Melbourne will field a team in an expanded Super 15 rugby union competition in 2011, governing body Sanzar said on Thursday.
This follows a decision handed down by an arbitration panel on the location of the 15th Super rugby team between Melbourne and the Southern Kings from South Africa.
Sanzar (South Africa, New Zealand and Australia Rugby) set up the arbitration body last month after it failed to break a deadlock between Australian and South African officials over the choice of the team.
The panel, comprising former New Zealand World Cup-winning captain David Kirk and retired New Zealand High Court Judge Barry Paterson QC, went for Melbourne because of its geographical location and commercial value to Sanzar.
The panel said the Southern Kings had presented a stronger case than Melbourne on their readiness to join the Super 15 competition by guaranteeing their financial viability and pointing to a strong rugby tradition.
”[But] these strengths of the Southern Kings’ application did not, however, offset the benefits in geographical location and commercial value to Sanzar,” the panel said.
The 15th Super Rugby team will play in an Australian Conference under the new Super Rugby competition format from 2011.
”This means they will play both home and away against the other four Australian Conference teams and as a result the Southern Kings would be required to make two crossings of the Indian Ocean in a season,” the panel said.
It said the local derby aspect of matches in Australia, an important issue for generating attendances and broadcasting value, would have been diluted and it would not have been possible to schedule at least two matches in each country each weekend.
By having the team resident in South Africa it would also introduce additional costs to Sanzar of about $530 000 a year, the panel argued.
The Melbourne bid, the panel said, provided considerably greater commercial benefit to Sanzar than the Southern Kings’ application.
It said there had been evidence presented that revenue from the sale of broadcasting rights to Australasian broadcasters would be reduced by $15-million to $20-million over the course of a five-year agreement should the 15th team be resident in South Africa.
The Australian Rugby Union welcomed the panel’s verdict as a vote for common sense.
”Equally we want to recognise that the bid put forward for the Southern Kings was a very good one and it took an even better bid for Melbourne to win out,” ARU managing director John O’Neill said in a statement.
”However, at the moment, this is the right decision for Sanzar and it’s a momentous day for Australian Rugby and the people of Melbourne.”
As a result of the panel’s decision there will be five teams in an Australian Conference, five in a New Zealand Conference and five in a South African Conference from 2011.
The five teams in each Conference will play each other on a home and away basis for eight games in all.
They will then play four of the five teams in each of the other two Conferences home or away for a further eight regular-season matches. — AFP
