Super Rugby 2024 was for the fans

Following 18 competitive weeks of rugby with 91 matches played across the 12 Super Rugby teams, the DHL Super Rugby Pacific 2024 season wraps up with more fans engaged and a historic grand final win for the Blues.

In New Zealand, the competition saw an increase in fan support with broadcast viewership on Sky up 12 percent on 2023¹, fan attendance was also up 9 percent² and social video views increased by 40 percent.   

On the field, Hoskins Sotutu (Blues) and Sevu Reece (Crusaders) scored the most tries (12 each) with 663 tries scored across the competition and total of 4,881 points scored. Each match of DHL Super Rugby Pacific saw an average of 7.3 tries scored and the top points scorer for the season was Damian McKenzie (Chiefs).  

DHL Super Rugby Pacific Chair, Kevin Malloy is pleased with the results of the season especially the uplift in fan engagement across all areas².

“It’s fantastic to see the 2024 season perform well, the Super Rugby Pacific teams were outstanding this season with some close matches, upsets and overall, fast, intense, competitive rugby.”

“The quality of the competition is reflected through our off-field results. We saw more fans showing up to games, tuning in on broadcast and engaging across our digital channels. A huge thank you to all fans for your support this season, we couldn’t do it without your passion and dedication.”

Nearly 2.1 million New Zealanders have tuned in to watch the action on Sky Sport and free-to-air on Sky Open, a lift of 12 percent on the 2023 tournament – and up from over 1.94 million at the end of the 2024 regular season³.

A further 249,000 unique viewers enjoyed the action over on digital channels Sky Sport Now and Sky Go⁴, with more than 6.81 million streams throughout the tournament⁵.

In Fiji, the most watched match was the quarterfinal between the Blues and Fijian Drua, with more than  380,000 fans tuning in from Fiji⁶.

More than 640,000 fans showed their support for their Super Rugby Pacific teams across the season, an increase of 9 percent on last year. Moana Pasifika hosted their first home match in Tonga, while the Blues v Chiefs final saw the highest fan attendance of 44,000.

Across the regular season, Hurricanes proved to be fan favourites. The Blues v Hurricanes drawing in the largest regular season crowd of 25,873 and a further two matches sold out across regular season, Fijian Drua v Hurricanes (Round 9) and the Chiefs v Hurricanes (Round 14).

Fans were also engaged in social content across the competition channels, with video views up 40 percent (162 million video views) and video engagement saw an uplift of 4.2 percent with 6.7 millions engagements on content posted.

To top off a successful season, in New Zealand five new All Blacks were named off the back of the DHL Super Rugby Pacific competition.