It's being reshaped from the current format of 4 divisions (5 Australian teams, 5 NZ teams, two SA divisions with Japan and Argentina thrown in) into three divisions of six, Japan joins Australia and Argentina joins NZ. In terms of who should go on the basis of financial damage it's Melbourne who cost the ARU $13 million in debt in the four years of existence. The Force managed to raise $11 million in a very short time by getting their members to sign on and buy shares in the team + the WA Road Safety Commission dropping a $1.5 million per year sponsorship that auto renews for a further three years as long as they advertise safe driving. The Brumbies sorted out their finances too by mending their broken bridge with University of Canberra. Melbourne's team draws the worst support per capita, has no homegrown product (same argument used to be applicable to the Force but now they're on about half local product) and are playing in Vic Methball territory.
Real talk though: if the ARU doesn't want the sport to completely die in the ass their admin need to realise that the best players aren't coming from the five or six boarding $40,000 a year boarding schools they send their kids to. Pretty much every decent player they've got in the sport these days comes from the country. They'd be better off dropping the international format and using the club comps in the states to fill the Super Rugby teams in an Origin style representative system. Living in Perth the majority of people who took a chance on the Force were put off by the lack of WA players despite having a multi-tiered club comp. But, the ARU is about as concerned with keeping their sport alive as Hitler was concerned for the well being of the Jews, so I don't expect much to change.
