The Tokyo-based Sunwolves will be cut from Super Rugby after the 2020 season in a major blow for Japan as the nation prepares to showcase its development in the sport as hosts of the World Cup.
Super Rugby will revert to a purely southern hemisphere affair of 14 teams in a round-robin format, continuing the competition's contraction since an ill-fated expansion to 18 sides in 2016, governing body SANZAAR said on Friday.
The timing could not be worse for the game's global governing body World Rugby as it preaches a message of inclusion for emerging rugby nations ahead of the World Cup that starts in September.
"The decision to further consolidate the competition format to a 14-team round robin was not taken lightly," SANZAAR CEO Andy Marinos said in a statement.
"It has involved some detailed analysis and a thorough review of the current and future rugby landscape, tournament costs, commercial and broadcast considerations and player welfare in line with our Strategic Plan."
The Sunwolves had struggled in a tournament featuring mostly established South African, New Zealand and Australian sides, but had gradually improved and won their first away match in New Zealand earlier this month.
Marinos put the blame for the team's demise at the Japan Rugby Football Union's (JRFU) door.
He said the JRFU had told SANZAAR earlier this month that they were unable to "financially underwrite" the team post-2020 and had decided Super Rugby was "no longer the best pathway" for Japan's players into the national team.
Marinos added that SANZAAR had proposed a "Super Rugby Asia-Pacific competition" which would include Japan, the Pacific Islands, North and South America and Hong Kong.
Rugby Australia, one of the four southern hemisphere unions that control SANZAAR, said the JRFU's withdrawal of support would have left a liability of "tens of millions of dollars" to prop up the Japanese team.
Cutting them, however, would save millions, said CEO Raelene Castle.
She said Australia and New Zealand would continue to support Japanese rugby with their inclusion in World Rugby's mooted biennial, global 'Nations Championship' from 2021, which would add two lower-tier nations to the southern hemisphere's existing four-team Rugby Championship.
Castle's pledge may be cold comfort for Sunwolves players and the fans who flocked to Tokyo's Prince Chichibu Memorial stadium to watch games.
"We are having the World Cup soon and we want to welcome rugby fans to Japan to see Japanese rugby. But maybe they do not want us. It is a bad message," 42-year-old Tokyo resident Masashi Yamashita told Reuters.
After the JRFU beat a rival Singapore bid to launch one of three expansion sides, the Sunwolves joined Super Rugby in 2016 amid a wave of optimism following Japan's encouraging performance at the 2015 World Cup in England.
Their entry came with conditions attached, however.
With South Africa's teams complaining about travel demands, the Sunwolves agreed to play three "home" games every season in Singapore where they drew poor crowds.
They claimed only three wins from their first two seasons, but survived a cull of three teams at the end of 2017 after the expanded 18-team format proved universally unpopular.
Joining a re-jigged Australian conference in 2018, the Sunwolves improved gradually under former All Blacks loose forward Jamie Joseph, winning a club record three games.
But with a number of the roster's Japanese talents signed to company teams in the domestic Top League and often diverted to extended national team training camps, the Sunwolves have struggled for momentum, even with reinforcements from large numbers of expatriate players.
South Africa's powerful broadcaster SuperSports had been disappointed with the Sunwolves' ratings, media reports have said.
Australia and New Zealand Super Rugby teams, which have landed sponsorship deals with Japanese companies, have been more supportive.
Castle said the Sunwolves would still need to turn up next season and be competitive.
"It's always difficult when you make decisions like this," she said.
"But they are under contract to deliver a Sunwolves team for next season."
Reuters