Chiefs and Highlanders enjoy the media spotlight - Super Rugby Round 10

The Chiefs and Highlanders both won ugly following home games on the weekend, and the media rewarded them with lots of good coverage. Our analysis places the two teams at #1 and #2 in the media rankings this week, with 27 per cent and 24 per cent respectively.

I think the Blues will be disappointed with their media performance this week (though not as disappointed as the Warriors, but that's another code and another story). They hung on for a home win but only clocked a share of 17 per cent this week - compared with the Hurricanes who played away and recorded 19 per cent.

So how they stack up after 10 rounds?

There were around 500 fewer mentions across the board this week, and this is reflected in the dipping lines, shown below. The Chiefs (light green line, below) maintain their recent momentum,  but its actually the Highlanders (red line) who are coming back very strongly. The Hurricanes look like they may have peaked and the question will be can they maintain it? Tune in next week to find out!

As always, let us know your thoughts, comments and suggestions!

 About this analysis 

For a different take on this year’s Super Rugby competition, Hotwire is tracking the share of media voice for each New Zealand team using TrendKite media software.

We want to find out if all the teams receive an equal share, or whether some favourites emerge – for good or bad reasons.

We’ll be looking at New Zealand online media coverage of each weekend’s games, monitoring the number of mentions of each team’s name, and reporting our findings each Tuesday during the round robin.