The American Dream is alive and well in southern hemisphere rugby, with administrators looking at adding a fourth conference of US teams to Super Rugby in an effort to resuscitate the embattled SANZAAR joint venture.

A fantasy rugby-style "Fans' Championship" match, a southern hemisphere riff on the British and Irish Lions and a major shake-up of The Rugby Championship are also on the table for the next broadcast deal between Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina.

Options: Plenty on the table ahead of Super Rugby broadcast talks. Credit:Stuart Walmsley

A high-level SANZAAR strategy paper, obtained by Fairfax Media, reveals that Super Rugby expansion is still on the cards despite a damaging two-year experiment with an 18-team format that was "confusing, lacked integrity and was ultimately not supported by fans, stakeholders and commercial partners".

The document, "SANZAAR 2030 Strategy", commits to the current 15-team, three-conference model until 2020 but canvasses five options for the future, covering contraction, retention and three different options for expansion.