After a busy and successful first year, Super Rugby CEO Jack Mesley is excited to implement more changes to the Super Rugby Pacific format.
Mesley spoke to media ahead of the official announcement of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific draw, which will see the return of Super Round to the competition.
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The 2025 season saw the competition experience a six percent increase in attendance despite fewer matches, a 27 percent rise in average streaming audience on Stan Sport in Australia, and a 13 percent increase in viewership on free-to-air broadcaster Nine.
New Zealand saw a 19 per cent increase across its digital platforms, with the Fijian audience also rising.
There was massive growth in Super Rugby Pacific's digital footprint, too, with social media platforms reaching 2.5 million followers (a 25 percent year-on-year increase), while more than 70,000 fans took part in the inaugural season of Super Rugby Fantasy.
That success also translated to results on the field, with 43.1 percent of matches decided by a margin of seven points or fewer, and the 2025 season being second-highest scoring in the competition’s history.
“It was a great finish, [we’re] super happy with the year,” Mesley told reporters in Sydney.
“We've now done most of our reviews and are well into planning. It's a positive place to start from, but after the year we've had [there are] still lots of opportunities.”
Mesley confirmed the competition will look to build on the fan engagement and on-field successes, but also confirmed there would be changes - with one of the biggest being the finals series format.
The format came under criticism last year after the Chiefs, who finished top of the ladder, were still given a home semi final despite their qualifying final loss.
The 2026 season will see the highest ranked losing team progress as the lowest seed to semis, regardless of where they finished in the regular season.
“Overall, we're really happy with the final series,” Mesley explained.
“The fact that we got such great games, some unexpected results. First time in a long time we've seen six beat one and then almost go on to beat two.
“Clearly there was a lot of feedback about the double bonus of the lucky loser.
“We committed at the time to running it for the first time - [then we] sit down and do the work, look at what worked, look at what didn't, revisit the alternative options that we had. We got feedback from all of our stakeholder group and it ended up going, you know, we like the six team finals.
“We felt a tweak was warranted to make sure that we're not giving too much advantage to a team that loses. We've engaged with clubs, players associations, broadcasters, the unions, and listened to the feedback we got from media, from fans, from what we learned as well. Everyone's supportive of the change.
“The Chiefs are thankful they got the advantage to get a second chance and the home semi last year. But everyone's on board.”
Another major headline of the 2026 season is the return of Super Round - with five games across Round 11 set to launch the Crusaders’ new home at One New Zealand Stadium in Christchurch.
Mesley is hoping to see the concept go to other locations as well, lining up Fiji as a long term prospect.
“We engaged a lot of different states and territories,” Mesley added.
“We worked with Rugby Australia, we also had discussions with Fiji about potentially ‘taking it all around’ as it's affectionately known up there.
“I think the best option to come out of that process was Christchurch, both in terms of just the strategic alignment to support the Crusaders and the launch of that stadium, which is going to be such an important asset for us.
“We really are interested in Fiji in the long term, but that requires some infrastructure.
“We're really keen to work with the Fijian government to look at what would it take for us to run a Super Round up in Fiji, to make sure that we've got lights, the right amount of change rooms, etc, particularly on the west coast where the bulk of the accommodation is.
“We're still very hopeful that could be a future option.”
Discussion of expansion has resurfaced following the success of the 2025 season, but Mesley believes improving the current product is the focus.
This includes not only the fan engagement and on-field competitiveness, but even down to building the profile of the competition’s biggest stars.
“We're pretty bound by the window that we have,” Mesley said.
“We're not investing a hell of a lot of energy in challenging that at the moment.
“We've now got, the last three years in particular, some good growth on growth. I think the evolution of this competition is to become a more fan-centric competition, a more commercially viable competition.
“I think prioritisation is the ongoing challenge. We've got so many great opportunities to continue to grow and improve, [but] we’ve got a clearer view now on what those priorities are, and how we double down on them.
“We talked about the shape of the game. Fantasy was another, a great initiative to bring in 18-to-24 year olds, get more people talking about the competition, and learning more about other teams, other players.
“It's a key focus for us to continue to build the profile of our athletes. What they do off the pitch is amazing.
“We saw particularly, through the Ardie [Savea] effect last year, we need to continue to lift the profile, leverage what they're all doing. They're all being themselves on social media every day.
“Whether it's Carlo [Tizzano] doing his podcast and everything he's doing in social, we need to continue to elevate that. We want people from all around the Pacific to know more about the Australian teams - so that when the Force go and play in Dunedin, Highlanders fans know who to look out for.
“I think the players are doing a pretty good job of it and we're trying to support them lifting their profiles across the board.
“What we learned from fans at the start of this season is that Super definitely has permission to push and to innovate.”
