Steve Lancaster: GM of community rugby in New Zealand on the end of the NPC season

The 2025 edition of NPC has concluded with Canterbury gaining another provincial title as they took down Otago 36-28 at a sold-out Apollo Projects stadium in Christchurch. 

Steve Lancaster is the GM of community rugby in New Zealand, and he spoke with Adam around what made the final so successful.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Duncie Wildergrave
from News Talk ZB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Nine to eight are on sports Talk. What a thrilling
NPC final on Saturday has sold out crowd in christ Church,
passionate supporters for both Otago and Canterbury seeing Canterbury lift
the title. So how can you get to Rugby capitalize
on what's been an enjoyable and successful NPC this year.
Their general manager of Community Rugby, Steve Lancaster, is with
me evening to you Steve, and I'm sure you enjoyed

(00:34):
watching that final.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
It was fantastic on Saturday. It's been a while since
we saw that sort of atmosphere around a provincial game
of rugby, but you know, sort of fifty fifty red
and black and blue and gold in the stadium. There
are a lot of flags waving and a lot of chanting.
It was a special day and from our perspective it
was great to see.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
So you can you just remind our listeners what was
behind the decision to stage the matches an afternoon match.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, we had some we had some conflicts. Obviously, we
had the cricket on on Saturday night and so that
was an issue, and we've also have been for some time.
They've been very keen to play as many of these
games as we can in the afternoon under sun's sunshine,
and so you know, family friendly time worked really well

(01:22):
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
And I guess when you compare it to a year
ago the final was in Wellington, use the weather didn't
play ball, but a very small section of sky Stadium
was open. Only a few thousand people came and watched
the decider. What can you learn, I guess when you
compare those two occasions about how to best get a
good atmosphere, a good occasion for it for a decider
going forward, do you.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Think yeah, I mean last year was a bit of
a perfect storm, but sooth figuratively and literally, I mean
the weather was atrocious. It was a long weekend, which
doesn't help in Wellington, and public transport was shut down
that weekend as well, so it was really unfortunate that
the just in terms of how that played out, One
thing we don't control is where the final will be played,

(02:03):
because the team that hosts the inns thatt right over
the course of the season. But what we know, what
we certainly will take from this weekend was that you know,
we're suns out. When you get teams that are that
are playing well with passionate fans and you make it
attractive for them, they turn up and they turn up
in numbers. I think the other thing that we've we've
worked very hard on for the last couple of years

(02:25):
is really raising the profile of the competition, celebrating what's
special about it in terms of it's unique point of
difference with emerging and breakout talent up against established professionals.
And we've seen some really strong results in terms of
how that's translated into viewership, attendance over the year, and
engagement through social media platforms and the like. So all

(02:46):
the metrics are tracking in the right direction and we
really need to keep building on that.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, just back to the final. What is I guess
one thing you've learned from this year's final that you
could take into next year's season, next year's playoffs that
can make a continued success like we saw.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Do you think I think just really picturing picturing the
competition and the entertainment product as relevant to its audience.
You know, we thought In fact, I was walking into
the ground and I heard a couple of guys walking
in front of me and said, I wonder what the
ratio of mental women is in the stadium. I wouldn't
have seen this many women at a game five years ago.
And that's certainly one of the things that we've learned

(03:24):
and we're continuing to really focus on, is the broad
appeal of the competition and the product and ensuring that
it's pitched at the right market and that you're reaching
that market when you're promoted as well.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Because I know about it a few weeks ago and
he's on the Rugby publicized some of the stats around it.
It appears that engagement, viewership is up.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, it is, it is. I mean, we've pleasingly, we've
seen really strong year on year growth across all of
the metrics. So broadcast continues to grow every year. Our
broadcast viewership, engagement through highlights packages, social media and the
like is growing exponentially, and in fact the tendances as well.

(04:03):
And so I know that often there'll be your negative
commentary about the challenges with attendance, but actually it is
growing here on you and you know, when you have
a sold out stadium at a final like we did
on Saturday, and that's something to celebrate.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
What is the priority on attendances at the ground versus
engagement on social media, TV viewership? How do you balance
those out and do you have a preference about which
aspect do you want to grow that the fastest.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, well, it's a really it's a really challenging balancing
for us to balance the requirements of the broadcaster who
provide us a significant income for the rights to broadcast
the game, and they have a preference clearly for prime
time slots over the weekend versus those family friendly slots
pictives again later in the season when the sun's out

(04:48):
and you have a real festival atmosphere. So we do
try to provide as many games as we can through
the afternoon across the MPC and also taking into smaller
venues where you can create a much more easily create
a really good atmosphere, but ensure that we continue to
be in those those prime broadcast slots is also very important.
So that really is a balancing it for us.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
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