There Is No Single Blueprint for Professional Rugby Union

I should begin with a disclaimer. This is not a blueprint for repairing professional rugby. I do  not have a neat model that can be lifted from one country and installed in another, and I am  suspicious of anybody who says they do. The solutions deserve another article, probably  several. 

What I want to do here is more basic. Drawing on my own experience working in a  governance capacity within the game, I want to describe the terrain: who produces the  players, who generates the money, where the risks sit, and why the same structure can  succeed in one market and fail in another. Before rugby decides who should own or control  its professional game, it needs a more honest account of what keeps that game alive. 

A live warning from New Zealand 

As I was revising this piece, NZ’s The Post reported that New Zealand Rugby had placed  three options for its domestic future on the table. One would expand Super Rugby Pacific.  Another would retain Super Rugby and the NPC while combining the Super Rugby sides  with their principal provincial unions. The most dramatic would replace both competitions  with a new eight-to-ten-team New Zealand league. 

It is only an option, not a decision. Rugby Australia has reportedly been reassured that New  Zealand remains committed to Super Rugby, and both unions have broadcast arrangements  and competition commitments running to 2030. Yet the fact that a domestic breakaway can  be seriously discussed is revealing. New Zealand Rugby is confronting a large structural  deficit. Its provincial unions are entitled to ask whether the present system works for them.

The problem is that a rational decision for New Zealand could impose much of its cost  elsewhere. 

Australia would lose the weekly trans-Tasman opposition on which the value and credibility  of Super Rugby still partly depend. The four Australian teams might gain greater control of  their calendar and domestic identity, but only after absorbing a severe short-term blow to  broadcasting, sponsorship and player retention. Rugby Australia, already rebuilding after the  collapse of the Melbourne Rebels, would be left to construct another professional  competition while trying to keep its leading players at home. 

The effect on the Pacific would be harsher. The Fijian Drua provide Fiji with a professional  pathway based in the region, a home audience and regular high-level competition. Remove  the New Zealand teams and the Drua lose the strongest part of their weekly programme.  Moana Pasifika have already shown how precarious a Pacific franchise can be when its  funding and operating model fail. Samoa and Tonga would again be asked to supply players  to other countries' competitions without possessing a durable professional institution of their  own. 

New Zealand would not escape the consequences either. A national league might reconnect  teams with provincial identities and reduce duplication between Super Rugby and the NPC.  It might also produce a smaller, more repetitive product, weaken regional rivalries, reduce its value outside New Zealand and accelerate the movement of players to Japan, France, the  NRL or elsewhere. 

This is the ownership debate in miniature. A governing body may act in the interests of the  game within its borders and still damage the ecosystem around it. A private club can do the  same. Neither ownership nor union status guarantees custodianship. 

The appeal of the Soviet argument 

Professional rugby plainly needs regular reform. Clubs employ and develop many of the  players on whom the international game depends. They carry large wage bills while working  around Test windows, release agreements and player-management rules. Their  representatives have limited influence within World Rugby despite employing most of the  professional workforce. In several countries, clubs or provinces rely so heavily on governing body distributions that commercial accountability becomes blurred. 

Andrew Trimble and Daniel McKeown recently described this in The Times as rugby's  version of a Soviet planned economy: central authorities control entry, allocate resources  and protect unsuccessful organisations from the ordinary consequences of failure. Their  argument is that those carrying the financial risk should possess more control and a stronger  incentive to build the professional club game. 

That critique lands because it contains truth. Some unions are conservative, political and  slow. They can confuse custodianship with entitlement. Professional clubs deserve a  meaningful voice in decisions about their players, competitions and businesses. 

The harder part is proving that transferring control to private owners would solve the  underlying problem. Rugby's evidence points somewhere less convenient. Ownership is one  element of success, but often not the decisive one. 

England and France share a model but not a market 

France is regularly presented as proof of what happens when clubs are allowed to control  their destiny. 

The Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) operates the Top 14 and Pro D2 under authority  delegated by the French Rugby Federation (FFR). Its clubs play a decisive part in running  the professional leagues, negotiating commercial agreements and shaping their  competitions. 

That is not radically different in principle from England. Premiership Rugby (PRL) is owned  by its shareholder clubs and runs the Premiership within the RFU's jurisdiction. Its clubs  have negotiated their relationship with the union, shaped the salary cap and controlled much  of the competition's commercial strategy. Both countries have privately controlled  professional clubs, a league body representing them and a national union responsible for the  wider game. 

Yet their results could hardly be more different. 

French professional rugby supports two substantial divisions. In the 2024-25 regular season,  the Top 14 attracted 2.93 million spectators, an average of 16,114 per match, while Pro D2  drew more than 1.4 million. The competitions have broadcast value, strong local followings  and clubs capable of attracting leading players from around the world. 

English professional rugby contracted after Wasps, Worcester and London Irish entered  administration. The Premiership remains dependent on owner investment and RFU  payments, and from 2026-27 automatic promotion and relegation is being replaced by criteria-based entry and expansion. That may or may not prove sensible, but it comes after  decades in which a pyramid existed. The lack of one did not cause the collapses. 

If devolved club control were itself the answer, England should already be thriving. 

France's advantage lies deeper than ownership. Its clubs are embedded in towns and  communities, particularly across the south and south-west. Municipal authorities have  historically provided grounds and practical support. Pro D2 supplies a meaningful second  professional level for players, coaches, sponsors and supporters. Canal+ has treated  domestic rugby as a valuable product. The professional teams also sit above a largely club centred development culture. 

England has old and distinguished clubs too, and community clubs do excellent work. Its  elite pathway, however, remains disproportionately entangled with fee-paying schools.  Rugby reaches a narrower social and cultural market than football, and its professional clubs  must build audiences from that smaller base. That is not an inconvenience created solely by  the RFU. It is part of the commercial reality in which the clubs operate. 

Nor did France prosper because the FFR politely stood aside. Its system depends on  continual, sometimes difficult bargaining between the federation and the LNR. Player  release, the calendar, salary regulation, development payments and French-qualified player  rules are regulated. Even in a record period for crowds and income, the clubs collectively  continue to report operating losses. France combines a strong market with wealthy backers,  municipal support and firm regulation. 

The lesson is not that clubs flourish when a union retreats. It is that club rugby can flourish  when its market, roots, broadcaster, pathway and regulatory settlement reinforce one  another. 

A pyramid cannot create a market 

It is misleading to suggest that England and Wales failed because nobody thought to create a pyramid. England already had one. Wales had one too. The difficulty was converting  traditional clubs and competitions into a sustainable professional market after 1995. 

A pyramid can organise movement between divisions. It cannot manufacture customers,  broadcast income or investors. Rugby contains more historically important clubs than  sustainable professional businesses. Promotion and relegation do not remove that tension.  In some circumstances they intensify it by encouraging clubs to spend beyond their means  in pursuit of promotion or survival. 

Wasps, Worcester and London Irish were not protected state factories spared the  consequences of failure. They went into administration. Employees lost jobs, suppliers lost  money and supporters lost institutions central to their lives.  

Whatever else this represents, it is not an absence of consequences or commercial  incentive. 

There are valid complaints about the English calendar and access to international players.  But PRL runs the competition, and private capital has been involved throughout the  professional era. The uncomfortable possibility is that some clubs failed not because they  lacked freedom, but because the available market could not sustain their expenditure and  ambitions.

Japan is corporate rugby not liberated club rugby 

Japan is also cited as evidence that clubs grow when unions relinquish control. That  description does not survive contact with the ownership structure. 

Leading Japanese teams are owned or operated by major corporations including Toyota,  Panasonic, Toshiba, Suntory, Honda, Ricoh, Canon, Kubota, Yamaha and Kobe Steel. They  developed as company teams. Their purpose included employee welfare, recruitment,  corporate identity and prestige. Many players were company employees, and the parent  business absorbed costs that a conventional club would have needed rugby income to  cover. 

That support has produced excellent facilities, attracted world-class players and raised  playing standards. It is also a subsidy. The teams are protected from ordinary rugby  economics for as long as the parent company chooses to protect them. 

When corporate priorities change, the team can disappear without another corporation  waiting to take its place. Coca-Cola ended the Red Sparks after reviewing its business  priorities and withdrew its application to join the new league. Munakata Sanix Blues ceased  operating amid difficulties in the company that supported them. World Fighting Bull  disappeared after financial problems at its corporate parent. These were not necessarily  insolvencies like Worcester or Wasps. The owner stopped maintaining the rugby operation. 

Japan Rugby League One, launched in 2022 to replace the Top League, was designed to  move the corporate game towards a more recognisable professional competition. It  introduced three divisions, promotion and relegation, clearer host areas, community  obligations and stronger commercial and organisational entry requirements. 

That reform was not the Japanese union getting out of the way. League One remains part of  the JRFU system, and entry is licensed. It was a planned attempt to turn company teams  into stronger local sporting properties while retaining corporate finance. 

The transition is incomplete. Corporate names still dominate, crowds vary widely and some  players still combine rugby with company employment. Japan is an interesting model, but it  is not evidence that independent clubs become self-sustaining once their union retreats. It  shows what corporate subsidy, imported expertise and centrally organised reform can  achieve. 

The pandemic exposed the interdependence 

The pandemic subjected every ownership model to the same brutal test. Once crowds and  gate receipts disappeared, market income did not keep professional rugby alive. 

Governments, unions, international revenue, broadcasters, corporate parents and wealthy  owners all contributed. Japanese companies continued financing their teams. French and  English clubs relied on public assistance and owners. Union-controlled systems used  reserves, borrowing and the expected return of international income. 

This is not proof that unions are efficient or that existing arrangements should be preserved.  It is proof that professional rugby is economically interdependent. 

Clubs develop international players, but Test rugby supplies much of those players' profile  and a large share of the sport's money. The grassroots produce future professionals,  volunteers and customers. Broadcasters buy competitions because clubs, international  teams and major events together create an audience.

The value is jointly produced. It cannot be divided neatly into a profitable professional  property belonging to an owner and a separate system expected to provide its players,  money and legitimacy. 

The women's game shows what managed growth can achieve 

The women's game supplies a more hopeful version of the same lesson. Its history contains  neglect, poor planning and opportunities lost. It is not yet commercially self-sustaining across  most countries, and the burden placed on players has often exceeded the support available  to them. Yet deliberate investment is producing measurable growth. 

The 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup sold 444,465 tickets. Its final drew 81,885 people to  Twickenham, a world record for a women's rugby match. The 2026 Women's Six Nations  attracted 279,760 spectators. Ireland's first standalone women's international at the Aviva  Stadium brought in 31,294, only weeks after a national record of 9,206 had been set in  Galway. It was a privilege to attend and I had a tear in my eye as proceedings got going that day. 

Those numbers did not appear because governing bodies withdrew and waited for demand.  Unions, competitions, broadcasters, governments, sponsors and clubs invested in contracts,  pathways, event presentation and visibility before the women's game could pay for all of it  itself. 

The structures vary. England has a club-based professional competition supported by RFU  investment. Ireland’s elite pathway is more directly shaped by the union. France has its own  club culture and development system, while other unions use hybrid arrangements. No  single ownership form explains the growth. There is also vigorous debate about how it  should be managed. John Cronin, former DoR at Railway Union RFC, posted two very in depth overviews in the Irish Independent of Irish women’s rugby as he saw it, and unlike  many, John also provided what he felt were good solutions, given his experience as an  innovator in the women’s game. 

Nor should record crowds be confused with financial security. A full national stadium for one  international does not guarantee a sustainable weekly league. The next task is to convert  major-event attention into regular audiences, better player conditions, stronger domestic  competitions and deeper participation. That evolution will take time. 

The women's game belongs in this discussion because it shows that managed development  is not automatically bureaucratic stagnation. Central investment can create markets. It can  also fail if it is impatient, fragmented or withdrawn before those markets mature. The  landscape is also changing. One recent example is IRFU Head of Women’s Strategy, Lynne  Cantwell’s announcement that the union has expressed interest in joining England’s  professional women’s competition. 

Rugby league succeeds through control as well as commerce 

Rugby league offers another useful comparison because its strongest competition is  commercially formidable without pretending that the international game drives its finances. 

The NRL is concentrated in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Its club competition is  the weekly engine; State of Origin is its premium representative product; international rugby  league is important but commercially secondary. From 2028 to 2034, its new broadcast  agreement is worth a staggering A$5.3 billion. 

That does not describe a sport waiting for global expansion to save it. It describes a  competition that understands and develops a valuable domestic and regional market.

It is not, however, a free market. NRL clubs have different forms of ownership, including  private owners, member organisations and leagues-club backing. Above them sits the  Australian Rugby League Commission, which controls licences, expansion, broadcasting,  the salary cap, central distributions, the draw and much of the representative calendar. 

The NRL has prospered through collective commercial power and forceful central regulation.  It chooses where expansion occurs and on what terms. 

North Sydney, my own club, demonstrates the cost within that success. The Bears are a  foundation club with history, identity and a committed community. They were removed from  the elite competition during rationalisation and pushed into the disastrous Northern Eagles  arrangement. The club survived, but its place in the top tier did not. 

Their return as part of the Perth Bears depends on an NRL licence, a geographical strategy  and substantial support from the Western Australian government. That is not a traditional  club naturally finding its way back through a pyramid. It is central planning deciding when,  where and in what form the identity may return. 

Toronto Wolfpack demonstrate the opposite risk. They offered the enticing private-sector  proposition: an ambitious owner, a major North American city and a route through the  English divisions into Super League. The project collapsed during the pandemic. Travel  costs, access to central broadcast income and integration into the wider competition were  never settled on a sustainable basis. Players spent years pursuing unpaid wages. 

Private investment created the opportunity. It did not create the ecosystem required to  sustain it. 

Rugby league is sometimes called insular. Its success suggests a different reading. A sport  does not have to conquer the world to grow. It has to know which products people value,  build them in markets with genuine cultural reach and regulate them coherently. 

That lesson is relevant to rugby union. Copying the ownership structure is not. 

Ownership is not custodianship 

None of this is an argument for preserving every union structure. Clubs require a real voice  over calendars, player access and the competitions in which they invest. Authority and  financial risk should be better aligned. Responsibilities should be explicit, accounts  transparent and failure faced honestly. 

Private owners are not inherently more farsighted than unions. Their incentives come from  their own businesses. Club control can encourage investment and innovation, but it can also  produce excessive fixtures, escalating wages, short-term recruitment and pressure on  players. Union control can protect pathways and international revenues, but it can also  become political, complacent and resistant to change. 

New Zealand's current debate makes the point especially well. A union considering a  domestic solution to its own financial problem is behaving rationally from one perspective.  From Australia or Fiji, the same decision could look like the strongest party extracting itself  from a shared competition after others built their systems around it. Custodianship has  borders unless the institutions deliberately look beyond them. 

Union ownership has worked well in Ireland and struggled elsewhere. Private ownership  helped build the Top 14 and was present throughout the contraction of the English  Premiership. Corporate ownership has raised standards in Japan while leaving teams  dependent on decisions made far beyond rugby. The NRL's diverse owners operate beneath one of the strongest central authorities in professional sport. The women's game is growing  because institutions are managing and financing expansion before the market is mature. 

There is no single model because there is no single rugby market. 

The objective should not be to decide whether unions or owners deserve to win control. It  should be to create locally credible systems in which clubs, leagues and unions possess  enough authority to do their jobs, accept accountability for their decisions and recognise their  dependence on one another. 

That is less satisfying than promising liberation from rugby's so-called Soviet system. It is  also closer to the evidence. 

Rugby's problems will not be solved simply by changing who owns them. Nor will the game  save itself if every club, union or country looks only after its own part of it. 

© 2026 Justin Deegan. Copyright remains with the author.