New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew has hailed SANZAR's new broadcast rights agreement for competitions across Australia, South Africa and New Zealand as a major vote of confidence in southern hemisphere rugby.
The US Dollars $437million, five-year deal will run from 2011 to 2015 and represents a 35% increase on the comparable components of the current five-year agreement of US Dollars $323million which expires at the end of this year.
The new deal has been structured differently to the previous two - the initial 10-year agreement struck with News Limited in 1996 and the current News Limited and Supersport deal - with individual agreements reached with Supersport (Africa), Fox Sports (Australia) and Sky Television (New Zealand) for broadcast rights in the respective countries.
SANZAR, the governing body of the Super rugby and Tri-Nations competitions which involves South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, has also reached agreement for the UK market and is awaiting finalisation for the British and Irish Lions tour rights in 2013, while agreements for additional territories such as France, North America and Asia are still under negotiation.
'We believe that rugby is in good health and that its appeal remains strong both in terms of participation and in terms of the interest of our fans across South Africa, New Zealand and Australia,' Tew said.
'This agreement underlines that and helps secure the new competitions and deliver them in all three countries and also, importantly, supports the game's funding which allows all three unions to continue to develop rugby through investment in the community and amateur game and the retention of our best players and coaches.'
From 2011 the Super rugby competition will be expanded to 15 teams with the inclusion of the Melbourne Rebels, while planning to include Argentina in a new Four Nations competition (currently the Tri-Nations) from 2012 continues.
Acting managing director of SA Rugby (Pty) Ltd, Andy Marinos, said: 'We've reached what is a very good long-term deal for SANZAR in what was a difficult economic climate when negotiations started.
'We expect to achieve material increases across all territories and this deal will ensure that rugby continues to grow and prosper and sustain our wish that SANZAR remains the dominant force in world rugby while the inclusion of Argentina also signals our intent to continually expand and develop our competition structures.'
The broadcast agreement announcement co-incided with the NZRU's Annual General Meeting in Wellington where a record loss of NZ Dollars $15.9 million for 2009 was announced.
Tew admitted the result was disappointing after the NZRU posted a modest profit of NZ Dollars $366,000 in 2008.
'Of the loss, NZ Dollars $9.5 million is on our operating budget, mainly from a shortfall of income on All Blacks Test matches at home and abroad, reduced interest income and increased expenditure on medical support and players due to a higher than normal number of injuries.'
The remaining NZ Dollars $6.4 million related to losses incurred for next year's Rugby World Cup.
'In relation to RWC 2011, we have accounted for our one-third share of the operating losses incurred by Rugby New Zealand 2011 Limited which have increased as expected as the tournament nears and some unrealised foreign exchange losses that will be recovered in future periods based on the specific arrangements we have in place,' Tew added.
He also signalled that further belt tightening was likely.
'While we are fortunate that our financial position is very strong the game cannot continue to spend more than it earns and this result, on top of some very worrying provincial union results, sends a very clear message,' Tew said.
'Consequently we have made revenue growth and cost management a priority for 2010.'
