The Brisbane Global Rugby Tens is on hiatus for 2019, with organisers blaming next year's World Cup for player availability issues.
The pre-season tournament has run at Suncorp Stadium for the past two years and has served as a strong promotional lead-in to Super Rugby but has attracted only lacklustre crowds.
It's understood the tournament, which is financially backed by the Queensland state government and Brisbane City Council, has lost more than $2 million.
Event CEO Rachael Carroll said the pending World Cup in Japan meant there were no guarantees Test players would be able to participate.
However she said the tens still had a "bright" future and organisers Duco Events would sit down with stakeholders to figure out how it could return.
"Over the last two years the event has generated millions of dollars in additional revenues for the sport and showcased rugby at its entertaining best to a large global television audience," Carroll said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, the World Cup would almost certainly have had an impact on our ability to attract the very best players to the tournament in 2019.
"While that is disappointing, we do understand and accept the requirement of the competing nations to place the world cup at the forefront of their planning.
"There is a real desire from key stakeholders to firmly establish the event as a vibrant, compelling short-form version of the game. The potential to do so is clearly there."
This year's Brisbane Tens included all nine Australian and New Zealand Super Rugby franchises plus Japan's Panasonic Wild Knights, French Top 14 club Pau and Samoa.
Organisers have previously canvassed a move to Auckland, where Duco Events set up another pre-season tournament, the NRL's nines.
