Crowd and TV viewing figures for Australian Super Rugby have "plummeted over the past two years though, ironically, the Western Force's gate attendances have risen since the club was targeted for culling" by the Australian Rugby Union, according to Wayne Smith of THE AUSTRALIAN. According to statistics provided by Fox Sports, the number of people attending a Super Rugby match has fallen from 643,790 in '15 (average crowd 15,702) to 536,807 in '16 (average 13,764) to the current low of 399,066 for '17 (average 11,402). The current season still has one round of fixtures next weekend. The ACT Brumbies' quarterfinal on July 21 in Canberra "still is to be factored in as well." The gross season TV audience on Fox Sports "also has fallen off a cliff," dropping from 2.7 million in '16 to 1.8 million this year. The average pay-TV audience has "fallen from 70,000 last year to just 54,000." While the Super Rugby figures have been in "sharp decline," the British & Irish Lions series with the All Blacks in New Zealand was a "ratings bonanza for Fox Sports," with an audience of 188,000 watching the All Blacks win the first Test, 171,000 as the Lions "unexpectedly claimed the second" and 213,000 for the decider, "which ended dramatically in a 15-15 draw." In a way, "the disparity is good news for the ARU." The Lions-All Blacks figures demonstrate that there is "an audience ready to engage." There is "some comfort," too, in the fact that New Zealand gates are down by 8% -- though TV audiences are up by 16% -- "while South Africa has experienced the opposite effect," with crowds up by 4% but TV viewership down by 5%. The figures, however, also are a "damning indictment of the ARU and SANZAAR for carrying out the process of reducing the unwieldy 18-team competition down to 15 teams while the Super Rugby season was actually underway." The "uncertainty has been nightmarish" for the Force and the Melbourne Rebels, "the only Australian teams in danger of being culled," along with the Cheetahs and the Southern Kings of South Africa. Despite that, the Force's crowds "have actually been counterintuitively on the rise this year," with gates rising from 8,601 last year to 9,188. With an "expected crowd pushing 20,000 likely to be in attendance on Saturday," the club will finish the season "behind only the traditional giants," the Queensland Reds (105,806) and NSW Waratahs (101,499), in terms of aggregate figures. That said, both the Force and the Rebels have "enjoyed eight home games this season," compared to seven hosted by the Brumbies, Reds and Waratahs. The Rebels' crowds have "suffered badly from all the uncertainty," falling from 81,855 two years ago to just 58,321 this year (THE AUSTRALIAN, 7/10).
