The Australian Rugby Championship, often abbreviated to the ARC and also known as the Mazda Australian Rugby Championship for sponsorship purposes, is a now-defunct domestic professional men's rugby union football competition in Australia, which ran for only one season in 2007. It was the predecessor to the current National Rugby Championship. The competition, similar to New Zealand's ITM Cup and South Africa's Currie Cup, aimed to bridge the gap between existing club rugby and the international Super Rugby competition then known as Super 14. The ARC involved eight teams: three from New South Wales, two from Queensland, and one each from the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Western Australia.