The 1997 World Club Championship was an expansion of the World Club Challenge concept by Super League. The rugby competition was restructured to include all 22 clubs from the Australasian Super League and the Super League championships and was known as the Visa World Club Championship due to sponsorship. As it was contested over 6 rounds in 2 hemispheres, with A$1,000,000 prize money, the competition was prohibitively expensive to stage. This coupled with the poor ratings and attendances that were achieved both in Australia and Europe reportedly resulted in a loss over $5,000,000, and the World Club Challenge was not staged again for a number of years. No British teams progressed further than the quarter-finals, with two Australian teams reaching the final : the dominant Brisbane Broncos club and the ill-fated Hunter Mariners.

The World Club Challenge is an annual rugby league competition between the winners of the Australian National Rugby League and the British Super League, for the de facto club world championship of the sport.