Global season, global game. My proposal.

With talk of player burnout, a global season, french clubs hoovering up all the talent from poorer nations and "retirees" from SH nations or just anybody that hits the radar from Wales, the arguments over tv rights, qualification for competitions that is fair and representative (like that could ever happen), to the onset of club v country rows over injuries, availability and allegiance, rugby is a hotbed of turmoil and discontent.

Elite professional rugby needs to be sorted out good and proper, I dont know if a global season will ever find the right balance or not but this is my 2 pence.
Its not 100% well thought out, probably a bit idealistic, but possibly a way forward.

Rather than try to balance up club and country we need ONE form of rugby at the highest, elite level and this needs to be the best paid and most desired option for rugby players from whatever nation.

In my opinion this is international rugby.

So we see the formation of a global, international rugby competition run every year.

Each nation has a yearly draft of players qualified for that nation to form a squad of about 35. Clubs are compensated for players they give up, undrafted players continue to play for clubs, previously drafted players are either returned back to the club from where they came or contracts offered out. Squads are wholly contracted and paid for by each union.

Unions remain in their regular groups, just like the conferences in NFL. So we still have 6N, RD, Pacific nations and let's include 6N-B to keep it open.

The teams in each conference play each other home and away, meaning we still have our regular rivalries going on and nobody loses out. Due to the RC only having 4 teams they could play each other 3 times, home, away & neutral. At the end of that round each team has played 10 games (except RC 9 but that could be fixed with a bye or wildcard or some random option I can't even think of right now).
Next round each team plays 10 further games against teams from other conferences. (Im not gonna try and work out how or who but somebody far cleverer than me at the IRB could sort something out.)

Anyway, at the end of regular season each team has points from 20 games. Top 2 from each conference go forward into quarter finals for a cup/superbowl competition, next 2 from each group into a plate and bottom 2 a spoon (possibly wooden?). Of course the spoon only has 6N a & b and pacific unions so maybe a wildcard from the best 2 of the rest from european nations, asian nations, Namibia and whoever else plays rugby at the lower end of the scale.

3 trophies, top, middle and lower gives all nations something to aim for. Each nation has played 23 games, a fair measure of home and away, and played against a representation of all competing nations but the majority against near neighbouring nations of a roughly equal competitive level. There could even be time at the seasons end for tours/tests or lions etc.

The global tv rights would blow any bt/espn / sky deal currently being argued about out of the water, attendances would be higher than any club or region could provide so revenue would be high enough for player wages to be far higher than anything france could offer. Id also go a step too far and suggest that all players from all nations are paid the same, obviously the best players will get spin off sponsorship and advertising revenue but a standard wage for elite players will prevent poaching of players from pacific teams to europe because they can afford to pay more.

Access to the competition could be left open with the asian nations and lower euro nations having a yearly qualification play-off against the lowest teams from the Pacific and 6NB teams.

Pick holes as you see fit!

So there would be 21-23 international games per season? No thanks. I find 11-12 more than enough. I'd rather international be a special addition to normal rugby rather than the norm.