Number of professional teams in Southern Hemisphere nations

[Fernando Perla]

Why are there only 5 or 6 professional teams in Southern Hemisphere nations, while England and France have 14 teams each? It can't be population because South Africa has over 50 million inhabitants.
Thank you very much.

 

[Jaguares]

Where are u from?

NZ has their domestic competition, (Mitre 10 Cup, former ITM Cup) with 14 teams. SA has their domestic competition (Currie Cup) with 14 teams and Australia has their own domestic competition (NRC) with 8 teams.

South Africa has something like 500k/600k registered players
NZ has something like 140k registered players, OZ has something like 80k/90k registered players and Argentina has something like 120k registered players.

France has more than 14 professional teams, their second division, the PRO D2 is a professional level too.

 

[Fernando Perla]

I'm from Peru.
Isn't the Mitre 10 Cup formed by provincial sides rather than franchises?

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Welcome Fernando. You may be our first Peruvian!

To your question. Scotland and Italy only have two franchises each but Romania has 7 professional teams. There is no real clear pattern behind it. Just different decisions taken by different countries depending on what level of access they are allowed to the big club competitions.

Plus although South Africa has a big population, the sport is mainly popular among the relatively small white minority (I think 5-8 million off the top of my head?). I'm sure countries like Argentina and Japan with large populations will get more franchise sides when they have enough good players to go on each team