NZ Rugby facing risks around global season and commercial partnership as CEO search drags on – Gregor Paul

It is understood there were relatively few high-calibre female applicants, and the expectation that the job would attract applications from little-known, offshore Kiwis with impressive CVs didn’t materialise.

The selection of a new chief executive was widely seen as the most significant challenge the relatively new board had faced since its appointment in February 2025.

The board had spent its first few months hammering out a refined strategy, and following the resignation of Robinson in June, the opportunity presented itself to find the business-savvy, sports-literate, dynamic, modern leader NZR needed to take the game in the agreed direction.

The choice of recruitment firm, the job description, the final selection of the short-list and the interviews were all made by the board. It was their gig entirely, with NZR’s executive and communications team shut off entirely from the process.

But seven months after the process began, the job remains unfilled, and there is a growing sense that the board has failed to deliver on its first major assignment.

There is an argument that it lost control of the process; in early November, names of short-listed candidates were leaked to the media after they had been interviewed in Auckland. Details were also leaked of a private conversation chair David Kirk had with former Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle, where he advised her not to apply for the role.

Despite the leaks – which revealed current Six Nations chief executive Tom Harrison and former NZ Cricket chief executive David White were on the short-list – NZR remained confident that it would announce the new hire before Christmas last year.

Christmas came and went. Now, as March approaches, it is believed the process has been put on hold, and Steve Lancaster, who was promoted to interim chief executive in late October last year, is understood to have been told he’s likely to be manning the helm for some time yet.

The Herald has been told by two well-placed sources that Harrison (currently based in Britain) withdrew from the process after he had requested to be based in Sydney and wanted significantly more money than the maximum $1.2 million NZR was willing to offer.

White is believed to have also pulled out after becoming aware that he was not the preferred candidate. Almost nine months have passed since Robinson resigned, and NZR remains without a successor.

NZR says the situation is manageable in the short-to-mid-term. It says Lancaster, a sports-industry veteran who held high-performance roles with the Crusaders and New Zealand Netball before joining NZR in 2016 to manage the community game, is a safe pair of hands, and now that it has found a chief financial officer (Chris Kinraid) and chief commercial officer (Chris Brown), there is stability and security at the apex of its leadership.

But multiple stakeholders have told the Herald they see things differently. These sources told the Herald that while Lancaster is being fully supported by the board, they believed he was not a realistic candidate to be offered the chief executive role permanently. The sources noted that the two new executive arrivals may have impressive CVs, but neither has institutional knowledge nor any experience in the niche world of professional sport.

The sense that NZR’s leadership is learning its craft on the job is accentuated by the fact that it will likely appoint a new All Blacks coach next week. And it continues to operate without a high-performance manager after the resignation of Mike Anthony in January, albeit it has now amended the role and begun searching for an appropriate candidate.

NZR also lost Yarnie Guthrie, the lead salesman and deal maker in its commercial team, at the end of last year. General manager of professional rugby Chris Lendrum resigned this week after 20 years in the job.

Even with the highly capable David Kirk operating more as a US-style executive chair as he currently appears to be, the prevailing view among rugby’s executive class is that it’s a risk for a $3.5 billion business to be operating with an interim CEO after a supposed world-class process failed to find a permanent one. The risk is accentuated by having two new recruits in the key roles of CFO and CCO, all while the rugby side of the business tries to bed in a new All Blacks coach and decide who should fill the vacant head of high performance job.

There is a lack of institutional knowledge at a time when two major threats are looming into view.

Will New Zealand be outsmarted by Australia and South Africa over the global season?

A couple of weeks ago in Perth, the Sanzaar partners were nutting out an agreement on how to split their international broadcast revenue.

At the same meeting, it is understood, the vexed issue of whether to support a transition to a global season came up, with South Africa strongly in favour of shifting the Rugby Championship to align with the Six Nations to be played in February-March.

This is not a new topic. It has been circling for the past few years, but what’s apparent now is that momentum is rebuilding to bring the matter to a World Rugby council vote early next year.

The global season proposal will be discussed at the World Rugby “Shape of the Game” conference this week in London. Given the ongoing success of the Springboks on the field, South Africa have strong standing in the game and the ability to get what they want.

The shift would perfectly suit the South Africans, because their clubs play in European competitions, and an alignment of the Northern and Southern showpiece international tournaments would create an off-season (something they don’t have at the moment) and an opportunity to schedule select, high-value tests in October ahead of the Springboks’ November commitments.

Argentina are also believed to be in favour of the shift – for much the same reasons as the South Africans. But the big difference now is that Rugby Australia is supportive of at least exploring fully what a reworked season would look like.

It is understood the potential attraction is that the crowded Australian sports market is relatively quiet in February-March. Rugby could win more media coverage and fan interest than it does in the current set-up, which pits the last rounds of the Rugby Championship against the finals of both the NRL and AFL.

A shift would also pave the way for RA to get its coveted Anzac test and potentially extend the Bledisloe series to three games on an annual basis.

The Herald received the following statement from Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh: “Test rugby is in strong health around the world, including here in Australia, where the Wallabies last year set a new attendance record.

“A global calendar has been discussed for some time and, as ever, Rugby Australia will engage with an open mind and act in the best interests of our teams and players, fans and partners.”

But while Waugh would only confirm that he has an open mind, South Africa Rugby chief executive Rian Oberholzer recently said that Australia is now strongly supportive of a global season.

“In the past, when we last talked about it seriously, New Zealand was the biggest challenge. Australia is now on board,” he said on the Rapport Praat podcast.

“We have a good chance of getting through this time. I think New Zealand also understands that there are more solutions and positivity than negativity to change the seasons.”

New Zealand now stands alone among its Sanzaar partners as the only advocate for retaining the status quo.

Shifting the Rugby Championship would likely result in the NPC being played at the same time – or at least mostly overlapping – Super Rugby, and ultimately it would require a radical overhaul of a set-up that doesn’t necessarily appear to be broken.

South Africa, and to a lesser extent Australia, appear engaged and motivated to drive change. They are likely to find supportive allies in the Northern Hemisphere, because a global season will have minimal impact on the Six Nations (it may have to start two weeks later than it currently does).

There is a sense that NZR is seen as vulnerable because it doesn’t yet have a permanent CEO. Robinson, who is now working for World Rugby, was a well-liked and much-respected figure in global rugby politics and strongly defended New Zealand’s interests when they were under threat from Sanzaar partners.

The question now is whether NZR has the leadership and political nous to not be outsmarted and outmanoeuvred at both the Sanzaar and World Rugby board tables and forced into a massive overhaul that ultimately works for everyone else but not New Zealand.

Lancaster has little to no experience of being on the frontlines of Sanzaar politics, which can be notoriously nasty and underhanded.

Board member Greg Barclay, who replaced Robinson as one of NZR’s World Rugby Council members, is well-schooled in sports diplomacy, given he’s a former chair of the International Cricket Council, but he’s relatively new to the way rugby does things and how Machiavellian so-called allies can be.

NZR said in a statement: “As always, NZR will engage openly at the World Rugby ‘Shape of the Game’ meetings to make sure rugby reflects what fans and players want.

“That means there are always new opportunities to discuss and potential issues to solve. It’s important we listen and then determine what is best for both New Zealand rugby and the wider sport.”

Are partners and stakeholders concerned about the lack of a CEO?

NZR is expecting to earn around $135m in sponsorship income this year – a figure which constitutes more than a third of its likely total revenue.

The Herald understands that at least seven – but as many as nine – partnerships are coming up for renewal. It’s understood that three of the most lucrative – Altrad (circa $50m a year), Toyota (circa $10m) and Gallagher (circa $10m) – all of whom currently hold various naming rights on the All Blacks kit, need to be renewed or alternatives found by the end of the year.

Altrad (front of jersey), Toyota (training kit) and Gallagher (back of shorts) are all locked in until the end of 2027, but apparel partner Adidas has to manufacture the 2028 jerseys in early 2027, hence the need to have assurance about the logos and names going on the kit.

The agreement with Japanese pharmaceutical firm Taisho is also on the table to be renegotiated, and the deal with Adidas runs until the end of 2028. Agreements with the German firm have typically been extended well in advance of expiry.

An estimated $80m-$100m of sponsorships need to be renewed this year or early next. While the arrival of Brown as CCO has lessened some of the angst that was building about who would lead the negotiations on these critical agreements, the Herald has been told by one well-placed source that some sponsors have “been twitchy” about NZR’s inability to find a CEO.

The Herald has also been told that while NZR expects to see an uplift in revenue when it renews its kit sponsorship, it has lowered previous forecasts.

Historically, these major sponsorships are agreed at the highest level – typically between the respective chief executives – and the longevity of the deal is often determined by the strength of the relationship that is forged by the two people in the respective highest offices.

The All Blacks’ previous front-of-jersey deal with AIG was agreed in Croatia when former NZR CEO Steve Tew flew there to meet Bob Benmosch, who was CEO of the US-based insurance group.

Between 2020 and 2025, Robinson spent much of his time operating as a pseudo chief commercial officer – travelling the world with the likes of former CCOs Richard Thomas and Craig Fenton, as well as Guthrie, to wine and dine the CEOs and key decision-makers of prospective sponsors.

He played a key role in bringing on Taisho, and even after he had resigned last year, he was in Japan working on bringing in new partners.

Having access to NZR’s CEO gives sponsors an understanding about who they are doing business with, likely strategic direction and upcoming challenges.

It’s therefore not ideal that NZR is trying to lock in major, six-year agreements without yet having a permanent CEO, but the national body says: “NZR has an interim CEO who has been appointed by the board with the full responsibility to lead the organisation and game.

“A critical element of that role is to connect with our global and domestic rugby and commercial partners.

“We have strong relationships with all of our commercial partners, and our board, executive and senior management enjoy regular connections with them both in New Zealand and internationally.”

Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.