Crusaders bank on their fans
Crusaders chief executive Colin Mansbridge is optimistic fans will be allowed to attend the team’s first home game of Super Rugby Aotearoa.
The New Zealand competition kicks off on June 13 following the country’s recent move to Covid-19 alert level 2, with games initially set to go ahead without fans due to crowd limitations and restrictions still in place.
Earlier this week, the Government said they will evaluate moving the country into alert level 1 on June 22, giving franchises hope of welcoming fans back to live games.
With the Crusaders not playing at home until round three — on June 28 — Mansbridge said things look promising to have his side run out in front of their home supporters.
“We definitely started thinking about crowds over the last few days, but it’s fair to say before that, we had no planning, it was planning simply without crowds,” he said.
“We’re starting to get the sense that if this trend continues, we could be in level 1 and current level 1 restrictions don’t limit crowds.
“If it’s as optimistic as what we’re feeling in the community now and the messages that are coming from Government, then we need to be prepared for business as usual.”
Mansbridge believed most franchises already had the infrastructure to allow crowds to return safely, and also had plans to welcome back fans.
But he said fans should expect a few changes to ticket purchasing.
“If you’re going to sell a ticket to somebody, you’ll want to collect their name, address, phone number and email address. You’ll probably want to collect that information for all of the seats that are allocated rather than one person purchasing a block of 10 tickets for them and five mates or 10 mates, you might amend your system to collect all the information for all the people,” he said.
“Then you’ve got ways of managing crowds inside the stadium so it’s a little bit less than a free-for-all that you’ll normally have.”