You got that right. Look at the name change from SANZAR to SANZAAR. South Africa, SA, appears first in both versions and the new name resembles SA words like Africaans and Transvaal. They do have clout and you are right that that has a lot to do with the planned demise of the Sunwolves. They do have a serious point too. I was curious about the actual miles traveled. I took one city in each country: Cape Town, Sydney, Christchurch, Tokyo and Buenos Aires. From Google I got airline distances and I added the distances from each country to the other four. South Africa teams travel 27,000 miles while Australia and New Zealand teams travel 20,000 miles. Actually, it’s worse for Japan (31,000) and Argentina (29,000). By dropping Japan, distances equalize to South Africa and Argentina (18,000 miles), Australia (15,000) and New Zealand (14,000).

Still, I agree completely with Brumbies coach Dan McKellar that rugby is about to become huge in the Asia market. SANZAAR doesn’t need to beg the Japan Rugby Football Union to please, please underwrite the Sunwolves. SANZAAR ought to be negotiating big money TV contracts with the major Asian TV networks to carry all Super Rugby games, incentivized by the Sunwolves and especially by being able to advertise Super Rugby when they carry the Rugby WC in 2019 and rugby sevens at the 2020 Olympics. SANZAAR ought to be able to earn all the money they need to help with travel and have lots left over.

I get it that having a Northern Hemisphere team in a predominantly Southern Hemisphere competition is a square peg in a round hole but the idea was to dig the round hole into gold bars.