It remains to be seen if the Hurricanes will go on to win this year's Super Rugby title.

But it appears they're well on their way to claiming the competition's popularity contest.

Sky Television's viewing figures for April featured three Hurricanes games among the top-four broadcast audiences. That's not bad going when the Sunwolves, who drew 219,000 viewers, and the Sharks (182,000) were among the Hurricanes' opponents.

GETTY IMAGES The Hurricanes' players and staff donned their club colours to celebrate beating the Reds.

The most-watched telecast of the month was the Hurricanes' win over the Chiefs, which attracted an audience of 235,000, with the round-five NRL clash between the Warriors and Cowboys (196,000) the only fixture to break up the Hurricanes' domination.

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These numbers come against a backdrop in which the team's average attendances are slightly down, but still around the 17,000 mark. Well up, though, on the 10,700 they averaged for the 2013 and 2014 seasons.

"We're actually pretty comfortable with where we are," Hurricanes chief executive Avan Lee said.

"You'd always like more but, when you take into consideration viewership, we're actually quite significantly up on viewership over the last couple of years. We're consistently one of the most-watched teams in New Zealand, let alone the competition, and it's very encouraging.

PHOTOSPORT More than 16,000 fans, including these young Northern United players, attended last Friday's Hurricanes "club" night.

"Our game against the Blues [on May 11] was the most-watched game in New Zealand this year, with a really solid viewership and we've been strong in highlights, YouTube. We've got nearly 500,000 people who follow us on social media so we are a popular team.

"We've got some things that are in our favour. Clearly we've got a team that's performed over the past three seasons, but we've also got a focus on our fans and we're thinking about what our fans want and our players are proactive, so they support our marketing initiatives."

The club also boasts 6672 members, which is no mean feat when Wellington's Westpac Stadium is your home ground. The Hurricanes' rugby is certainly better than it was in 2013/2014, but the facilities or comfort levels at the ground have hardly improved.

PHOTOSPORT Junior players from the Paremata-Plimmerton club pose with injured Hurricanes, left to right, TJ Va'a, Wes Goosen and James Blackwell.

Getting people to turn up there, particularly on a Friday night takes effort. When the ground was first built, corporate Wellington couldn't get enough of games there. But families are more the market now and Friday night at 7.35pm isn't the most appealing timeslot. Nor are some of the teams that come to town.

"You look at the 'club' night at the weekend. We had 16,000 at the game for the Reds and some of that does come down to marketing. If you just said 'it's the Reds against the Hurricanes' you wouldn't get 16,000 there," said Lee.

So there were free tickets distributed for registered junior players, with fans then allowed onto the middle of the field at fulltime. The players supported the theme by sending out photos of themselves in club kit, via their social media feeds.

The fact the bulk of the squad come from the Hurricanes region, and have a genuine emotional tie to it, only adds to the apparent bond between themselves and the fans.

Lee doesn't "stand on my soapbox and I don't suggest that we're perfect" but the numbers are pretty good.

"I genuinely think if you sat back the crowds would just start diminishing. We've actually got to think about what are we doing for each game, what's our offer, are we adding value, are we having a curtain-raiser, are we having kids on the field. It does feel like common sense, but you've still got to do it and work hard," Lee said.