Super Rugby gets viewership boost

Sky is celebrating a bump in viewership for this season’s Super Rugby Pacific, with more than five million viewers across terrestrial and digital platforms.

After 10 rounds of the competition, nearly 1.67 million New Zealanders have watched on Sky Sport and freeto-air on Sky Open, a lift of 11 per cent compared to 2023.

The Chiefs-Crusaders match on March 29 has proven the most popular match of the 2024 competition so far, with more than 482,000 people tuning in throughout the match and more than 59,400 people streaming on Sky Sport Now and Sky Go.

Another match featuring the last year’s beaten finalists, the Chiefs, against the Hurricanes on April 13 was the second most popular, with nearly 470,100 people watching and more than 54,100 people streaming, while the Blues-Crusaders clash on March 23 came in third, with more than 445,000 people watching and more than 52,800 people streaming.

Sky’s chief content and commercial officer Jonny Errington says it’s pleasing to see the surge in popularity of the competition.

“As teams enter the final month of the regular season, it’s great to see Super Rugby Pacific is steadily growing its audience. It’s clear to see from the consistently high levels of viewership across the different teams that this overall growth is driven by the passionate local support teams command around Aotearoa.”

Errington says the double-digit growth in linear viewership has been driven both by Sky subscribers on Sky Sport and Sky Sport Now and also by free-to-air viewership on Sky Open.

“The majority of linear viewers watched via Sky Sport — and we saw double digit percentage growth in viewership via this channel. Alongside this, there was also significant growth in the free-to-air audience on Sky Open. This was the first year that we have provided a selection of matches live-to-delayed — and this new approach proved that there is significant interest in watching Super Rugby Saturday matches on Sky Open.”

On Sky’s digital platforms, Super Rugby Pacific matches were streamed over 3.36 million times, thanks to more than 186,000 unique viewers on Sky Sport Now and Sky Go.

Errington says viewership is also increasing across digital platforms, with modest increases in digital viewership of the competition.

“What has been notable is that the growth in digital viewership has started to increase in recent rounds — so we anticipate that we may see more fans deciding to enjoy matches via Sky Sport Now and Sky Go as we near the end of the regular season.”