Bulls set new Super benchmark
The Bulls, whether they play in pink or blue, remain South Africa's most popular Super Rugby franchise.
The popularity of South Africa's most successful Super Rugby franchise - the three-time Super Rugby champion Bulls - is evident not just by home crowd attendances or jersey sales, but also in television audience ratings.
It has been revealed that there are an estimated 9.6-million rugby supporters in South Africa, of which almost three million support the Bulls.
The remaining 6.6 million supporters are spread out amongst the other franchises.
The Bulls have positioned themselves as a family brand and has mass appeal across all race, gender and age groups - with as many as 49 percent of its supporter base being black, while 32 percent account for the white population, 17 percent are coloureds and two percent Indians.
The Bulls also proudly boast the country's youngest supporter profile of 42 percent under the 35-year age group.
According to leading sports researchers BMI, the boys in blue lead off the field too in terms of being the most watched Super Rugby team this year.
Add to that a 300 percent growth in Facebook followers as well as over 10 000 Twitter fans and it's safe to say that the Pretoria-based side is having the season of their lives.
When studying television audiences, it's the same popular rugby franchise that comes out tops.
Having monitored 73 games broadcast from February until May, the Bulls top the charts with an average match day audience of 535 744.
The highest audience figures were recorded on March 31, when the Stormers hosted the Bulls at the Newlands Stadium - with 770 000 viewers tuned in to watch the game - more than a quarter of a million more viewers above the average Super Rugby viewership for local derbies.
Two weeks later, the Pretoria-based side, playing the Lions, again attracted television audiences well above the average. This particular match rated second in terms of viewership figures amongst local teams with a total audience of 584 200, which is 154 000 more viewers than the Lions would typically expect.
The Bulls also dominated the next category featuring local teams against their New Zealand and Australian counterparts.
Playing against the Brumbies, Reds, Crusaders and Blues, the Bulls dominated the top four spots with an average of 614 725 viewers per game - over 150 000 more viewers on average than any of our local teams playing against an Australian or New Zealand team.
In this category, the team's highest audience figure was 671 830 for their match against the Brumbies on April 21, 208 618 more than the overall average. Their fixture against defending champions the Reds on March 24th occupied second spot with a total viewership of 612 826, which was 149 7614 more than the overall average.
A quick comparison to the other South African franchises for the period February to May 2012, revealed that the Bulls games are ahead of their competitors by between 78 478 to 199 917 viewers per match.
The average for nine Bulls games for this period was 535 744, which was 78 478 higher than second highest, the Stormers with 457 266.
The Lions were not far off the Cape side with an average of 429 257, while the Sharks (392 816) and the Cheetahs (335 827) didn't reach the 400 000 mark.
Added to the successful television audiences, is the recent growth of the team's social media platforms. Having recently increased their presence on social media platforms Twitter and Facebook, the results are something to ride home about with a 300 percent growth on Facebook. Twitter is just as impressive with over 10 000 fans signing up.
With three Super Rugby titles under their belt and renowned worldwide as the most successful Super 14 team in history with three titles out of five, the Bulls have set the benchmark both on and off the field of play.