Melbourne will be the location for the 15th franchise in the expanded Super Rugby competition from 2011, Sanzar have announced.
The governing body of the Tri-Nations and Super Rugby competitions involving South Africa, New Zealand and Australia had asked an expert determination panel to decide between Melbourne and the Southern Kings from the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
The panel said in their decision that Melbourne provided considerably greater commercial benefit to Sanzar than the Southern Kings’ application.
While the South Africans’ proposal was more advanced than Melbourne’s with regard to business, financial planning, organisational structure and governance and already had a strong rugby tradition and large playing base, these did not offset the benefits in geographical location and commercial value to Sanzar that the Melbourne application was able to deliver.
The new team will be playing in the Australian conference under the new format from 2011. The existing Super 14 competition will be reorganised along a conference system with five teams now in each of the three countries.
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