Competition going forward

[WCRugger]

I suppose that's significantly better than Fox? That's great. I didn't look at Stan. I was more thinking of the aspect of growing new audiences and how the FTA games are placed. Our figures are slightly different. I suppose that depends on which ratings agency provides figures? I got them from TV Tonight. They don't seem to count regionals. Were the Stan figures better than Fox on their own? That would be even better from 9/Stan's point of view, comparing apples with apples.

Stan is hard to quantify but they had 50k watch the first round game. Added to the 97k on Gem and regionals. That saw ratings total more than 200k. There was an article detailing the breakdown. The lowest rating game of the season on Gem was 65k. Which featured the Rebels. But still much higher than the same game last year on Fox.

Overall, the games are averaging between 81-82k without taking into account regionals and Stan. So the overall average when calculating regional and Stan into account probably adds another 50-60% on top of that. Nothing spectacular but a reasonable base line to build from. A good overall performance against the Kiwis as a collective will help drive those numbers up for next season. It's going to take a number of seasons to grow out viewership on FTA. Expecting 2-300k from day one after being locked behind a pay wall for 20 odd years was never going to happen.

What I find encouraging is that it is proving something I've maintained for years when people kept saying the A-League was challenging or surpassing SR in terms of rankings. It's not. The highest rating FTA A-League games this season has managed mid 50k and there Fox ratings are dismal. As in creeping closer and closer to parity with the NBL. Which rates below 10k on average itself.

[AndyS]

Hmm...there seems to be a lot of nostalgia for the old S12 in some quarter. But I tend to believe a 16 round season is likely the best option. What will be interesting is if the reported interest from Japan to engage in some kind of cross border Cup competition featuring teams from their incoming professional structure comes to fruition. That's a market both RA and NZR would be keen to engage with. What impact will that have?

If Japan wanted to be involved, it would almost make the decision for them (maybe for the best, given some of their decision making prowess)....domestic comps, then a separate TT comp including the Japanese. Perhaps the best model anyway, as carrying over points will only cause the sort of negative angst that ultimately stuck a knife in SR.

Not sure the Japanese would necessarily be up for another whole 14 match season though. I think they are probably thinking more a 4-5 game tournament, featuring a select team/s rather than club teams. Short of either stripping all the SR teams of players, and/or making a complete joke of their own comp, their teams simply aren't going to be competitive with SR teams and no-one will want to watch them getting flogged merciless.

If so though, and the individual clubs did want some ongoing involvement, the opportunity could be there for a GRR. That would be more the appropriate level, and may be no less interesting to an Asian audience.