KEY POINTS:
Rugby's demotion to the bottom rung of the professional ladder has been confirmed by TV viewing and attendance figures.
The pertinent point is not that viewing figures have slumped in 2008 compared with 2007, it is that the gap between Super 14 and Air New Zealand Cup is growing.
It is apparent consumers are choosing to support Super 14 ahead of the Air New Zealand Cup. As recently as five years ago, average viewing figures for Super 14 games involving New Zealand teams were only slightly higher than the average provincial numbers. Now Super Rugby wins almost three times the audience - with an average of 216,000 watching games live this year, compared with just 88,000 for the Air New Zealand Cup.
The last few weeks of knock-out football have highlighted the popularity of Super 14. This year's Super 14 semifinal, featuring the Hurricanes and Crusaders, won 422,000 viewers.
When the latter met the Waratahs in the final, 444,000 people watched. Before last night's final, the highest audience for a knock-out game of Air New Zealand Cup, was 197,000 for the Wellington-Southland semifinal. The average audience for the quarter-finals was 103,000, with just 57,000 watching Hawke's Bay play Waikato and 158,000 people watched the other semifinal featuring Canterbury and Hawke's Bay.
The fall-off in attendances between the two competitions has been just as pronounced. Waikato and Chiefs marketing manager Pat Melsop says that, historically, crowds at the Chiefs have been similar in size to those at Waikato games.
This year, though, there was a divergence, with the Chiefs averaging about 13,000 and Waikato 8500.
"There is quite a demographic change coming through," says Melsop. "We are finding that Super 14 has a younger skew. After 13 years of Super Rugby there is a younger demographic that relates to the franchise concept. The provincial games tend to appeal to a 35-40-plus group."
The same phenomenon is noted in Auckland where the Blues averaged 22,000 at Eden Park but only 9200 turned out for provincial games.
Marketing manager Grant McKenzie says the Blues have historically had about double the average crowd of Auckland but the difference now is almost two and a half. Like Melsop, McKenzie is also noting the demographic and gender differences in the crowds who attend the two competitions.
"There are a lot more women attending Super 14 games," he says.
"They are two distinct products now and you have to market them as distinct products.
"The Air New Zealand Cup is not as sexy as Super 14 and is becoming more of a development competition.
"But it is still a neat competition and we would always hope that crowds would be a bit better."
Life for the metropolitan unions that double as franchise bases is only going to get tougher on the provincial front. Super 14 is set to expand and that is expected to result in average crowds growing and interest in the competition further increasing.
However, with fans spending more money to watch more Super Rugby games and the Air New Zealand Cup becoming more obviously a development competition, it will become even harder to sell tickets for provincial clashes.
Conversely, it is expected that in provincial centres such as Hawke's Bay, Bay of Plenty, Southland and Taranaki that are not franchise bases, crowds will continue to grow. Hawke's Bay averaged close to 10,000 this season as did the Bay of Plenty.
The Steamers' figures could have been better but for a disappointing quarter-final crowd that might have been linked to an erroneous TV report a few days before that claimed the game was already a sell-out.
