The launch next week had been up in the air after NZ Rugby and the NRL went head-to-head in an increasingly fractious trademark dispute between the rival codes.
NZ Rugby has been seeking to prevent the new Papua New Guinea NRL team from using the Chiefs name and branding, saying it would cause confusion with its Waikato-based Chiefs Super Rugby franchise.
The NRL has accused NZ Rugby of hypocrisy, pointing to other cross-code teams that share the same brand names – such as rugby’s Auckland-based Blues and the New South Wales Blues State of Origin team.
While the PNG Chiefs team is not set to join the NRL until 2028, the NRL has been planning to launch its jersey and branding next Wednesday, coinciding with the Rugby League World Cup.
In the Wellington High Court today, Clive Elliott, KC, acting for the NRL, said the launch would be held in Port Moresby, regardless of any interim injunction a court in New Zealand might impose.
“The launch would go ahead. It’s going ahead in PNG regardless,” he said.
“Because it’s in another country and under a different jurisdiction, the only way in which the courts in New Zealand can control it is the extent to which any information reaches New Zealand.”
He said if NZ Rugby was so concerned about the Chiefs brand, it should have acted a lot more quickly when it first became aware of the NRL’s plans for the new Chiefs team last year.
Acting for NZ Rugby, lawyer Earl Gray said the NRL had “thumbed their noses” at New Zealand and local laws.
He said the NRL was making “a concerted but transparent attempt to reformulate the Chiefs brand as Gallagher Chiefs”.
Gallagher is the Chiefs rugby team’s main sponsor.
Chiefs fans at the Chiefs versus Crusaders Super Rugby semi-final in Hamilton earlier this year. Photo / Alyse Wright
“The brand and trademark is, and has for 30 years, been Chiefs and without belittling the importance of their valuable sponsorship, sponsors are temporary, but the Chiefs brand is enduring.
“This further attempt by the defendants to dilute the valuable Chiefs brand reinforces why New Zealand Rugby needs to be here today – to protect the exclusivity of the Chiefs brand so that it retains the ability to attract and retain the valuable sponsors and partners that are critical to its longevity against inevitable dilution and loss of exclusivity.”
He said the NRL was trying to take the Chiefs name and brand by stealth.
Justice Karen Grau. Photo / LinkedIn
Justice Grau questioned NZ Rugby over its claims that fans might be confused between different Chiefs brands.
“People are interested in sport, and surely they know the difference between their rugby and their league. Are you saying they don’t?” she said.
“I don’t understand this confusion. Are you saying somebody’s going to buy the wrong T-shirt or buy a ticket for a league game when they want to buy a ticket to a rugby game?”
Gray said there might not be confusion over tickets, but “the T-shirts, very likely if they only think there’s one Chiefs and they see another Chiefs”.
He argued that having “Papua New Guinea” or “PNG” before the Chiefs did not ease any concerns.
He said all but one of the 17 NRL teams had a geographic name attached, but “they are constantly used without that, and that’s the way it develops”.
He highlighted recent social media posts, referencing the Chiefs, without “PNG” or “Papua New Guinea” attached.
Elliott, for the NRL, said sponsors and supporters would know the difference between rugby and rugby league. “Fans are not stupid.”
NZ Rugby had launched legal action on the mistaken assumption the launch of the jersey next week was going to “change the status quo when it’s one step in a long process”, Elliott said.
“It’s not a game-changer.”
He said the perceived urgency was “really an artifice” NZR had used to “try and cover up for its own inaction”.
He said any dispute needed to be dealt with at a substantive hearing. “We are going to fight this.”
Gray said the NRL was trying to say that next week’s event was just an announcement, “nothing to see here”.
However, it would inevitably be broadcast on social media and promoted through other activities, undermining the Chiefs rugby brand.
He said the NRL had about 400,000 New Zealand followers on its Facebook page.
“That’s a substantial proportion of New Zealand’s adult population and given the New Zealand public’s sporting fascination generally – some would say obsession – it’s inevitable there’ll be significant overlap with that sort of number with New Zealand rugby and the rugby team Chiefs’ followers.”
He said if the brand launch went ahead, “our current unique and valuable exclusive brand profile and story in the Chiefs name would be hugely damaged or lost”.
“With the introduction of a rival rugby league brand, it would be impossible to recover and rebuild the same meaning and value.
“Our precious relationship with fans and the public and with sponsors and licensees could never be the same again.
“As the saying goes, it is impossible to reassemble a scrambled egg.”
Elliott said his clients did not accept there was a trademark infringement, and it was not correct to say the NRL was thumbing its nose.
The NRL had agreed to geoblock from New Zealand Facebook posts about the PNG Chiefs.
He said the NRL was a tournament run in Australia by an Australian entity that happened to have a New Zealand team and shortly, a PNG team.
‘Significant confusion and damage’
Earlier, NZ Rugby said allowing the PNG Chiefs name into the Australian and New Zealand market “will cause significant confusion and damage”.
“For 30 years, the Chiefs and their players have built an incredibly strong identity that is widely recognised and loved by fans,” NZ Rugby chief executive Steve Lancaster said in a statement last week.
“We have raised our concerns with the ARLC [Australian Rugby League Commission] directly and consistently over the last year in attempting to find a resolution. We now have a responsibility to protect the Chiefs brand.
“We want to be absolutely clear, this is not about rugby league’s growth in the Pacific. We welcome the development of the Pacific region through sport and the passion that the people of Papua New Guinea have for both rugby and rugby league.”
NZ Rugby chief executive Steve Lancaster. Photo / Michael Craig
In a statement, Chiefs chief executive Simon Graafhuis said: “Teams in different sports and markets can exist alongside one another with the same name, but the issue here is the similarity of our sports competing in the same market, for the same fans, in overlapping windows.”
NZ Rugby’s moves have raised the ire of NRL boss Peter V’landys.
“The NSW Blues have been around since the 1900s,” the ARLC executive chairman told The Australian.
“They’ve been using the Auckland Blues since the 1990s and never consulted us. They took our name, the Blues, and we were never concerned then they go ahead and do this.
“When we registered the Chiefs, they have acted with mind-blowing hypocrisy.”
ARLC executive chairman Peter V’landys. Photo / Photosport
There are multiple professional sports teams using the Chiefs’ names across the globe, including in sports that are televised in New Zealand.
The best-known of these is the Kansas City Chiefs, who play in the NFL.
“The Chiefs is a well-known sports brand. There is a lot of them. It’s not just in New Zealand,” V’landys said.
“So [saying] they own the Chiefs name is a slur on every other sporting body that has had it before them.
“There is no doubt they are feeling the pressure of rugby league starting to take over in New Zealand. They should look at themselves before they start attacking others.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.