SA Rugby in the pound seats as international rivals struggle to make ends meet

South African rugby is set to buck the global trend and report a profit of more than R100 million for 2025, clearing 2024’s losses and ensuring the 15 member unions receive their full funding, while support for the Springboks and all national teams continues unchecked.

This good news emerged from the annual meeting of the South African Rugby Union (SARU) in Cape Town on Thursday.

Last year, South African rugby recorded a loss of R93 million due to its investment in northern hemisphere rugby competitions, but SA Rugby has already wiped out that deficit with a strong start to 2025.

This is in contrast to many rival countries, who are under severe financial pressure. Other international federations have lost as much as R913 million, with five other Tier One nations reporting losses of between R588 million and R181 million. The next ‘best’ performance after South Africa’s was a loss of R126 million, members at the meeting were told.

Rian Oberholzer, CEO of SA Rugby, said that participation in the United Rugby Championship (URC) and European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) came at a net cost of R124 million in 2024.

“We have been investing in the long-term future of South African rugby to become full members of the URC for the best part of eight years,” said Oberholzer. “It has come at a significant cost to the sport, but there is no doubt that it has been the right thing to do.

“Once we fulfil certain membership obligations this year, we will begin to reap the on- and off-field rewards of such investment.

“If we had not undertaken this journey, we would have been reduced to playing only domestic competitions, which would have had catastrophic high-performance as well as financial ramifications for rugby in South Africa.

“It has been a tough financial road, but we have annually outperformed our global peers since the pandemic, while taking on the unusual cost of our investment into the URC and EPCR.

“Reporting a loss can never be desirable, but the irony is that we are more than satisfied with our position,” said Oberholzer.

“We had budgeted for a loss in 2024 in the expectation that the members would approve the private equity transaction that they had sought, releasing funds to cover the deficit.

“When that did not happen, we continued with our planned commercial reset and other revenue generation plans, which have borne fruit. We are in the very rare position among our international peers of continuing to be debt-free and confident of posting a surplus in 2025.”

Oberholzer said the financial outlook beyond next year was equally healthy, with strong revenues forecast for 2026 and new competition formats in the pipeline.

“The income that SA Rugby generates all goes back into supporting the growth and promotion of rugby in the country,” he said.

“It allows us to fund Springbok campaigns, expand women’s rugby programmes, and fuel our other national teams. It pays for our members’ activities in their communities as well as their professional teams.

"It underwrites our rugby safety programme BokSmart, supports referee and coaching development, and our age group competitions and development programmes. It also allows us to turn on sell-out Test match entertainment and run our domestic competitions.

“Ultimately, every rand that we earn goes into powering the game in some shape or form, and after a challenging 2024, we have a good news story to tell our South African rugby community.”