Why NRL is still second to Super Rugby in New Zealand
May 18, 2024 — 5.00am
The NRL juggernaut isn’t used to getting silver medals, especially when it comes to rugby – which is why the broadcast data released by Sky Sport in New Zealand on Friday might have been a bit bittersweet for the rugby league governing body.
It was a strong set of numbers; the NRL audience rising 14 per cent on the back of the Warriors’ nationwide popularity. It is beyond dispute that the Warriors have captured hearts and minds in New Zealand.
But when compared with the Super Rugby Pacific numbers released a fortnight earlier, the Sky figures indicated that the NRL hasn’t been able to topple the much-derided rugby competition as the most-watched winter code.
After 10 rounds of each competition, Super Rugby Pacific had attracted 1.67 million viewers while the NRL had attracted 1.59 million, despite the NRL having two more games each weekend. Also, the fervour for the Warriors hasn’t been able to deliver the most-watched game in either competition.
The Warriors-Raiders game in round three was the most-watched game of the NRL season so far, according to Sky data, attracting an audience of 469,800 people on Sky Sport and Sky Open (its free to-air offering) with a further 63,800 people on Sky’s streaming platforms. However, the Crusaders-Chiefs Super Rugby clash attracted 482,000 on Sky Sport and more than 59,400 streaming on Sky Sport Now and Sky Go for a total of 541,400, compared to the total of 533,600 for the Warriors’ most-watched game.
Australians may well be asking how this has happened, given they have been told by some cheerleaders that league has conquered rugby in New Zealand, never mind Super Rugby – a competition that takes second billing to the big show: the All Blacks.
Well, in some ways it is a surprise. The enthusiasm for the Warriors is genuine (although Sky data indicates that their on-field results have had an effect on broadcast numbers as the season has unfolded).
Also, the popularity of Australian NRL sides was well established even before “Up the Wahs” became a thing. It is very common for New Zealand rugby fans to have a favourite NRL side as well, often located in Australia, while they couldn’t care less about the Western Force or the Rebels in Super Rugby Pacific.
But this probably illustrates the main point: some of the Australian commentary on the supposed “code war” in New Zealand displays a profound lack of understanding about the country.
New Zealand is not Auckland. For its population size, New Zealand is a relatively long, geographically challenging country divided by a treacherous body of water.
This lends itself to having many smaller towns and provinces, rural in nature, in which rugby has deep roots. If you take a close look at a lot of All Blacks, for example, you find that they come from these dots on a map. Beauden Barrett is a country boy, for example, as was Richie McCaw before him.
This audience has been poorly served by Super Rugby in recent years, due to format changes, the struggles of the Australian sides and the lack of marketing grunt compared to the cashed-up NRL. But they are rusted-on rugby supporters, which explains why Super Rugby could point to its own rise of 11 per cent in broadcast audiences when Sky revealed the Super Rugby Pacific numbers a few weeks ago. Super Rugby is also simply enjoying a good season: the rugby is good, the competition is far more even, and the Crusaders are losing.
That increase, compared to the NRL’s 14 per cent, clearly challenges the popular narrative that league is up in New Zealand and rugby is dead. Instead, New Zealand has become a genuine two-code country, where fans have allegiances across both codes, going back and forth with results and the zeitgeist.
Should the NRL want to “beat” Super Rugby, then, it will almost certainly have to do one of two things: pray that the Warriors win the title or at least consistently go deep into the finals, or create a second team in the South Island. And neither of those are guaranteed.
