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Broadcast options for Australian Rugby

wamberal

Phil Kearns (64)
Brett McKay speculated that ABC might put their shute shield team to use again to televise NRC after the NRL season.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


No doubt they have other uses for it.

Plus, the SS is only televised live in NSW and the ACT, under the current arrangements anyway. Plus plus, they are paid to televise it, I believe.
 

Bardon

Peter Fenwicke (45)
If I were going to produce a youtube show to spotlight the NRC I’d do something along the lines of Soccer AM from Sky Sports UK. You could use a mix of footage from the highlight videos and footage captured by volunteers on game days.

Take some of the segments from the show to give you a structured format (you might have to rename some segments) as outlined below. Add in extra segments you think people might enjoy. Put the whole thing together as a show and post both the full show and the individual segments to a youtube channel. Then get everyone you know and their dog to share it on social media.

Team Mates

Player talks about their team answers a series of questions.

  • Play Name & Team
  • Best & Worst trainer
  • Fastest & Slowest
  • Most skilful
  • Wouldn’t want to meet down a dark alley
  • Joker
  • Worst dress sense
  • Add or subtract questions as you see fit for the first one then keep the same format for the season
It shouldn’t be that hard for a local fan to grab a minute or two with one of the playing squad. They don’t have to be the biggest of names.

To keep it snappy flash the question on the screen as it’s being answered rather than having footage of someone asking.

Fan Passing Challenge

7 fans 1 minute to pass a ball as many balls as they can into a bucket at a set distance (If I were doing it I cut a hole in the bottom of the bucket and attach a net at the back to catch the balls). Do a different team every round and have a league table at the end of the NRC.

Try of the round

Run down top 5 or 10 (depending on time) tries from the latest round.

This is my club

Fans answer a series of questions on their club.
-
  • Club name
  • Home ground
  • Team colours
  • Star player
  • Why I go to the games
  • Score predictions
- Again add extra questions to begin with and keep a standard set for the season. Put the categories on the screen to keep it snappy.

Show-boat

Best bits of skill from the round’s games.

Fan kicking challenge

Similar to passing challenge except you try to kick as many balls as possible into a bin at a set distance within 1 minute.

Taxi for <insert player name here>

This is for the worst mistake of the round. Player passes into touch, gives an intercept try etc. The kind of, “I wish the ground would open up and swallow me”, type of moment from that round.

Greatest hits

Best tackles from the round.

Team of the round

Best 1-15 players for that round with a few seconds of footage on each player from the highlights.

With an average segment length of about 1-1.5 minutes you could put together a show of about 10-15 minutes. The individual segments could also be uploaded for people to share.

At the end of the season you could do a best bits for each segment.

If you got enough traction on social media you might be able to get some of the players to record their squad doing the fan challenges at some point.

Putting something like that together wouldn’t cost very much. It just really needs time and dedication from a group of maybe 10-20 fans spread out over the season.

Off the top of my head you’d need the following:
-
  • Someone to co-ordinate everything.
  • A contact at each of the clubs so you could get access to one of the players. My impression of the G&GR community is that this wouldn’t be too hard for you guys.
  • People to go out on game day and video footage for interviews and challenges. 1 interviewer and 1 cameraman (it’s meant to be cheap and cheerful so a smart phone and a steady hand should suffice).
  • Someone to arrange the stuff needed for the challenges. Ideally through a contact at the club being featured to save someone having to lug a heap of stuff out to the venue and home again.
  • A panel to decide what to include in each of the categories taken from the highlight videos (show-boat, best try etc.) and to pick the team of the round.
  • Someone familiar with editing software to cut it all together, add music (there’s plenty of royalty free music out there that just needs to be credited. Using this would avoid any take-down notices) and produce fancy graphics that can be used as intros and outros for each section.
  • Someone to be the face of the show.
It’s a lot of hard work but it would be cheap as chips if you had a group on G&GR who were willing to put the time and effort into it. There’s no doubt the collective expertise exists on here in spades but it would be a big commitment to get it off the ground initially.
 

qwerty51

Stirling Mortlock (74)
I find it incredibly difficult to believe that there are rugby supporters out there who do not know what the NRC is, or that it is on Fox.


Even more incredible if the Super Rugby tv audience does not know about it.

Trust me, I went to lunch on Sunday with over 20 people who all love rugby and watch Super Rugby. I had to explain to them all what the NRC was. They don't watch all the Super Rugby games but these are people who watch the regular Aussie Super Rugby games and the occasional ITM Cup game. Not Rugby HQ viewers though.
 

WorkingClassRugger

David Codey (61)
Exactly - can't justify the investment compared to Pay TV.

What we CAN do is support it as "old" fans and make a case for its sustainability and growth. I'm planning to watch as many of the replays on YouTube as I can so the ARU get the traffic stats.





Really? I have no problem with the concept that rugby "fans" don't know about it, because there are a truckload of rugby "fans" who are dead against the entire concept.

That Sheek idiot over at The Roar is just snipe-snipe-snipe, never makes a cogent argument, and has been against the format of it in the first place.

What I'd like to see is pricks like him brought down and silenced, then torn apart by the crowd. The only way that's going to happen is if we take this shoestring concept and fucking ride it like a drunken baboon.

The crazy thing about Sheek from The Roar is that historically he's been a huge advocate for the ARC and a return to that structure. Which makes his position on the NRC just ridiculous especially considering his initial gripe with it was over something as trivial as the names of the teams. That's right. His whole negative campaign is based on his dislike of the current names of a couple of the NRC teams. That and the format not fitting what he envisioned.

I don't want this to be seen as a personal attack on the guy. For a long time I enjoyed his ramblings on the topic but those are the reasons he's against the whole concept and they are just plain irrational.
 

Pass it to Dunning!

Bob Loudon (25)
The NRC can't rely on Rugby HQ to get the word out. I've never seen that show listed in the top 20 Foxtel ratings for the day it's on. Everyone who watched Rugby HQ could have watched that NRC game on Thursday and it still would not have gotten more than 35k.
 

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
The services of the Unpaid Shute Shield PR Intern at NSWRU may have been useful getting word out about NRC. A golden chance gone begging?
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
With that budget? Occasionally on FoxSports, and maybe the odd power pole.

I'm pretty sure I've seen some cross promotion outside of RugbyHQ (during the internationals).

It's been promoted well on social media too in my opinion.

I'm confused where people actually think things like this should be advertised particularly when they've got minimal budget.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
The services of the Unpaid Shute Shield PR Intern at NSWRU may have been useful getting word out about NRC. A golden chance gone begging?

Social media promotion has been substantial through the ARU and Super Rugby clubs (and of course the NRC clubs).
 

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
Have there been any mass "mail out" campaigns using the My Rugby Admin Database?

Nearly everyone on there forgets to untick the "Please send me information on Rugby" box on their registration forms.
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Have there been any mass "mail out" campaigns using the My Rugby Admin Database?

Nearly everyone on there forgets to untick the "Please send me information on Rugby" box on their registration forms.


When I was club registrar I disabled it every time I signed someone up.

I'm environmentally conscious you know.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Have there been any mass "mail out" campaigns using the My Rugby Admin Database?

Nearly everyone on there forgets to untick the "Please send me information on Rugby" box on their registration forms.

There have been lots of emails.

I have no idea if they contact people who don't provide an email by post but the ARU would be silly to contact everyone in this way. It would be a ridiculous expense.
 

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
Apologies. When I meant mass "mail out", I meant mass "email out" not they Aust Post variety mail out.

Using Aust Post would be a very expensive option for questionable return.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Apologies. When I meant mass "mail out", I meant mass "email out" not they Aust Post variety mail out.

Using Aust Post would be a very expensive option for questionable return.

I got an email from the ARU and from the Waratahs last week about the NRC.
 

Omar Comin'

Chilla Wilson (44)
I guess it comes back to cost.

Currently we have a system where the other games are being published online a couple of days later from the single camera filming at the ground.

Let's say the alternative is to spend around $150-200k more to broadcast all the other games live online with commentary. That's not peanuts. At $5k a pop, how many people are likely to stream each game live?

If it was more than 200 people I'd be surprised. That's a pretty high cost per head.


I think the problem with the replays is that there's no commentary and as you already know the result the experience is kind of flat.

I'd be surprised if they couldn't get more than 200 people once core rugby fans became aware of the service. I've watched live streams of American college rugby and Canadian provincial rugby that had more than 200 people watching. If the NRC can't beat that then it's got no chance. I guess we'll see what sort of numbers the QRU get for their games - that will give us a better idea.

But I just feel that if the competition is invisible to the people who most want to watch it, how do you expect it to grow? Personally I think it'd be worth the investment and that it's a very important piece in the puzzle. And I do think they'd make some of it back in advertising. Completely amateur competitions manage to live stream games yet the ARU can't manage it for a professional competition? Doesn't wash with me.

The other thing about these youtube streams is that they stay available to watch from the beginning. So say the match started at 3pm and you got home at 4, you could turn on the stream and watch it from the beginning an hour behind. Or you could watch it that night or the next day or whatever.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
I think the problem with the replays is that there's no commentary and as you already know the result the experience is kind of flat.

I'd be surprised if they couldn't get more than 200 people once core rugby fans became aware of the service. I've watched live streams of American college rugby and Canadian provincial rugby that had more than 200 people watching. If the NRC can't beat that then it's got no chance. I guess we'll see what sort of numbers the QRU get for their games - that will give us a better idea.

But I just feel that if the competition is invisible to the people who most want to watch it, how do you expect it to grow? Personally I think it'd be worth the investment and that it's a very important piece in the puzzle. And I do think they'd make some of it back in advertising. Completely amateur competitions manage to live stream games yet the ARU can't manage it for a professional competition? Doesn't wash with me.

The other thing about these youtube streams is that they stay available to watch from the beginning. So say the match started at 3pm and you got home at 4, you could turn on the stream and watch it from the beginning an hour behind. Or you could watch it that night or the next day or whatever.

I think the biggest need for the NRC is to survive so it can continue next year and the year after.

When they're running on such a tight budget, adding $150-200k to the budget for the ARU might be an investment but it is unlikely to pay off straight away. They need to ensure the viability of the competition moreso than they need to attract a few more fans to the NRC.

The people who most want to watch it will watch the Thursday night game, attend games live and watch some highlights on Youtube. If there were games streamed live with commentary they might watch some of those too but it's hardly going to attract a whole new swag of fans.

I get what you're saying and I like your enthusiasm but most of the problem as to why the ARC didn't survive was that they spent too much money on it. This competition is about providing an opportunity to the players more than anything else.

The Rising have on online call of their games and other teams might try and produce something else live but like everything in this sphere, it relies of the work of volunteers.
 

Omar Comin'

Chilla Wilson (44)
Well even if it is 150-200k it's not a lot of money to the ARU. It's a fringe Wallabies top up salary. Give one less player a top up for a couple of years, or take it out of the marketing budget. However they do it, I think it's important. It's not so much about attracting new fans directly. A lot of new fans will be brought to the competition by the existing fans, and those existing fans, the ones who will be advocates for their team and the competition, are the ones that need to be able to see every match they can.

And I disagree that the competition is about providing an opportunity to players more than anything else. I think this competition has to have greater long term ambitions than that.
 
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