New Zealand Rugby plans joint provincial and Super Rugby operations
Both competitions and all 19 New Zealand teams would remain. Five provincial sides would share operations with Super Rugby teams in their home cities, with implementation targeted for 2028 after a final board decision.
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New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has announced plans to consolidate provincial and Super Rugby operations from 2028 while retaining both competitions and all their 19 New Zealand teams. The change concerns how teams operate, rather than combining the competitions.
RugbyPass said NZR is seeking to cut spending by five per cent and faces a structural deficit—an ongoing annual shortfall—of approximately NZ$20 million. Those financial problems had created uncertainty about the competitions’ futures.
What would change
NZR has endorsed keeping the National Provincial Championship (NPC) at 14 teams. Five provincial teams would consolidate operations with the Super Rugby sides in their home cities. The 2028 implementation target remains subject to a final board decision.
Mike Collins, NZR’s chief rugby officer, said greater Super Rugby independence from the governing body’s daily management would allow NZR to focus more on the NPC and community rugby. He said shared operations would reduce duplicated work and costs, while creating a clearer route from school and club rugby into professional and international teams.
Don Tricker, NZR’s high performance director, said the two competitions serve different needs for the All Blacks, New Zealand’s national men’s team. Super Rugby brings the best players together more often, while the NPC’s 14 teams maintain a broad pool of developing players.
RugbyPass also said the changes include stronger protections intended to help emerging regional players stay in local development pathways. How those protections would work, how shared operations would be governed and how responsibilities would be divided remain unclear.
The review and the next decisions
NZR chief executive Steve Lancaster previously told Sport Nation that the governing body began gathering members’ suggestions at its annual meeting in May. Those ideas became three options discussed by around 80 stakeholders at a Wellington summit, where no decision was made.
Player movement is a separate discussion from the operational restructuring. New Zealand has long made All Blacks eligibility conditional on players representing its own Super Rugby and NPC teams, so changes could affect where internationals are allowed to play.
Lancaster said NZR is open to discussing player movement, a competition-wide salary cap and centralising commercial assets across Super Rugby’s key markets. These are topics for talks, not adopted measures. NZR plans to discuss them with Rugby Australia, the Rugby Players Association and Super Rugby clubs as it seeks to increase attendance and revenue.
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