Hold your horses, Christchurch. The Blues are set to launch a bold bid to pinch the highly successful Super Round from the Garden City next year.
The Blues and Crusaders share a long-held heated rivalry that is about to stretch off the field as the Auckland franchise makes an audacious play to steal Super Rugby’s hottest ticket.
Blues boss Karl Budge attended the Super Round at the One New Zealand Stadium last weekend. While praising the event, Budge is adamant Auckland can showcase an upgraded version - bigger and better than the three sell-out days that lured more than 73,000 fans to the new Christchurch venue.
“It would be fantastic in this city,” Budge told the Herald. “I’d like it tomorrow. We would love to have it here next year.
“Auckland is our economic hub. It’s where our biggest population is. It influences culture across the country like no other market.
“It would be an incredible success here and it’s something rugby needs at the moment. Winning back this market is vitally important.”
Super Round’s shift from Melbourne to Christchurch was a hit on every metric – from 34,000 hotel beds to packed restaurants and bars, the highest broadcast numbers of the season in Australia and the Blues out-rating the Warriors in a head-to-head battle on Saturday night.
“On ground and on television it was a rip-roaring success. The venue is amazing. It’s great for rugby; great for Christchurch to have a jewel in their crown.
“But when it comes to us we’ve got an opportunity to do it differently again. When you think of the size and scale of Eden Park and what that enables us in terms of getting more foot traffic through the door, more visitors, it becomes pretty compelling.”
Budge suggests Eden Park’s adjoining No 2 ground is one advantage that could deliver increased entertainment offerings.
“It’s not hard to imagine a massive music act, or a mini music festival, out on that ground while rugby is going on that could potentially be opened up to the public. You could adopt some of the tennis models where you’re selling ground passes, not just a seat in the stadium to open it up to a whole lot more people.”
While Christchurch and its pristine roofed venue is in the box seat to retain Super Round next year, Budge expects a contestable, competitive tender process to take place.
“There’s no doubt given how successful it was, Christchurch will want it back - and probably start as favourites - but I think of the impact we could have in terms of unlocking our biggest city and truly showing a different side to rugby that could be really meaningful to the game and deliver a financial result that’s unrivalled anywhere else in New Zealand.
“[Super Rugby chief executive] Jack Mesley has probably blocked my number by now. We’re certainly harassing those conversations. We’ve had positive conversations with local government here.”
Budge boasts extensive experience delivering major events, having worked with Tennis Australia and SailGP, and running the ASB Classic for nine years before joining the Blues. He points to the wider Auckland region boasting three of the world’s top 100 golf courses as attractions beyond the rugby experience.
“Could we go and do a club-versus-club golf competition in the week leading up? How many people would crawl over broken glass to get on those courses? What an awesome opportunity for us to drive more visitors and hold them for longer to increase the economic impact for the region and value to New Zealand.
“The key point is we would absolutely love it. When it comes to doing big, international quality events, there’s more than one market that could do that.”
Dunedin, with its student population and similar roofed stadium, is another potential location to host Super Round.
Highlanders chief executive Roger Clark expressed a desire to stage the event, while acknowledging Dunedin’s limitations.
“I’m sure everyone in Dunedin and Otago would love to have it in our part of the world,” Clark said. “Based on what I witnessed in the weekend there’s a few things we’d have to do logistically to manage it.
“We’ve got a stadium that would handle it really well. We might have a few challenges around accommodation but from a rugby perspective we’d do everything we could in the future to get it there.
“Christchurch set the scene for a stadium that interacts with the fans. You basically walked outside and you were in the city. It felt a little bit like the Wellington sevens when it started.
“It will be hard to take it away from Christchurch but we already know there’ll be other cities watching that thinking they’d want to get it.
“It’s a reminder for Auckland that they need a downtown stadium. You wonder whether that will happen in future.”
For a competition in a state of flux, with Moana Pasifika’s expected exit casting a cloud over next year’s scheduling, Budge’s enthusiasm to steal Super Round circles it as a marquee event on the sporting calendar.
“Having these occasions is huge for us,” Budge said. “It showed the level of passion at a time when we’re getting questioned. We can all put to bed how much Kiwis love Super Rugby. We had stories of a private jet with a whole lot of ultra high net-worths flying in from Queensland last week. Seeing that passion from the other side of the Ditch shows it was an outrageously successful occasion. The fact you’ve got at least two cities dying to host it speaks volumes.”
Liam Napier is a senior sports journalist and rugby correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. He is a co-host of the Rugby Direct podcast.