Super Rugby crisis: Why Moana Pasifika’s survival matters for New Zealand Rugby – Alice Soper
Moana Pasifika faces an existential crisis. Photo / Photosport
Once a year, a storyline will emerge asking questions about the financial viability of our national obsession. This year, the story is centred on the fate of Moana Pasifika. The future of the newest domestic men’s team in Super Rugby hangs in the balance. Each of these stories hinges on the same central question: can the game afford this competition?
It has not been possible to close the 30-year head start afforded to Moana Pasifika’s rivals in five short seasons. Despite seed funding from World Rugby and Sport New Zealand, the team were entering a world that looked very different from 1996.
Back then, Super Rugby netted a 10-year broadcast deal worth just over half a billion dollars to kick the competition off. With this money in the bank and a timeline that offered security, other sponsors soon came on board. As the competition found its footing, the overheads were still relatively low. In 1996, the Hurricanes were based in dorms in Palmerston North, a far cry from the luxury of the NZCIS complex in Upper Hutt today. There was energy around the launch of the new league, which made seeding storylines easy as the marketing campaigns wrote themselves.
Compare that to year one for Moana Pasifika. Entering the competition after Covid-19, they had to play a ridiculous schedule of catch-up rugby, at one point playing six games in 21 days. Their home ground of Mt Smart was already synonymous with the Warriors. Despite earlier agreements, they soon found themselves looking for another home base. North Harbour Stadium was never quite the right fit and Pukekohe was another long trip for their fans.
All this disruption made the team’s impact all the more impressive. You can mark the dramatic uptick in the visibility of players’ culture before and after the addition of Moana Pasifika. Encouraging their players to wear cultural dress for their headshots, we now commonly see the flags of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji pop up in the background of all team photos. The Super Rugby Culture Round, introduced in 2023, was another attempt to capture some of that Moana magic.
On the field, they played some of the most memorable men’s rugby of the past five years. A real rivalry became firmly established between the two Auckland-based franchises. Ardie Savea was elevated to a whole other level of performance, while Tana Umaga was promoted into the new All Blacks coaching lineup. They delivered what World Rugby’s funding had hoped for: a direct line from a player’s participation in Super Rugby to the improved performance of the Pacific Nations at the last men’s Rugby World Cup.
All of this is good ... and yet still not enough to continue. If Moana Pasifika do fall, how can any new addition to the rugby landscape hope to rise? Warning bells should be ringing at Super Rugby Aupiki HQ. If this team, launched into our flagship league, can fail to find a secure financial footing there’s even less chance of our women doing the same.
The survival of Moana Pasifika is of strategic importance to New Zealand Rugby (NZR). Reportedly 40% of our professional players are sons and daughters of Pacific Nations. The same population that is one of the few projected to continue to rise in New Zealand in the coming years. The engagement of this demographic is not just a case of doing right by our neighbours, but for our own future’s sake.
So can the game afford this competition? The reality is NZR can’t afford to lose it. Finding a way to make Moana Pasifika sustainable is as important to the franchise as it is to the whole Super Rugby experiment.
Alice Soper is a sports columnist for the Herald on Sunday. A former provincial rugby player and current club coach, she has a particular interest in telling stories of the emerging world of women’s sports.