Rugby: Tew confident fans can handle more games

The proposed Super 15 competition will run for 24 weeks with a total of 120 games. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) boss Steve Tew is convinced public interest can be maintained for the duration of an expanded Super 15 competition which will stretch for 24 weeks.

While match attendances were down in New Zealand for the early rounds of the Super 14 series this year, Tew has no concerns regarding the public's appetite for more rugby.

He dismissed any notion that wider interest in this year's competition was only rising ahead of semifinals time and equally adamant a competition expanded from 14 to 24 weeks would not bore television audiences.

"We have done an awful lot of market research and have spoken to the players, our commercial partners and our fans and this design of competition gets the thumbs up from all of those people," Tew said today.

"There are always reservations about how much rugby we put into the market in such a small country.

"But if we want to have a professional game here we need to have a professional base big enough to sustain the winning All Blacks side that we have got."

The total number of Super matches in 2011 will rise from the current 91 to 120, all teams will play three more regular season games compared to now, and the playoffs will involve six sides over a period of three weeks instead of the regulation semifinals and final.

The season will be expanded from 14 to 24 weeks, starting in late February and ending in August, except in World Cup years when everything will move forward.

As well, the competition will pause for three weeks every June in the international test window, as the All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies host northern hemisphere countries.

"We could not convince the northern hemisphere countries to move those June tests to the end of the year," Tew said.

"We'd prefer an integrated international season in November and December. We tried to get it changed several times before deciding there was no point banging our heads against that brick wall."

Under the agreed proposal agreed to by the Sanzar partners, which still has to be approved by broadcasters next month, the 15 teams will be split into three conferences, one each in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

Each of those sides will play the teams in their own conference twice a season, home and away, to increase the number of local derby matches.

They will also play eight of the other 10 teams from the other two conferences once, either home or away.

The three conference winners will qualify for the finals along with three wildcards, comprising other teams with the highest points for the whole season from any of the conferences.

The site of the 15th team will be decided by tender.

Tew said the NZRU had an open mind about the source of the 15th team and where it were based.

"We have agreed, because we think it is the right thing to do, to have the team based in Australia so their conference expands by one team.

"Although it will be based in Australia it does not necessarily have to be an Australian team.

"The Australians are naturally nervous about their playing depth and whether they can sustain another (fifth) team. Given the performances of their sides this year, that is a fair question for them to be asking themselves."

Tew said Australian officials had signalled a willingness to open up the 15th team to players from other countries.

- NZPA