Head in the sand if you think the NRL isn’t making commercial inroads in NZ and the kiwi supporter base in Australia, but yeah, laugh away. Lets just pretend Super Rugby is a comparative product.
Been reading that kinda stuff since the year (1988, I think) TV2 started showing Winfield Cup highlights on a Monday night & televising the GF live. Can also remember the foundation CEO of the Warriors (came from AFL marketing & went back to AFL when the second set of owners fired him) declaring that within five years people wouldn't know who'd been around longer, Warriors or All Blacks. Marketing hype for sure but at the time there were those who nodded their head & said, yeah, it might take ten years but it'll happen for sure.
League used to be strong in areas (such as Taranaki per
@Dan54's post but also West Coast (which used to host Test matches), suburban Christchurch, Northland & Bay of Plenty) where it's now non- or barely existent. Interestingly softball which was once the preferred summer sport for leaguies is also struggling in many of the same places.
The fact is that Loig is nowhere near the threat to men's rugby that basketball is: for the last three years at least male b'ball has had higher high school participation numbers than rugby & even if that doesn't translate to Club (which so far it doesn't seem to be) those are kids who aren't going to be playing rugby (or league).