Why Christchurch’s new stadium will host Anzac weekend ‘Super Round’ in 2026
Monday, 11 August 2025
Super Rugby Pacific chief executive officer Jack Mesley is banking on fans in the Crusaders’ territory to supercharge the Super Round in Christchurch after three underwhelming years in Melbourne resulted in modest crowds and a lack of buzz.
The decision to shift Super Round from Melbourne, where it was played between 2022 and 2024, was inevitable after the Rebels were forced to withdraw from the competition because of financial issues.
Relocating to Christchurch will be contingent on the new 25,000 enclosed stadium being completed by early April.
The Super Round will be played on April 24-26.
Five games - in round 11 - will be played over three days. It's not yet been confirmed which of the 11 teams will have the bye and not participate.
'The Melbourne Super Round actually attracted a lot of travellers,'' Mesley said when reflecting on what had been learned from staging the event in that city.
'But clearly you are starting off a very different base in Melbourne - where rugby is at Melbourne; clearly the [now defunct] Rebels do not have the following locally as the Crusaders have.''
Organisers had been satisfied with the number of fans from outside the state who travelled to watch the games at AAMI Stadium in Melbourne.
A total of around 32,000 fans attended six games last year.
Organisers will hope for better attendances at One New Zealand Stadium in Christchurch.
Unlike the Melbourne event, which was licensed out to events company TEG Sport, NZ Rugby and the Crusaders will take control of the event in Christchurch with the assistance of Venues Ōtautahi.
ChristchurchNZ, a ratepayer-funded economic development agency, has played a key role in bringing the event to the city.
A ChristchurchNZ spokesperson would not say how much it paid to Super Rugby Pacific.
In 2024 ChristchurchNZ paid SailGP a $400,000 cash 'host city'' payment and $520,000 in various costs associated with running the event which attracted 6000 visitors who spent $3.3 million.
When Super Rugby was held in Melbourne, it's believed New Zealand teams who had to surrender home games received a fee of about $340,000 for lost gate revenue.
Mansbridge confirmed there was an arrangement to pay teams in 2025: 'Everyone gets compensated for bringing a home game here. And so that everybody ends up holding it, so to speak.''
Mesley was mindful that New Zealanders were feeling the pinch in the current economic climate; he pledged to be realistic when setting ticket prices.
'We have got more work to do on that, but we will certainly be looking to make this as accessible as possible for people to come and stay and play and watch the games,'' Mesley said.
We will be doing a lot of work around that.''
The decision to stage the Super Round in Christchurch for just one year may lead to an extension.
'With the opening of the stadium there's a great opportunity to bring Super Rugby Pacific to that opening event,'' Mesely stated.
'So that is kind of why we focused on the one year, we would love to have discussions about future years with Christchurch.''
He was also confident Australian fans would travel across the Tasman.
With the Supercars to be held at Ruapuna Raceway, about 15km from Christchurch, the previous weekend it's hoped motorsport fans will extend their stay.
'There is a really passionate fan base of our clubs over there that are looking for excuses to travel. We know a lot of our fans will pick an away game to go to, and plan around that,'' Mesley said.
'We have been a lot of Aussie fans travel up to Fiji to go and experience what is like up there to go to a Drua game, and I am confident everyone will be marking their calendars for this one.''