Super Rugby 2020: Crusaders to reveal new logo, potential new name

Crusaders rebranding will be revealed at Christchurch's Rugby Park on Friday afternoon. 

New Zealand Rugby (NZR) and the Crusaders franchise will explain what the champion Super Rugby franchise will be called from 2021, along with a new logo. 

The Crusaders have already dropped the knight and sword from their logo for the 2020 season, the name will remain until 2021, when Super Rugby is relaunched as a 14-team competition.

Calls for the Crusaders to change their name followed the Christchurch mosque shootings that killed 50 people and left dozens injured in March.

Many saw the name as insensitive, given its links to the military campaigns launched by Christians against Muslims during the Middle Ages.

"Maintaining the status quo in terms of the Crusaders name, along with the current imagery of knights on horseback, is - in our view - no longer tenable, because of the association with the religious Crusaders that has now been drawn," said NZ Rugby chief executive Steve Tew.

"That is, therefore, not one of the options that we will be considering."

The franchise, which has won a record 10 Super Rugby titles - including the last three - committed to a brand review in June.