United Rugby Championship (URC) still worth it for South African rugby?

702's Stephen Grootes speaks to Capostagno.

Listen below:

The 2025 United Rugby Championship (URC) season is in its 15th week. 

South African provincial teams in European competitions, the Vodacom Bulls, DHL Stormers, Hollywoodbets Sharks, Emirates Lions and Toyota Cheetahs, have key matchups ahead.

The URC has a two-week break before kicking off on 26 April in Cape Town, as the focus turns to the Champions and Challenge Cup’s last 16 rounds and quarter-finals.

"For some teams, it's the third season of the URC... when South Africa signed to play in the Northern Hemisphere in this competition, they agreed that they wouldn't take money from the overall pot for those first three years so it's a very important time for South African sides... once they get through this and into the fourth season, they will be able to sponsor their players with better seats on planes, better hotels and more money will be flowing in as a natural result of that... and everything is about money. It's going to be very difficult for South African teams to keep hold of their best players in those scenarios."

- Andy Capostagno

"South African Rugby at the moment is very easy to sell because we're back-to-back World Champions and we export rugby players all over the world."

- Andy Capostagno

Capostango questions the relevancy of the URC and thinks the English premiership is the way forward. 

"The best provincial clubs in the world at the moment are Irish and French rather than South African, Australian and New Zealander... we play in the URC which means we only meet English clubs in the Challenge Cup or the Championships Cup and I think the most interesting future of the game will be that South Africa will join the English Premiership and do away with the URC because that's where the interest really lies."

- Andy Capostagno

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the conversation.