Pro 14 or Bust

Okay, now that they cat is finally out of the bag. It is official that the Cheato's and Queens will be plodding along up north. 
A part of me think it is great that SA rugby is standing up and have made peace that the Super Rugby is simply not what it use to be. 
SA rugby probably enjoyed its best success at the beginning of the comp when it was still the super 10 and later the Super 15. SA teams finally figured out how to beat NZ teams on their home turf and we use to see the likes of the Stormers and Sharks having a run of 3 wins in a row. Back when it was the Super 12 the Stormers simply fielded their second string team. 
It also happens to be the golden years for SA professional teams between 2007 and 2011. 
It looks like the Pro 12 will be adopting the former super 15 structure and by all accounts that the Celts are eagerly awaiting some additional cash that each team will receive. Roughly and extra £500 000 per team. 
One thing that I'm trying to figure out is how much the Kings and Cheetahs will make. Considering that they took a nice pay out from SARU to the tune of R26 million. 
I almost think that we might see some home grown Cheatah players ditch the Sharks, Bulls and Stormers and decide to head back home. 
We could see the likes of the Freestate old boys making their way home. Ruan Pienaar might be heading back and probably would have still played with Ulster had it not been for a silly technical rule. Coenie, Lood, Frans Steyn, Willie Le Roux, Lourens Adriaanse, Van Der Walt, Vermeulen, Lappies Labescauchne. Almost frightening the quality of these players. 
I hope that the current super rugby format gets put out of its misery come 2019 and they realise that the super 12 is the way to go, but I think that SANZAR is a little too greedy and we won't see any of that happening anytime soon. 
Back to the Pro 14. So they are talking about a conference system with two groups. 7 in each that plays home and away. Giving the cheetahs 6 home games and 6 on the road. 
7 Weeks up north might not be such a bad draw and then a cross conference games which will be another 7 games, probably a 4 / 3 split. Totalling their travel to 8 to 10 weeks. It looks like they might have to do 2 return trips and probably play in batches. Again, not a too bad if you ask me. Flight is 11 hours, 11 000 KM that brings it to total of 44 000 km travelled. 
The competition will also enjoy some breaks for the Autumn internationals, Six Nations + Champions Cup matches. 
So the worry of playing in 35 c will be easily negated by these fixtures. Not to mention that there are still minor other competitions being played between these clubs. 
Then the big money question. Sky Sports currently holds the rights to the Pro 12 after missing out to BT Sports on the Premier Rugby in England and this will probably be a huge boost for them. Probably going to guarantee another 200 000 Sky Sport subscribers.
And finally, I don't think Southern Hemisphere fans understand the nature of nothern hemisphere club rugby. Club should give us a hint. These are all independent clubs that has small venues with low capacity. Bath Rugby only holds 8 000 people, Leicester 18 000. On average these guys have about 11 000 capacity. The only difference is that their fans are loyal and show up every weekend in the cold, windy and wet weather. 
The other thing, their fans like to travel. Expect to see a few more, welsh, irish and scottish fans to rock up in Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein. 
The more I look at this, the more it makes sense for SA teams to split and have feet in 2 hemispheres. 
I would even go as far as to say that we should be only playing 2 in the Super 24 and sent our worst teams to go slog it out on a suicide competition as punishment for not performing well. 

 The Rec at Bath actually holds 14,500 which has been an issue for them for ages. Welford Road (Leisecster Tigers) has a capacity of 25, 800. Be that as it may, it is irrelevant to this issue, since neither of these two sides play in the Pro 12(14). In fact, there are no English sides in that competition. 
Your argument that they are not playing the Pro12 in front of large crowds is correct, though. Their big income does, however, come from media coverage. What is important is that, unlike in England, Rugby Union is as well supported as football, if not more, in Ireland and Wales and maybe Scotland to an extent and the Celts may well be quite excited at the prospect of having two SH sides in the competition. It may even be something of a shock for the Cheetahs and the Kings to be playing in front of capacity crowds , even if they are not all that large. Then again, most of the Pro12 sides have access to larger stadiums. Munster, for instance play at Irish Independent Park (capacity 9,500) but they also play at Thomond Park that takes 25,000. Leinster plays at the 18,000 capacity RDS Arena but they also have access to the Ariva Stadium that holds 51,000. It is only Glasgow Warriors, Connacht, Beneton, Dragons and Zebre that have really small grounds with less than 10,000 capacity.