2012 Super Rugby - crowds & TV viewer numbers

After 15 rounds of Super Rugby the crowds and TV viewer number are quite good.

TV viewers (cumulative):
NZ: 9,916,300
Aust: 5,888,000
SA: 34,074,497
Total: 49,878,797

Crowds (cumulative):
NZ: 538,959 (ave. 16,842)
Aust: 633,847 (ave. 18,642)
SA: 852,838 (ave. 26,651)
Total: 2,025,644

NZ and SA figures are higher than 2011, Australian figures are slightly down (I think the Tahs may have been a contributing figure to the decrease!)

http://sport.iafrica.com/rugby/news/802641.html

Just to clarify, Australian TV Ratings are up its just the crowds which are down. Surprisingly the Tah's haven't rated too badly in 2012, Reds are holding relatively consistent but haven't had any of the blockbusters like the Reds v Crusader games they had in 2011 to substantially boost the ratings.

Rebels, Tahs and Force are all down for crowds in 2012, Reds are holding pretty steady with a average of 30'000, i think the Brumbies have also increased.

It would be interesting to see the Australian crowds and ratings if all of our teams were firing.

Does anyone know if Melbourne are still averaging more than the Tahs for crowds? I think this was the case a few matches ago

So 1/25 of rugby watchers are actually at the games

Very doubtful. I think Melbourne would be averaging 14k this year. I imagine the tahs would be at least a couple thousand above that.
Aside from the tahs, blues and Christchurch games the rebel crowds have been pretty low (10-12k)

What's the TV contracts like for SA and NZ?
Is Super Rugby only on Pay TV (Fox) like Australia?
If it's on Free View, you'd think that'd effect numbers significantly.

It's on Sky Sports in NZ - which is pay, but everyone has it (free to air TV in new zealand is horrendous).

Not sure whether Super Sports in South Africa is pay or free to air, but it has the sound of a pay tv channel. Those numbers are surprisingly huge.

I believe Paarlbok said that it was Pay TV, but it is dramatically cheaper than Foxtel in Australia.

With the NBN, I think eventually we will get more Pay TV competition in Australia and prices will eventually come down.

It definitely hurts rugby in Australia that Super 15 is not available on FTA and Pay TV isn't that widely subscribed.

After such a long history of TV being free in Australia, there is a strong inclination for many against paying for it. The fact that you have to sign up for sport as an extra on Foxtel also doesn't help things. I am sure it would be far more heavily subscribed if you could just sign up for sport on Foxtel. Unfortunately sport is their highest drawcard so they are never likely to make it available without paying for other stuff as well.

I agree. If Rugby were on FTA it would signifcantly increase the interest in Rugby. Personally I dont have foxtel, 3 years ago there was brief stint of 6 months where my brother bought it and I watched my first season of Super rugby in forever. Then my brother moved out, meaning no more foxtel and no more super games. As i was then hooked, I now stream online to watch the games. Annoying as hell, prefer not to go to the club as it is just not as comfortable as your own home.

The point is, if my brother had not of purchased foxtel briefly a few years ago I probably wouldnt be watching rugby today. Rugby needs to be exposed more to the Aus public. I know many friends who like myself are ex-rugby players but dont have foxtel, they would clearly watch the games if they were easily avaliable. Sadly they are not, and pay TV is just not worth it.

I just got foxtel for this season. get basic plus sports and iq and you can get it for as little as $50 a month when the deals are on. another $10 a month for HD.

if i don't go watch a game at the pub once a month, i have paid for it. it's really not that expensive to be fair as long as you just get basic and sports (IQ is great cause you can record all the saffer games)

SS is pay TV but its defnitely not dramatically cheaper. Exchange rate wise just a tad cheaper. Figures show why SA is a bit rugby mad. Expect SA figures to rise in the last three rounds with the local derbies.

SA its R590 monthly.

So not A big difference. Don't understand why more people don't get it. Not too exy and it's glorious

I had it for years and found that all we watched was s14 games and Cricket involving England. Long stretches of time we never even used it. Waste of money for us.

We ended up ditching it for that Internet service that you could subscribe to. Then that ended, very sad day as it was good. As news corp and fairfax are realising, these old business models are dead, we need a way to buy access to what we want without having to pay for a load of shit we don't need.

They'll fuck it up though and try and make us pay for shit they are giving away for free now. Rugby will continue to be non mainstream and suffer or it. Loig have 4 games a week on 9 and afl have 2 or 3 a week in Qld. Rugby has extra time at midnight irregularly on a Tuesday night. Fucking great deal rugby negotiated here.

Sorry, folks, it's a trade-off. Without Pay TV there would probably be no top-level rugby in Australia, at all.

The last FTA deal did not even have a Super Rugby highlights package. So the current Channel Nine deal is a slight improvement. I suppose the ARU could give the FTA rights away to SBS for nothing. Would that be better, in your opinion?

Then let us buy it in a way where we don't have to pay for shit we don't watch.

And then you'd all be whining about the cost.

No dude, we had that Running Rugby on Demand thing of Supersports that was good, cost about $70 a season, wasn't live but we got to see the games within 4 hours of full time. That was a really good compromise that satisfied whiners like me. When I asked them about why they stopped they said it was cause Fox was not licensing to them. Fox did that 15 minute highlight package on iPads last year which was better than nothing but it is not being done this year as far as I can tell.

This could bring in more advertising from non traditional sources that appeal to an SBS audience a bit more and may make up for the loss of income