NPC broadcast woes a sign of bigger troubles for rugby in New Zealand - Alice Soper

National Provincial Championship is likely to be without a broadcast partner from 2026. Photo / Alex Cairns

OPINION

Provincial rugby is on the chopping block with the news dropping that the National Provincial Championship is likely to be without a broadcast partner from 2026. This represents the most visible of cuts but is not likely to be the last to come for men’s rugby. The 30-year anniversary of the men’s professional game will now ring in an entirely new future.

Without a full broadcast, sponsorship dollars are also likely to dry up. While the men’s game has long relied on the generosity of its wealthy old teammates, the business case is a hard one to make without viewership. A downscaled offering will net a downscaled investment from these benefactors.

Men’s rugby will find itself going back to the future then. Once again relying on gate sales to be a primary revenue generator for the game. Too bad they are more than a little out of practice with hosting these fans. So much of the match-day production is now geared towards how the event appears on screen. This reorientation will need to begin rapidly in order for them to get their fans out of the comfort of their homes and back into the stands.

Without the assured revenue of a broadcast deal and sponsorship funds, player wage cuts are also likely to follow. Therein lies the biggest risk with these potential changes. Whereas the women’s equivalent, the Farah Palmer Cup, has always been amateur, you are now asking current NPC players to consider the same reality. To take up jobs and relegate rugby to a passion project. In trying to turn the tables on this player group, New Zealand Rugby might just find they flip them instead.

We have seen the hollowing out of a talent base already begin when not enough domestic opportunities are on offer. This is of course over in the women’s game where only the Black Ferns can make rugby their full-time job. Every player beneath them is making their own calculations. They weigh up the chance of wearing the black jersey with the other opportunities on offer. The NRLW being the major benefactor. The competition is establishing itself off the back of our paltry offer to players. It’s 1996 all over again.

Just like the school girls I coach, our school boys will be increasingly targeted by league scouts should New Zealand Rugby withdraw their offering. Without the holding pen of talent that the NPC offers, more will head overseas too. The question of overseas All Black selection then is answered by necessity, if the next generation makes their mark offshore.

Change to the high-performance framework is needed for the financial sustainability of our game. The trouble is, New Zealand Rugby has a legacy of prioritising short-term gain over long-term impact. Thirty years of this approach has led to this point. It’s hard to see that this rapid reordering won’t just compound these problems.

At a time of recession in the men’s game, rugby is opting for austerity. You would describe New Zealand Rugby’s current situation as a slack economy, with its current output well below the potential of its resources. Well, the research tells us that cuts under such conditions is a particularly dangerous policy. Contracting the game further while it sits in this precarious position may just prove fatal.

The boys currently in year 11 will now be leaving school and entering into a different reality than their fathers did. They will walk the path laid down by their grandfathers, the same path that their sisters know well. One with a much harder grind to the top.

Those that make their way there will still pull on a black jersey. Those that don’t will pull on jerseys of other countries or codes. Or perhaps, they will just pull out altogether.