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Previous bids to SANZAR

The era of professionalism in rugby led to a restructuring of the Super 10 competition after the 1995 World Cup. SANZAR was formed to manage a 12-team provincial union from Australian, New Zealand and South Africa. During the early years of 2000s South Africa and Australia pushed for additional teams each. Argentina also expressed interest. Discussions also included federated pacific island team in the vein of the the West Indies cricket team, or individual island nations.

Bids for the 13th and 14th franchise opened in 2002. To that point, Melbourne had succesfully hosted several Wallaby test matches which the VRU used to demonstrate a groundswell of support for rugby by the Victorian public.

Year	Opponent	Venue (Capacity)	Attendance	Notes
1997	All Blacks	MCG (100,000)	90,119	Bledisloe Cup/ Tri Nations
1998	All Blacks	MCG, (100,000)	75,147	Bledisloe Cup/Tri Nations
2000	South Africa	Docklands(56,347)	34,045	Mandela Plate
2001	British & Irish Lions	Docklands (56,347)	56,605
2002	France	Docklands (56,347)	37,482
2003	England	Docklands, (56,347)	54,868
2003	Ireland	Docklands (56,347)	54,206	RWC2003

Source: Australian Rugby Union [1]

Additionally Melbourne several World Cup matches hosted at Docklands Stadium .

See also: 2003 Rugby World Cup

Teams	Attendace
All Blacks, & Italy	41,715
Canada & All Blacks	38,889
England & Samoa	50,647
All Blacks & South Africa	40,734
France & Ireland	33,134

Rob Steiner, then VRU president considered the a Victorian bid an outside chance.

"We know the support that Melbourne business can provide and the indications we've had suggest that we're appropriately optimistic about all that... but for now we're focusing on the fact that there's a sniff out there and we've got to make sure we give it the best shot possible to make sure that Victoria is the anointed one when the opportunity presents."

The then Bracks government promised investment in infrastructure, considering a 25,000 seat redevelopment of Olympic Park or $100m for a new stadium. which led to the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium.

The successful bid went to Western Australia, ultimately becoming the Western Force for the 2004 Super 14 season.

Bidding for the 15th license

With SANZAR announcing a restructure while renegotiating broadcast rights, an additional license was created ^{[citation needed]}. Three expressions of interest came out of Victoria for new Super license- the Vic Super 15 headed by Mark Ella, a Belgravia bid led by Geoff Lord (on behalf of the Melbourne Victory) ^{[citation needed]} and the Melbourne Rebels bid from the Victorian Rugby Union..

After ruling out bids from Queensland and New South Wales, the ARU attempted to broker a deal that would consolidate the three bids as a singular entity that they hoped would be "overwhelmingly successful" ^{[citation needed]}.

On August 12, 2009, the Australian Rugby Union endorsed Victoria as Australia's sole candidate city for the new licence in the Australian conference in the expanded 2011 Super 15 competition.

Given that SANZAR could not reach a unanimous decision the matter was sent to arbitration.The arbitrators felt that the Southern Kings' bid was more advanced with regard to business and financial planning and organization structure and governance. They also felt that the Southern Kings also had a stronger player base and rugby tradition. Revenue however, from the sale of broadcasting rights to Australasian broadcasters, would be reduced by US$15–20m over the course of a five year agreement should the 15th team be resident in South Africa.

On November 12, 2009, after an arbitration process between themselves and South Africa's Southern Kings, Victoria was awarded the 15th Super Rugby licence, as it was considered more financially viable to SANZAR.

The bid was provisionally offered to the Vicsuper 15 consortium but an agreement could not be reached on the ownership model. They withdrew and the licence went to the Harold Mitchell backed Melbourne Rebels.