US President Donald Trump, SailGP in Auckland, new Wallaby Joseph Sua'ali'i and Super Rugby captains. Photos / Photosport, Getty Images
A renewed tide of optimism around rugby in Australia, including a broadcasting deal with a cash incentive twist for the Wallabies; How New Zealand benefits from a Wallabies resurgence; And will Tom Brady be trumped by the US President blowing the Viking horn against our Warriors in Las Vegas?
Sports Insider has spent the past month across the Tasman and been surprised to meet growing optimism about Australian rugby’s immediate future.
The recent announcement of host cities for the 2027 Rugby World Cup has ensured some summer headlines, but there’s more to it than the tournament looming on the Aussie horizon.
Now the Indians have been dispatched by a newly ruthless Australian cricket outfit, normally media is awash with Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) pre-season talk.
But rugby is attracting unexpectedly high coverage for a code Kiwis are repeatedly told is on life support across the Ditch.
It’s an early call but the tide of pessimism that has prevailed in Australia in recent years seems to have turned.
I ventured into both Reds and Waratahs territory and found confidence is high about the Super Rugby Pacific prospects of both teams.
So also are the hopes of upsetting the British and Irish Lions this year under Joe Schmidt, who is on the brink of achieving the impossible: a Kiwi coach whom Australian rugby seems to regard with affection. It’s a pity for Australia that the Kiwi will leave at the end of this year’s Rugby Championship, which follows the Lions series.
Star power is playing a part. Rugby Australia (RA) has been strongly criticised for the A$1.76 million ($1.94m) annual fee it is paying Joseph Sua’ali’i for the next three years. But the ex-NRL young gun is creating massive interest.
A Waratahs pre-season match in the New South Wales country town of Bowral sold out on the sniff of a suggestion Sua’ali’i would make an appearance. Instead he was back in Sydney, nursing a minor leg injury.
When a hamstring twinge gains massive media coverage in Australia, you’re dealing with a superstar.
Yes, all of this could be just typical Aussie bluster and bravado after a European end-of-season tour offered both promise and ongoing frustration.
But the feeling that good times might just be around the corner is also rubbing off commercially.
Australian press report Channel Nine’s board has signed off on a renewal of domestic broadcasting rights that will represent a 40% rise on the previous deal.
That’s good news for RA, whose share of income from Super Rugby Pacific and other New Zealand-shared ventures will take a hit when New Zealand Rugby (NZR) renews its deal with Sky TV.
On the face of it, NZR taking a financial loss of as much as $20m or more annually on its new deal while RA increases its five-year renewal haul from A$150m to A$210m doesn’t look good.
But in fact it’s one of the best things that could happen to NZR.
The local domestic broadcasting market here is tapped out.
Even if ambitious British-based sports streamer DAZN buys Sky TV as is being mooted, it will not pay any more for rugby rights than Sky proposes to because it will retain a monopoly position.
Australia’s sports broadcasting market offers rugby in this part of the world its best growth opportunity.
DAZN’s purchase last month of Rupert Murdoch’s dominant Aussie pay TV provider Foxtel will not slow down the three-decade-long boom in sports rights in that country.
With Channel Nine and its Stan pay-TV offshoot having bet big on sports rights, there is a friction in the Australian market that doesn’t exist in New Zealand since the demise of Spark Sport.
RA exploited this competitive tension in the current renewal. Stan, now in its 10th year and competing well against both Foxtel and Netflix with a movie/drama and sports mix, also bought the rights to the 2027 Rugby World Cup.
The next five years offers Australian rugby a once-in-a-generation opportunity to clamber off the canvas, starting with the Lions series and ideally punctuated by a strong Wallabies campaign in an Aussie-hosted World Cup.
Indeed, current RA chief executive, former Wallaby Phil Waugh, has set an ambitious 70% winning rate for the national team over the next five years, including winning the Bledisloe Cup every two seasons.
If the Wallabies can achieve that bullish target, maybe we shouldn’t begrudge them. Rugby would suddenly have regained a foothold in one of the most competitive commercial markets for the code.
With South Africa doing their own thing (successfully), NZR needs a strong Wallabies side and improved Super Rugby performances. It will provide leverage for future joint commercial opportunities.
It was just a few years ago that NZR’s board, in a fit of arrogance and hubris, tried to railroad RA into a minor role of a compliant junior partner. Now they need to attach their wagon to the Australians.
How the worm has turned.
The scenario playing out in Australia means relationships with the Aussies are more critical than ever (not withstanding one of them has just been elected chair of World Rugby).
When it was first reported that David Kirk would chair the newly-formed NZR board post the Pilkington Review shake-up, there were some murmurings about the former All Blacks skipper living much of his year in Sydney.
It turns out that could be an advantage given Australian rugby’s opportunities.
Kirk’s relationship skills also won’t go amiss after years of NZR officials looking down their noses at their Australian counterparts, all the time fiddling while Rome burned.
Rugby Australia’s pending broadcast renewal with Channel Nine/Stan has an intriguing element to it that Sports Insider has never seen in any previous rights deal of substance.
According to the Australian Financial Review, the deal earns RA and the players more money, the better Schmidt’s Wallabies perform.
The outlet reported the new agreement includes cash incentives related to Wallabies and Super Rugby franchise performances. One source was quoted as saying the incentives could result in an extra A$30m annually in cash for the union if met.
It’s an unusual clause to see in a broadcasting contract and one normally avoided by both the sports body and the broadcaster.
But clearly, if the Wallabies and Australia’s Super teams are firing, Channel Nine expects free-to-air audiences and Stan subscribers will only increase, lessening the risk of the cash incentive.
The other big story this week across the Ditch has been America’s NFL overlords revealing they will play three regular-season matches in Australia next year.
The Los Angeles Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles will square off at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in October 2026, with the state of Victoria doing a multi-year deal with the American gridiron competition.
The deal has raised the prospect of whether the NFL’s showpiece game, the Super Bowl, would ever be played overseas.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodall hasn’t ruled that out, saying it is a foreseeable prospect.
London has previously hosted regular season NFL matches and it, Paris or Australia seem logical choices if the unthinkable was ever to happen.
In last week’s Sports Insider, we revealed the Canberra Raiders are wooing NFL superstar Tom Brady to blow the Viking horn ahead of the team running out against the Warriors in next month’s NRL Las Vegas spectacular.
But NRL boss Peter V’Landys is looking to trump that call – literally.
The NRL has made an audacious bid to persuade Donald Trump to instead blow the horn at Allegiant Stadium and start the Viking clap the Raiders traditionally run out to.
Trump is a regular visitor to Las Vegas via his close friendship with UFC kingpin Dana White. Sports Insider understands V’Landys also has connections into the White House.
As inconceivable as it seems, there’s a chance they might just pull it off.
Israel Adesanya is a lightning rod for some Kiwi sports fans.
They are the ones probably revelling in Adesanya’s third successive loss in the octagon last weekend, a result that potentially signals the end of a stellar UFC career.
Adesanya seems to irritate the conservative Kiwi, who bristled at his infamous “salty” speech when winning the 2019 Halberg Award as New Zealand’s premier sports star.
I’ve never felt that way about the charismatic Nigerian-born Kiwi. He’s been a breath of fresh air, breaking conventional views of how our athletes should speak and act in public.
More power to him.
If this is in fact the end – and nobody should doubt Adesanya’s ability, if not his desire, to reclimb the mountain – the 35-year-old fighter is a Kiwi sportsman to be respected and feted.
Is that a “can do” attitude we are hearing out there regarding New Zealand sporting events?
Sports Insider’s ears have been pricked in recent weeks by renewed attempts to refresh and revitalise our sporting calendar with diverse and Kiwi-flavoured events.
First, there was the successful SailGP round in its natural home of Auckland Harbour last month.
Sir Russell Coutts and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown had a meeting of the minds, a world-class event followed and a lot of people turned up, creating a vibe not seen in our biggest city for some time.
Another big sporting name played his part in this revitalisation, with this week’s news of Richie McCaw being instrumental in the resurrection of the multi-sport Godzone endurance event.
The former All Blacks captain and his long-time mate and racing partner Rob Nichol are the driving forces behind Godzone’s return as a premier adventure event after a two-year hiatus.
Like the iconic Coast-to-Coast, Godzone has been an event that reflects New Zealand’s can-do attitude ... just as sailing in Auckland does.
The eight-day event attracts some of the world’s premier endurance athletes, as much for the stunning backdrops as the challenge.
Nichol said it was this unique offering that made he and McCaw determined that Godzone should return to our international sporting calendar.
“It’s such an incredible event that allows teams to explore vast and often untouched areas of New Zealand’s back country and is truly aspirational for adventure racers worldwide,” said Nichol, who is also CEO of the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association.
Sam Ruthe: Rising Kiwi star exhibit #1: The 15-year-old from Tauranga signals frightening athletic potential by winning the 3000m senior track and field championship in a world-best, age-group time.
Tyler Bindon: Rising Kiwi star exhibit #2: The 20-year-old All Whites defender joins Chris Wood at EPL club Nottingham Forest in a deal running to the end of 2028.
Ireland’s rugby Kiwis: James Lowe, Bundee Aki and Jamison Gibson-Park offered textbook performances in Ireland’s Six Nations opener against England.
Antoine Dupont: The French rugby captain just keeps getting better and is set to put hapless England to the sword this weekend.
A week out from the start of the season, Fantasy Super Rugby Pacific has finally arrived.