No summer loving for summer footy

If you've been scratching your head wondering why the heck the rugby season begins so soon, the bad news is that early starts are here to stay until at least 2012.

The good news, if you could call it that, is you are not alone in being underwhelmed by the early starts. Not if Friday night's TV ratings for game one were anything to go by.

AGB Nielsen Media Research data shows a paltry 141,300 people watched Friday night's primetime season-opener between the Highlanders and Brumbies in Dunedin.

The Blues kicked off their season at the ungodly hour of 11.45pm that same night, so it was never going to be a ratings winner. However, the audience size - just 31,800 bothered to turn on their TV sets - must have come as a shock to Sky Sport all the same.

Even the audience for the deciding Chappell-Hadlee ODI cricket match was below par, but all the same, between 9.30pm and 12.45am an average audience of 107,500 tuned in to the rain-delayed broadcast.

Cricket's ratings have been steadily closing the gap on rugby, especially in the summer months of February and into March.

And the trend will be more closely monitored than ever in the coming weeks as rugby's powerbrokers and paymasters begin to thrash out the most important document in the game: a new broadcasting contract.

Negotiations start in June but the punters have had the first say, sending a strong message with their TV remotes.

And the players feel the same.

New Zealand Rugby Players' Association chief executive Rob Nichol said his association's members, which include all the game's heavy hitters such as Richie McCaw, were keen on a later start to the season.

"We are absolutely clear that a February start to the rugby season is too early," he said.

"It's driven by a couple of things but we would prefer early March or if necessary the last weekend in February as the official start."

However, Nichol delivered a sobering warning to those hoping for respite.

The New Zealand Rugby Union and its Sanzar partners are due to present their master plan for the future of the game to News Ltd in June.

The current broadcast deal expires at the end of next year.

That means any change in 2010, other than minor tinkering to the finals format, is unlikely.

And in 2011, a world cup year, the season will start in early February so the competition can be concluded well before the tournament begins.

Nichol said that because the world cup finished at the end of October "the players get enough rest to recover for the next season so world cup year is not the problem. So for the time being, until something changes, we're stuck with it."

The sports rights market is extremely volatile.

Although English Premier League football negotiated a handsome increase in broadcast revenue recently, there is not the same competition in the local market and News Ltd, a major shareholder in Sky NZ, has been bleeding cash.

Whether that impacts on New Zealand rugby is still to be determined and probably won't be until next year.

By that time the global economy will hopefully be on the road to recovery.

- © Fairfax NZ News