The Enshittification of Super Rugby — and the Fight to Win Fans Back

“Rugby is a simple game, complicated by experts.”

This is a line my U/14’s coach used to say and it is no doubt  thrown around in change rooms around the world and quickly forgotten. But in the context of modern professional rugby,  and Super Rugby in particular,  it feels less like a cliché and more like a diagnosis.

Because over the past decade, Super Rugby has undergone something more gradual, and arguably more damaging, than a simple decline. It has been slowly hollowed out, not by one catastrophic decision, but by a series of small, compounding ones. The kind made in boardrooms, justified at the time, but disconnected from the people the competition was built for.

There’s a word for that process. It doesn’t come from sport, but it fits uncomfortably well here: 

Enshittification — the steady degradation of a product as it becomes less enjoyable, less accessible, and less valuable to its users.

For many fans, that’s exactly what Super Rugby became.

Super Rugby didn’t collapse overnight. It drifted.

Expansion was the starting point. What began as Super 12, a tight, coherent, and relatively easy to follow,  grew into Super 14, 15, and then 18, spanning across four continents and countless timezones. 

On paper, expansion made sense. More teams meant more markets, more content, more commercial opportunity. In practice, it diluted what had made the competition compelling in the first place.

Travel demands increased. Rivalries lost their edge. Kick-off times became inconvenient across time zones. And the structure, once a strength, became a barrier to entry for casual fans.

At some point, the question stopped being how big the how to make the competition stronger but rather how it could get bigger.

Perhaps the most significant casualty of this period wasn’t quality, but clarity.

Super Rugby once had a distinct identity. It was fast, skilful, and, at its best, tribal. The narratives were easy to grasp.  New Zealand dominance, Australian resilience, South African physicality. Fixtures carried meaning. Tours mattered.

But as the format shifted and the composition of the competition changed, particularly with the eventual exit of South African teams,  that identity blurred.

For long-time supporters, the connection weakened. For newer fans, it was never properly established.

A competition that cannot be easily explained is one that struggles to be defended. And one that struggles to be defended is one that slowly fades from relevance.

This erosion wasn’t abstract. It had tangible effects.

 

Financial instability crept in. Moana Pacifika, without a financial saviour,  appears to be the latest victim of Super Rugby’s broader problems, and disappointingly no one is surprised.  

Looking in Australia to expansion teams in both the NRL and AFL it is easy to see that they have been set up for success.  Strong coaching groups, expanded salary caps to help draw in stars to a new team, and time to develop in competitions such as the VFL.

It is no wonder teams like the Dolphins in the NRL have already played finals and GWS in the AFL have made it deep in the competition on a regular basis.  Compare that to teams like Moana, they were granted their license in July 2021 and had less than a year to put together a full professional club for their first game in March 2022 and in their 5 years have not even found a ground to call home.

It is easy, from a distance, to frame these developments as administrative failures or necessary corrections. It is harder to ignore the human cost that comes with a competition losing its footing.  Less opportunities for players and coaches on the way up, people losing their  jobs, fans losing their team.

And yet, to describe Super Rugby solely through the lens of decline would be incomplete.

Because, quietly, there are signs of recovery.

Recent seasons have seen an uptick in attendance and viewership. The on-field product, arguably the most important factor, has improved. Matches are faster, with more ball in play, more tries, and a greater sense of unpredictability.

For the first time in several years, there is a sense that the rugby itself is giving people a reason to return.

Beyond this there have been initiatives from the clubs and competitions to reconnect with the fans.  Super Round this weekend seems to have found a new home and conveniently lines up with the opening of the new Te Kaha stadium in the Rugby mad city of Christchurch, moving away from Melbourne which had a disappointing result.

Clubs are engaging fans more through merchandise, playing into nostalgia by producing retro cotton jerseys which have been extreThe instinct to expand, to chase new markets and broader reach, must be balanced against the need to rebuild connection at a local level. That may mean fewer teams, more regionally focused fixtures, and a willingness to prioritise atmosphere over scale.

Smaller stadiums, such as, Four Pines Park, Leichhart Oval, or Ballymore Stadium  filled to capacity, can generate more energy than half-empty arenas. Regional matches, in areas such as Newcastle or Toowoomba,  offer opportunities to reconnect with communities that have historically supported the game but have been overlooked.

mely popular amongst fans.  As well as trying to enhance their gameday experience and connect through social media.

This is not a full resurgence. The competition remains in a rebuilding phase. But it represents a shift,  from contraction to stabilisation.

If Super Rugby is to continue this recovery, it will require a degree of restraint that has not always been present.

Equally, there is scope to strengthen the competition’s identity through targeted initiatives. The much floated Bula round, while still a few years away due to necessary infrastructure development, can provide not just novelty, but authenticity, something modern sports competitions often struggle to manufacture.

There is, inevitably, a tension between preserving rugby’s traditions and adapting to a changing entertainment landscape.

Super Rugby does not need to become a spectacle-driven product in the mould of emerging exhibition formats. But nor can it ignore the importance of presentation, accessibility, and fan engagement.

The challenge lies in enhancing the experience without compromising the integrity of the game — in recognising that the sport itself remains the primary draw, but that how it is delivered matters more than ever.

Super Rugby now sits in a transitional space.

It is no longer the expansive, multi-continental competition it once aspired to be. But it is also not the diminished product some have written off.

Instead, it is something more uncertain, and, potentially, more promising.

A competition that has been forced to confront its own excesses. One that is beginning, slowly, to re-centre itself around the fundamentals: quality rugby, clear structure, and meaningful connection to its audience.

The next phase will determine whether this is a genuine recovery or merely a temporary correction.

For now, there is at least a sense that the competition is moving in the right direction.

After years of complication, Super Rugby may finally be rediscovering the value of simplicity.

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