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South Africa is one of 10 founding unions behind a plan to pool the broadcast and commercial rights to rugby’s biggest international competitions. The plan would put the Springboks in a single sales vehicle with the sport’s wealthiest markets. It would also widen the commercial gap between those 10 nations and the rest of the international game.
The four SANZAAR unions (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina) and the six Six Nations unions (England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy) will form a new company, provisionally called F10, The Telegraph reported last week. It would market the Six Nations, the Rugby Championship and the Nations Championship together, along with British & Irish Lions tours and the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series between New Zealand and South Africa. A chief executive will be appointed to grow revenue.
How the rights will be sold
Collective sponsorship sales are expected to start in 2028, the second edition of the Nations Championship. Broadcast rights follow from 2030, once existing Six Nations and SANZAAR media deals expire in 2029. The three competitions will then be sold together, with bespoke packages also available.
The revenue will be shared, but not equally: unions with bigger markets, such as England and France, are expected to take a larger share. Southern hemisphere unions will earn from the Six Nations and Lions tours, while the European unions will benefit from Rugby Championship and Greatest Rivalry deals. Japan and Fiji, guest nations in the Nations Championship, will receive appearance fees rather than a share of central income. No figures have been disclosed.
Under the plan, promotion and relegation will not apply to the founding unions. That is a departure from the original Nations Championship plan, under which World Rugby was to create a second-tier competition feeding promotion and relegation from 2030.
What it means for SA Rugby
The Springboks are back-to-back world champions, but South Africa is a small commercial market next to England or France, and pooling gives SA Rugby a share of Six Nations and Lions income it could not reach by selling alone. Lions money is especially valuable because a tour to South Africa comes round only once every 12 years.
South Africa brings the sport’s strongest on-field product to a pool weighted towards market size, so the most important terms for SA Rugby will be how the split is calculated and whether it can be revisited as the Springbok brand grows.
The broadcast question
From 2030, SuperSport, which carries Springbok Tests across sub-Saharan Africa, would deal with one seller offering every major Test competition instead of separate rights holders. A single seller has more leverage on price, and African rights could become part of a global negotiation rather than a regional one.
Africa’s emerging unions
Without promotion and relegation, unions such as Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya have no route into the top tier and no claim on the pooled income, leaving their commercial growth dependent on World Rugby funding and their own sponsorship markets. The plan still needs the company to be formed and a chief executive appointed.
