Sanzar chief: Concern about crowd numbers

Greg Peters, Chief Executive Officer for Sanzar. Photo / Getty Images

During the build-up to and birth of Super 15, chief executive Greg Peters has logged a few travel miles.

He wanted to deal personally with people involved and needed to show his face on more than teleconference or Skype calls.

It was part of the deal in taking on the duties as boss of the group controlling the New Zealand, Australian and South African rugby competition.

He is now in London on a six-day hit-and-run mission as part of a rugby economics forum looking at different ways of divvying up the money in the game.

He left Sydney last Tuesday and is due back on Sunday in time to watch the Reds-Crusaders clash at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. Peters' schedules are exhausting, but he knew that when he signed on for the job.

Once the initial series champion is crowned, he and his crew are setting themselves for an even bigger travelogue.

"We want to go round and see every franchise and talk to the coaches, managers and CEOs to get a full debrief," he said.

"We need to get a comprehensive view on the management and running of the tournament. We will also look for ideas but there are caveats on that because the structure is largely settled and has been sold to broadcasters.

"We will also be talking about the way the game is played, refereed and run."

Peters will travel with the Super 15 game manager Lyndon Bray, operations manager Brendan Morris and Anthony MacKaiser, who deals with media and marketing.

"We think there will be learnings for all three partners and ideas we want to take a longer look at. We think the best way of doing that is fronting up and talking to the franchises."

In previous years, the Super rugby competition was heading into its final stages about now but the extended conference system and playoffs mean the final is set for July 9.

Crowds and television viewership in Australia are well up and Peters puts that down to the Reds' efforts and increased work of Fox Sports broadcasters.

The new Rebels side was battling for results but was also pulling crowds averaging 18,000 to home games.

Viewership in South Africa was down while crowds were comparable with last year with peaks for cross-conference matches such as the Crusaders-Stormers duel.

Crowds in New Zealand were flat though local derbies, on average, were pulling in about 4000 more spectators than other matches.

The Christchurch earthquake had had an effect because all the Crusaders' games had to be moved, while the Chiefs had been hit by many games in poor weather and the Hurricanes had not performed as they wanted.

"Those are pockets of concern about crowd numbers not being what we would like," Peters agreed.

"We would like to see New Zealand bounce back but we are comfortable where we are at.

"There is a lot of rugby to be played in September/October so maybe people are waiting for that."

He acknowledged that some things such as awarding four points for a bye and getting more consistency in refereeing and judicial rulings would be looked at.

But the Super 15 model was locked in for five years with the commercial partners and any adjustments would be tweaks rather than wrenches.