POSTED: Thursday September 23rd 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fans speak out against Super Rugby changes

A survey of over 6,000 rugby fans conducted by popular online sports prediction game SuperBru suggests that the changes SANZAR is touting as big improvements to Super Rugby have not gone down well with the public.

The results from a survey of rugby fans conducted by popular online sports prediction game SuperBru suggest that the changes SANZAR is touting as big improvements to the beloved Super Rugby product have not gone down well with the public, especially in South Africa.

While fans from all three SANZAR nations (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) are largely in favour of, or at worst indifferent to, the addition of a 15th team to Super Rugby, the more complex impact of the extended season and greater focus on domestic matches has not met with approval from rugby fans in South Africa and New Zealand (Australians are largely supportive of the alterations).

Only 25% of South Africans and 29% of New Zealanders in SuperBru's study of over 6,400 fans said that they thought the new Super Rugby was better than Super 14, compared with 53% of Australians.

Of major concern is the new domestic focus of Super Rugby, which sees each team tackle its four domestic opponents twice in the season while missing out on two games against international opponents.

SANZAR has been quick to point out that local derbies attract the biggest crowds, but does that necessarily mean fans want more of them in Super Rugby? 65% of South Africans are disappointed in the greater domestic slant, with the major reason being that they see international rugby as the key focus of Super Rugby. This makes sense given that South Africa already has a thriving domestic tournament, the Currie Cup. 59% of fans think the Currie Cup is a better forum for this quantity of domestic South African rugby, and indeed 63% think that the new structure will have a negative impact on the Currie Cup.

Figures are similar for New Zealanders in the context of their domestic tournament, the ITM Cup, but amongst Australians (who have no state-level domestic event) the move is seen as a big plus.

A full report of the survey including analysis is available from SuperBru. It goes into more detail about the points mentioned above, and additionally:

* investigates fan reaction to each of the five big changes to Super Rugby, step by step

* assesses the expected impact of the changes upward on the national teams and test rugby - and downward on the domestic game

* gets to grips with fans' perceptions of the real motivations behind the changes

To download the full report, please visit http://www.superbru.com/report or contact info@superbru.com.

"In the SuperBru community, Super Rugby has always been the tournament that has ignited the most passion amongst fans," said Andy Wood, who heads up the SuperBru team and is better known in the game as the General. "It is a very special sports tournament, and from our base in London I can assure you that Super 14 was always the envy of European rugby. As to the future, it seems fans are saying that while expanding to 15 teams is good, they're just not sure about the extended season and especially the domestic focus. But I guess we should credit SANZAR with creating the product we love so much in the first place, and trust that they know the best way to evolve it. We look forward to finding out!"

SuperBru's survey is still open and can be found at http://www.superbru.com/superrugby/survey.asp. Entrants before October will stand the chance of winning an iPod Touch 32gb in a lucky draw.

ABOUT SUPERBRU
Over 200,000 fans have enjoyed SuperBru’s online sports prediction games since 2006. Participating for free, players are able to set up leagues of friends, colleagues and family members and go head-to-head in a very competitive, social environment by predicting the winners and margins of victory in rugby, soccer, cricket, motor racing and other sports codes. SuperBru’s highest penetration is in South Africa, where Alexa.com ranked the site the 55th most popular website in the country in July 2010.

SuperBru is owned and operated by London-based internet ventures business Nevado.

ABOUT NEVADO
Nevado is an internet ventures house. Since 2006, it has successfully conceived, developed and operated online businesses in diverse sectors including travel, online dating, sports prediction games, theatre and entertainment. The business also offers consulting services to clients in the travel and entertainment sectors.

Based in London with a team upwards of 15 full time staff, Nevado was founded by three 1998 Information Systems post-graduates from the University of Cape Town and an interactive design graduate from Bath.

For more information, please contact info@superbru.com

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Keywords · sport · rugby · rugby union · super 14 · super14 · super rugby · super 15 · super15 · SANZAR · superbru

Name: Press Officer
Organization: SuperBru
Email:
URL: http://www.superbru.com

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