Time for fans to vote with their feet: How Super Rugby Aotearoa could usher in a new era of rugby in New Zealand

Super Rugby is back.

This weekend, the Highlanders will host the Chiefs and the Hurricanes will travel to the Blues for the first round of Super Rugby Aotearoa – and the first weekend of rugby around the world since the global shutdown due to the Coronovirus pandemic.

It’s been a challenging time for a number of reasons but fans across the New Zealand – and seemingly around the world – finally have some rugby to get excited about.

“New Zealand is the first to see the sun, the first to celebrate New Year's, and now we're the first to get live rugby back,” Tex Texeira, SKY Sports’ Director of Sport and Broadcasting, told RugbyPass. “Not only that, we’re also the first to get any sport in the world back with live crowds.”

While some professional sports took just a small break and pressed forward – notably the Belarussian Premier League – teams have had to play in front of empty stadiums. Super Rugby Aotearoa will go ahead with live crowds, however, and likely some of the biggest crowds that New Zealand has seen in the last decade.

At last count, this weekend’s two matches should bring in over 60,000 excited fans.

“Believe it or not, it's been almost three months [since Super Rugby stopped] and it's just incredible how the world has changed,” said Texeira. “We've had to learn how to adapt and we've had to prepare for all kinds of scenarios but we're finally back in New Zealand and hopefully going ahead with rugby as we're accustomed to - live crowds, live on TV, live on SKY.”

Navigating the uncertainty of the past few months has been challenging for the likes of New Zealand Rugby (NZR), the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association and SKY, who’ve all coordinated to try get rugby back on screens as soon as possible – providing, of course, that it’s safe for players and other staff involved.

The original expectation was that fans wouldn’t be allowed to attend matches at least for the early stages of the competition, which created a few problems to solve.

“For us, from a production point of view, we watched other sports coming back slowly, like the NRL, and we could see what a challenge not having crowds is,” Texeira said. “Our colleagues in Australia were doing a really good job but let's face it, having the crowds – not only for the players but for the production, the fans and the people at home – is the ultimate experience.”

There were solutions in place, should New Zealand had not progressed to the point where large public gathering were feasible.

“We did have on our list ways to improve the empty stadium experience,” Texeira revealed.

“We had crowd noise on standby. We'd monitored what had been going on in the NRL and because we have dual audio options, we were going down the road of audio 1 would have had this crowd effect and audio 2 would have just had stadium effects and commentary for people that didn't want to hear the enhanced audio.

“Virtual crowds were also something that we would have loved to have done but we realised very quickly you kind of needed to green screen the stadium and we realised that we'd lose the ball in the air. But of course, there’s no need for any of that now!”