbies, Reds, Waratahs, Western Force and Fijian Drua.
Each Super Province splits cleanly in two. One arm chases trophies; the other grows the game. They share a badge, never a budget.
Today, much of NZR's grassroots funding gets swallowed by the NPC team before it reaches the community game[8]. Ring-fencing fixes that: not a dollar of community money can be diverted to salaries or the professional programme.
No conferences, no asterisks, no team you somehow never host. Everyone plays everyone, home and away, with one in-season bye and a two week break at Christmas, followed by a top-six finals series.
Fourteen teams lifts the weekend from 5 games to 7. That's wall-to-wall footy from Friday to Sunday.
Four evening slots cover the broadcast contracts. That leaves 3 games (up from 1 today) free to schedule outside those times, bringing back Saturday and Sunday afternoon footy.
Less than 50% of the teams make the finals, with no confusing lucky losers. Simple, easy to understand, and a model used successfully in the Top 14 and Japan's Rugby League One.
1st and 2nd earn the week off. 3rd hosts 6th, 4th hosts 5th.
Top two seeds return at home against the qualifier winners.
Hosted by the highest-ranked finalist. Winner takes the title.
Merged Super Provinces can't hoard every fixture in the big city. Each founding union's region is guaranteed at least 5 of the 13 home games.
Nobody loses footy. Dunedin gains a game, Southland keeps its full home season, except now every one of those Invercargill fixtures is top-flight professional rugby.
26 games, just 2 more than today's combined Super Rugby (14) and NPC (10) load, and only 29 even if you go all the way through the finals. Comfortably inside World Rugby's 30-game guideline.
And because All Blacks cap out at around 20 Super games a season, roughly 6 starts open up for the next player in line, turning rest weeks into a development engine for the squad coming through.
One season, no collisions, test alignment between the North and the South, and a different year depending on which jersey you wear. Flick between the two.
| Weekend 1 | Weekend 2 | Weekend 3 | Weekend 4 | Weekend 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JAN | Off, New Years | Round 25 | Round 26 | Round 27 | , |
| FEB | Qualifying Final | Semi Final | Grand Final | Off | , |
| MAR | Club | Club | Club | Club | , |
| APR | Club | Club | Club | Club | , |
| MAY | Off | Off | Off | Off | Off |
| JUN | Off | Off | Off | Off | , |
| JUL | Pre-season | Pre-season | Pre-season | Pre-season | , |
| AUG | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 |
| SEP | Round 6 | Round 7 | Round 8 | Round 9 | Round 10 |
| OCT | Round 11 | Round 12 | Round 13 | Round 14 | Round 15 |
| NOV | Round 16 | Round 17 | Round 18 | Round 19 | Round 20 |
| DEC | Round 21 | Round 22 | Round 23 | Round 24 | Off, Xmas |
| Weekend 1 | Weekend 2 | Weekend 3 | Weekend 4 | Weekend 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JAN | Off, New Years | Round 25 | Round 26 | Round 27 | , |
| FEB | Qualifying Final | Semi Final | Grand Final | Rugby Championship | , |
| MAR | Rugby Championship | Rugby Championship | Rugby Championship | Rugby Championship | , |
| APR | Rugby Championship | Rugby Championship | Rugby Championship | Rugby Championship | , |
| MAY | Off | Off | Off | Off | Off |
| JUN | Off | Off | Off | Inbound Tours | , |
| JUL | Inbound Tours | Inbound Tours | Inbound Tours | Off | , |
| AUG | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 |
| SEP | Round 6 | Round 7 | Round 8 | Round 9 | Round 10 |
| OCT | Round 11 | Round 12 | Round 13 | Round 14 | Outbound Tours |
| NOV | Outbound Tours | Outbound Tours | Outbound Tours | Off | Round 20 |
| DEC | Round 21 | Round 22 | Round 23 | Round 24 | Off, Xmas |
Afternoon games kick off later once the heat has eased, with short hydration breaks mid-half. These are standard World Rugby protocols, already used by URC teams playing through the South African summer.
The proposal: half of NZR's broadcast revenue, around $95m in its 2025 results[10], is split evenly between the nine Super Provinces.
An even payment to each team dedicated to keeping NZ-qualified players at home instead of Japan or France.
13 guaranteed home games a season. Fill your ground, keep the gate.
Each province sells its own sponsorships, merchandise and hospitality.
Salary cap per team, capped at 60% of revenue. Even funding plus a hard cap means the title is won by recruitment, coaching and development, not by chequebook.
An example profit and loss for one Super Province's High Performance arm. Enforced capping of player payments at 60% of revenue by New Zealand Rugby, ensures no club can spend its way into collapse chasing a title.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Broadcast share50% of the $95.0m 2025 NZR deal ÷ 9 teams | $5.28m |
| Talent retention paymentsNZ-qualified players only, fixed and equal for every team | $5.00m |
| Ticketing13 home games × 14,000 fans × $35[11] | $6.37m |
| Sponsorship, merch & hospitalitySold locally by the province | $1.50m |
| Total revenue | $18.15m |
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Player payments58.7% of revenue, capped at 60%, well under the $12.0m cap | $10.66m |
| 36 contracted players | $10.00m |
| 12 wider training squad × $55k | $0.66m |
| Operations32.5% of revenue, coaches, medical, admin, travel | $5.90m |
| Development7.5% of revenue, A team, U20/U18/U16 pathway | $1.36m |
| Total costs | $17.92m |
| Operating profitRevenue minus costs | +$0.23m |
| Bracket | Players | Avg salary | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| MarqueeSenior All Blacks & franchise faces | 3 | $880k | $2.64m |
| Senior professionalsAll Blacks and senior players | 5 | $480k | $2.40m |
| EstablishedRegular starters | 8 | $300k | $2.40m |
| SquadRotation & bench depth | 12 | $150k | $1.80m |
| DevelopmentFirst professional contracts ($95k minimum contract) | 8 | $95k | $0.76m |
| Contracted squad | 36 | — | $10.00m |
| Wider training squadTrain full-time, on call | 12 | $55k | $0.66m |
| Full playing group | 48 | — | $10.66m |
Today NZR tops up just 30 to 40 players on a Super Rugby salary capped around $195,000[2]. Under the Super Rugby 2030 model, nine teams each paying roughly 16 players $300k or more would put 140+ players above today's salary cap, about 3.5 times as many well-paid professionals.
This change comes hand in hand with the new competition. The All Blacks get paid for the jersey, like England's national side[12]: a fee for each week in camp, a fee for each test, and a bonus for each win. No standing NZR retainers, you earn All Black money by being an All Black.
$12,500 per week in camp$22,500 per test$5,000 per win
A full 12-test season is worth about $542,500, on top of a player's Super Province salary. As a hypothetical, Damian McKenzie's 2025 (11 tests, ~9 wins) would have earned him roughly $505,000 in All Black fees, and adding an assumed $900k Chiefs deal takes him to about $1.41m for the year, broadly in line with what a player of his standing earns today.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Match fees23 matchday × 12 tests × $22,500 | $6.21m |
| Win bonuses23 × 12 × 80% won × $5,000 | $1.10m |
| Camp fees34-man squad × 17 weeks × $12,500 | $7.22m |
| Operations40%, coaching, medical, logistics, travel | $9.69m |
| Total programme | $24.23m |
It's the first thing you'll hear. But look closely at what we run today, and the truth is the other way around.
The unaffordable option is the one we already have.
Remember the problem we started with: Super Rugby franchises losing money (the Hurricanes dropped $1.4m then $700k and needed a bailout), and an NPC costing around $200,000 a game to stage for crowds of just 2,000. We already pay for two competitions that don't work. This is about paying for one that does.
It fits inside what NZR already spends, no new money required. The nine Super Provinces cost $92.5m and the All Blacks $24.2m, $116.7m in total. That's just over half of the $216m NZR already puts into competitions and its Teams in Black[10], and only 37% of its total 2025 expenditure of $311m[10], leaving plenty for everything else.
A single 26-match home-and-away season produces 182 fixtures a year, against roughly 147 across Super Rugby and the NPC today. More matches means more broadcast inventory, more tickets sold, more sponsorship, a bigger pie before a dollar is spent.
When every fixture is top-flight rugby with All Blacks on the field, provincial games start attracting the crowds again, and a fixture that draws a crowd is a fixture that makes money instead of losing it.
Today the country runs 14 NPC unions plus 5 Super Rugby franchises, 19 professional and semi-professional organisations, each with its own CEO, board and back office. Consolidating to 9 Super Provinces strips out that duplicated overhead.
The other reflex objection. But New Zealand isn't short of players, it's exporting them. The talent for four additional teams already exists; it just leaves to play somewhere else.
We don't lack depth. We lack places to keep it.
Around half of all New Zealand Super Rugby professionals end up playing overseas[13], enough talent abroad to stock several extra squads. On top of that, there are 14 semi-professional NPC sides here to draw on. The depth question answers itself.
One simple ladder inside each province, from the amateur rep grades to the professional side, means players can see exactly where they're headed. Fewer slip through the cracks, and more of the talent already here makes it to the top.
With more professional teams, competitive salaries and a genuine career to build, fewer players need to chase money or game time overseas or in the NRL. The next prospect has a real reason to stay, so the drain slows and the pool here grows on its own.
Today each Super club may field only two overseas players. As the competition grows, that could extend, say, to four per club, drawing genuine international stars into New Zealand rugby without crowding out local talent. Imagine Antoine Dupont running out for the Blues or the Crusaders.
In 2026 alone, more than 15 players left New Zealand, including eight or nine All Blacks, enough to field a full starting XV. Not fringe players either: the likes of Hoskins Sotutu, Sevu Reece, Mark Tele'a and Dalton Papali'i. That's the depth walking out the door, every single year, players Super Rugby 2030 would have the room and money to keep[14].
Beyond fixing the problems already covered, the model brings a few more wins worth calling out.
Today Super Rugby is done by June and the comp goes quiet. This calendar has meaningful rugby every month, so rugby competes for attention all year, including against the NRL, instead of conceding half of it.
A 26-match home-and-away season plus finals puts NZ players on par with the European club workload, battle-tested rather than under-cooked when they pull on the black jersey.
Equal broadcast shares, equal retention pools and a $12.0m salary cap mean no province can stockpile All Blacks, the talent spreads itself, and any of the nine can win it.
A century of provincial history carried into the top flight. Fans back the place they're from, not a franchise invented in a boardroom.
The Ranfurly Shield carries over, defended on home soil and challenged for every season, contested between the NZ Super Provinces. The Log o' Wood stays where it belongs.
Australian rugby no longer stops when Super Rugby ends, the Brumbies, Reds, Waratahs and Force get a real 27-round season. And as talent spreads, the Aussie sides get more competitive too.
Every number on this page is a starting position, not a ceiling. France's Top 14 began life as a far smaller competition and grew into the richest league in the world. Super Rugby itself started as Super 6, then 10, then 12, then 14. Competitions are built, season by season.
Nine Super Provinces is the foundation. As the game grows, more fans through the gates, more broadcast value, more sponsorship, more players choosing to stay, the salaries rise, the depth deepens, the overseas allowance can widen, and the competition gets stronger every year. The point isn't that this is finished. The point is that it's a base worth building on.
Key facts and figures in this proposal are drawn from the public sources below.
All player salaries, the $12.0m cap, the example club P&L and the All Blacks pay rates are proposed figures for illustration, built on the public inputs above, and would be subject to negotiation rather than being official NZR numbers.
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