The Springboks are the best rugby team in the world and one of its most under-monetised brands. Back-to-back world champions, they are — in Brand Finance's own framing — a beacon of national unity with untapped commercial potential 1. The brand's strength is elite; its balance sheet is not. In the 2023 global rankings the Springbok brand was worth about $117m — strong, but only sixth, behind the All Blacks, England, France, Ireland and Wales 2.
That gap — world-beating team, mid-table commercial value — is why SA Rugby went looking for outside capital. In October 2024 its member unions voted on selling 20% of a new commercial-rights company to Seattle's Ackerley Sports Group for $75m (about R1.4bn). They said no — seven of the thirteen unions rejected SA Rugby's preferred partner, and Ackerley's exclusive negotiating window lapsed 3. SA Rugby has been blunt that a private-equity deal is, in its own telling, key to the union's survival 4.
What happened next is the part this desk cares about. Rather than let a foreign buyer walk away with a fifth of the Springbok's commercial future, South African capital moved in: Johann Rupert's Remgro, backed by Patrice Motsepe's African Rainbow Capital, and Marco Masotti's MVM Holdings, as alternative bidders 5. The question stopped being whether to sell the Springbok's upside and became to whom — and whether it could stay South African-owned.
To see the other answer, look at the team the Springboks keep beating. New Zealand Rugby did exactly what SA Rugby's members refused: it sold a minority stake in the commercial rights to the All Blacks — the world's most valuable rugby brand, worth about $282m 2 — to US private-equity firm Silver Lake. Silver Lake put in around NZ$200m for a minority position in NZR's new commercial company, in a deal valuing the business near $2.4bn 6. The most valuable brand in rugby took Silicon Valley's money; a slice of its upside now flows to California.
Even the jersey itself is being re-priced. In 2025, MTN ended its eight-year run as the Springboks' front-of-shirt sponsor and FirstRand's FNB took over as main sponsor of all the national teams in a deal worth about R160m 7 — a sharp step up from MTN's reported R40–50m a year. The commercial spine of South African rugby is being renegotiated from the shirt to the cap table. The Springboks are the rare case where the value-capture question is still open: the All Blacks answered it by selling equity abroad; South Africa is trying, so far, to keep the answer at home. Tracked against the wider field in Who's Buying Africa, and part of the same ownership question we run across MTN and the continent's other champions.