About Super Smash
Super Smash is one of the top-performing and most viewed professional domestic twenty20 cricket tournaments organized in New Zealand. This tournament is one of the oldest professional tournaments. It is not only popular in New Zealand but also it is popular in other cricket-loving countries of the world. It has been more than 15 years since this tournament is being organized and cricket lovers are showing extreme love for this tournament. The popularity of this tournament among cricket fans is too much, that is why it is growing rapidly and will continue for the next few years successfully without any doubt.
Foundation, Format & Teams
New Zealand Cricket Board is the official founder of this tournament. Super Smash was initially launched as the New Zealand Twenty20 Competition in 2005. The name of this tournament has changed many times, just because of the title sponsors and for some other promotional or commercial reason. After the first successful season held in 2005-2006, it was named by the controllers or the management as State Twenty20. Till 2009 it was organized under the same banner but after that, it was named HRV Cup from 2009 to 2013. In 2013 it was named HRV Twenty20. And now according to the current sponsor of the tournament, it is named Dream11 Super Smash. This name will be there until 2026. The format of this tournament is double round-robin. In this tournament, they organize the preliminary final and then the final match is held. A total number of six teams participate in this tournament and all of them are named after the popular cities and states of New Zealand.
Sponsors
As we have told you that there is a huge popularity of this tournament among cricket lovers, so it means that there will be more sponsors out there to financially support this tournament. From the very beginning to the current timespan Super Smash league was never short on sponsors. The big multinational companies were always there to become a sponsoring partner of this tournament. Companies like Georgie Pie were the sponsor for this tournament from 2014 to 2016. McDonald’s was the sponsor for the year 2016-2017. Burger King sponsored this tournament for the time span of three years from 2017 to 2019. Dream11 was the sponsor from 2019 to 2020. And now the sponsorship contract of Dream11 is supposed to be expanded until 2026.
Prize Pool & Revenue
Super Smash cricket tournament’s prize money is increased every year by the organizing committee. The New Zealand Cricket Board is responsible for the cricket matches and their prizes. Various amounts are offered to the players by their merchandise teams. On the other hand in 2015 the prize money of around $180,000 was offered to the winning team.
Top Teams & Players
The current champion of this tournament is Wellington Firebirds. This team has won the championship title four times. However, Wellington is not the only successful team of this tournament, because there are other teams with the same number of titles won. Auckland Aces are also one of the top teams of this tournament. Auckland Aces have also won the champion title four times. Other than this teams like Canterbury Kings, Central Stags, Otago Volts, etc. have won the champion title three times. Also, the management of this tournament was looking forward to the women’s format for the same tournament. The New Zealand Cricket board planned to start a women’s tournament in the same format. This tournament was named the New Zealand Women’s Twenty20 competition. But due to some financial issues and lack of sponsors, it was not a successful idea to start such a women’s tournament in the country.
Venues & Broadcasting
As we have already mentioned that there are cricket fans loving this tournament from all over the world. So it is clear that this tournament is broadcasted all over the world and fans show love to this tournament. That is why the broadcasting rights are distributed by the tournament management and administrators at a high cost. Not only in New Zealand but also in other countries this tournament is broadcasted by various broadcasters after buying the broadcasting rights from the tournament administrators. All the matches are held in New Zealand on various home grounds of the teams. All the teams have their own home grounds.
