FIJI’S Super Rugby Pacific teams – Fijian Drua and Fijian Drua Women’s home games during the 2025 season that concluded in May early this year contributed $108 million to Fiji’s gross domestic product (GDP).
These were revealed by ANZ Group senior international economists Kishti Sen and Tom Kenny in the bank’s Pacific Insight publication released on August 29, saying the men’s seven games and women’s two games on home ground generated substantial positive economic spinoffs.
Having only entered the competition in 2022, Drua teams were making a significant contribution to Fiji’s economy and employment.
“A large chunk of that economic activity was generated indirectly, mostly through a boost to tourism but also through increased merchandise sales and higher transport, retail advertising and media demand,” Mr Sen and Mr Kenny said in the report.
They said each game drew on inputs from other industries, which in turn required input from suppliers, creating spillover benefits in terms of additional sales.
“We calculate the value of these links by mapping the relationships to related industries. This shows how each supplier purchases domestic inputs from others to produce the goods and services that support the games,” the international economists said.
“This enables us to trace the effects Drua’s games have on additional sales and their value added to GDP.”
The economists said every $FJ1 of Drua final spending on the game day boosts sales across the economy by a factor of 2.31.
“This means that for every $FJ1m of ‘game day experience’, a total of $FJ2.31m of gross output (sales) is generated by domestic industries.”
Mr Sen and Mr Kenny said importantly, the estimates suggested that hosting Super Rugby Pacific games contributed $82m indirectly to GDP in 2025, yielding a total contribution to GDP of $108m.
The duo said the Drua home games had also lifted Fiji’s international profile, particularly for sports tourism because they were broadcast live internationally.
They added that the mantra of the Fijian Drua teams was to make each event the “best ever” game-day experience for spectators.
The economists said those games demonstrated Fiji’s potential as a premiere location for major events and as a centre for business activity.
“Through the exposure I gives to the country, the economic contribution of staging of Drua’s home games has room for growth in our view.”
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Note: This article was first published under the headline: Drua games’ economic spinoff in Page14 of the print version of The Fiji Times dated Tuesday September 2, 2025
