Super Rugby obviously has a bit of a weird structure now with only 11 teams after the Melbourne Rebels collapsed.
It got me thinking a bit about what NZR & ARU could change assuming no other countries are going to join, and one thing I wondered was whether New Zealand should deliberately weaken our Super franchises to help make the Australian ones more competitive & hopefully make their public a bit more interested (if they win more).
So I started to think about what the population spread was like around New Zealand and one thing that really sticks out is how bottom heavy our current distribution of clubs is. 1 million punters in the South Island get 2 franchises, but 4.5m odd North Islanders only get 3 + Moana Pasifika. Its actually a bit silly that the Highlanders still exist given the population shifts since the 90s.
Anyway, that made me wonder if it might be possible to in effect add a 6th New Zealand franchise - which including MP would make 7 based in New Zealand in total, so came up with this before & after table to show how its a much more equitable split. And then 7 NZ, 4 Aus & 1 Fiji gets us back to 12 Franchises and at least in NZ gets more games in front of more people.
| Super Franchise | Population Approx | Provinces | Population (2018) | Stadiums | Capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auckland Blues | 1850k | Northland | 186k | Semenoff Stadium | 19k |
| Counties-Manukau | ^1^ | Navigation Homes Stadium | 12k | ||
| North Harbour | ^1^ | North Harbour Stadium | 25k | ||
| Auckland | 1655k | Eden Park | 50k | ||
| Waikato Chiefs | 920k | Bay of Plenty | 321k | Rotorua International Stadium, Mercury Baypark | 26k & 20k |
| Waikato | 476k | FMG Stadium | 25k | ||
| Taranaki | 121k | Yarrow Stadium | 25k | ||
| Wellington Hurricanes | 950k | Hawke’s Bay | 172k | McLean Park | 24k |
| Manawatū | 248k^2^ | Arena Manawatu | 15k | ||
| Wellington | 526k | Sky Stadium | 35k | ||
| Canterbury Crusaders | 725k | Tasman | 103k^3^ | Trafalgar Park | 18k |
| Canterbury | 623k | One NZ Stadium^4^ | 30k | ||
| Otago Highlanders | 335k | Otago | 235k | Forsyth Barr Stadium | 31k |
| Southland | 101k | Rugby Park | 17k | ||
| Moana Pasifika^5^ | - | North Harbour based | - | North Harbour Stadium | 25k |
- 1 Included with Auckland.
- 2 Includes Whanganui in the census data.
- 3 From 2026 I think the new stadium is supposed to be in use.
- 4 Includes Marlborough, same as the NPC Province
- 5 Moana Pasifika are currently, and for the forseeable future going to be playing most of their matches in New Zealand, neither Samoa nor Tonga have stadiums and infrastructure setup to host like Fiji Drua have.
- Population regions not included:
-
- Gisborne 50k - because its quite remote from either Hurricanes or Chiefs
-
- West Coast South Island 32k - because its remote from everywhere
| New Regional Franchise | Provinces | Population Approx | Stadiums |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auckland North | Northland | 850k | Semenoff Stadium |
| North Harbour | North Harbour Stadium | ||
| Auckland South | Auckland | 850k | Eden Park |
| Counties-Manukau | Navigation Homes Stadium | ||
| West North Island | Waikato | 600k | FMG Stadium |
| Taranaki | Yarrow Stadium | ||
| East North Island | Bay of Plenty | 550k^6^ | Rotorua International Stadium, Mercury Baypark |
| Hawke’s Bay | McLean Park | ||
| Bottom North Island | Wellington | 770k | Sky Stadium |
| Manawatū | Arena Manawatu | ||
| Canterbury Crusaders | Tasman | 725k | Trafalgar Park |
| Canterbury | One NZ Stadium | ||
| Otago Highlanders | Otago | 335k | Forsyth Barr Stadium |
| Southland | Rugby Park |
- 6 I included Gisborne population in this one as with a franchise based in this part of the country they are a bit more included than they are with the Chiefs or Hurricanes.
It might sound counter-intuitive, but due to a couple of things (geography & number of games) less clubs in Super Rugby is actually worse for attendance.
Per game attendance is ok, but there aren't enough games to let the franchises boost their revenue, so more teams = more games. Also, more games = more chance of hosting a game in places that rarely see a Super match which might boost interest and average attendance due to not saturating markets.
Taranaki used to be a part of the Hurricanes franchise, but they left to join the Chiefs with an agreement to get a guaranteed match every year in New Plymouth. This was because back then the Hurricanes would only play 2 matches a year outside of Wellington and it was rotated between Hawke's Bay, Manawatū and Taranaki. Things have gotten worse since then as now the Hurricanes play a maximum of 1 match outside of Wellington and its almost always against a poor draw like the Western Force.
The reason I believe its important to play games in the provinces is because otherwise you have huge chunks of population missing out on live Super Rugby altogether, almost nobody is driving the 4+ hours from Napier to Wellington to watch a Super game.
So Scottish rugby does very bad at getting it's pro teams about the place. But that's because they're home stadia are so well attended now. And even tier 3 can sell a shit ton of tickets for Murrayfield (see Portugal next month). But for the growth of the game it is fucking awful. So NZ have it correct, and I would love to see Edinburgh out in Hawick, and Glasgow in Stirling, especially for a Munster or Edinburgh match
How spread out is the rugby fandom beyond the higher population areas in the south - Perth/Dundee west to Irvine/Ayr etc? Because if 90% of the fans are in that area then it does make a lot of sense to play so much in Murrayfield - especially if the tickets are selling. Its just so much closer than most rugby fans in NZ.
But I agree with you, its hard to get your local people interested in the game if you don't bring the game to them!
There's clubs to be found from Orkney to Galloway, with population centers in Dundee, Aberdeen, and Inverness that never see pro teams and are all 2-3hrs away. There was a lot of criticism no semi-pro teams were setup up north and one of the big reasons the super6 was yanked