Rugby: Bright future for Hurricanes despite loss

The Hurricanes may have been dejected over their Super Rugby final loss, but a bright future remains. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Hurricanes chief executive James Te Puni says the Hurricanes have a bright future ahead despite not winning in the the Super Rugby final on Saturday.

Despite the loss, the Hurricanes have had their best season in their whole 20 year history, Te Puni said, which meant an increase in membership and commercial opportunity.

Te Puni said there was "no question" this season will see an increase in club membership.

"I expect to see anywhere between a doubling and a tripling of membership for the 2016 season."

Casual attendance was up 25 per cent this season at an average of 15,000 people per game, Te Puni said, and the final game pulled in the biggest crowd he could remember.

"The final set a new record for a Super Rugby game in the Hurricanes region at 36,500 people in the stadium."

"The interest in the team clearly is at an all-time high.

"While everyone is disappointed we weren't able to get up over the Highlanders, they were a good team and obviously played very well and deserve their title, from our point of view if you look at our stats it's our most successful season in the history of the club."

The Hurricanes won 14 out of 16 games in the Super Rugby series which Te Puni said set the team up well for the future.

"It's hard to overstate just how high the level of interest is among the fans and that provides a tremendous opportunity obviously for viewership ... in terms of TV viewership for Hurricanes games over the last few weeks has been fantastic and that's all very, very appealing to sponsors so I'm expecting that that commercial revenue [will grow] significantly," he said.

"The truth is we've had a tough run the last four years in terms of results and that's made it tough, but now if you look at the way the season's panned out there's no question that we have a very high levels of interest there and that provides the opportunity to build our commercial revenue from this point on."

An increase in revenue would mean more money for the club to spend on both players and members, Te Puni said.

"It gives us money in the bank to make decisions around investing in our player development programme.

"It also means we'll be able to invest in our season membership programme.

"Anything where either the fans or the players are concerned we have the options to invest more heavily."