Declining participation and ARU plans for the future

[Train Without a Station]

Is it successful and viable? After a decade it's crowds rival the Force. A team people question if it's sustainable.

It brings in less TV revenue than rugby now, but has to spread across twice as many teams.

It's ratings which started out at 42k with FTA presence and local content has exploded to a whopping 96k average per game. Rugby manages 66k across all Super Rugby games this season.

If the ARU had this "success" it would be $150M in debt with the Reds, Brumbies and Waratahs all losing money.

Soccer participation has doubled in the life of the A-League but despite that crowd numbers have barely moved, and TV numbers have doubled, despite the move to FTA tripling the potential audience. The increased participation hasn't brought a huge benefit to the FFA.

 

[half]

TWAS

You point out some facts about the A=League, I have repeatedly posted rugby has slightly higher ratings if we compared Super Rugby with the A-L.

However if we take a starting point and a code in disarray then that was soccer, broke, inept, corrupt. Today the only major code growing player numbers.

I cannot disagree with you more on what it means.

We can debate this till the cows come home, I will bet my left one, FFA for the A-League only will manage a media deal in excess of the 60 million ARU media deal and we play more test matches than they do.

If your right the A-League media deal should be about 30 million.

Yoshi would have been made quite cheaply, its clever, its targeted, were are rugby Yoshi ideas.

If as expected FFA pull off a 80 to 100 million dollar media deal for an under rating league, then you have to admit there is something rugby is not understanding.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Is it successful and viable? After a decade it's crowds rival the Force. A team people question if it's sustainable.

It brings in less TV revenue than rugby now, but has to spread across twice as many teams.

It's ratings which started out at 42k with FTA presence and local content has exploded to a whopping 96k average per game. Rugby manages 66k across all Super Rugby games this season.

If the ARU had this "success" it would be $150M in debt with the Reds, Brumbies and Waratahs all losing money.

Soccer participation has doubled in the life of the A-League but despite that crowd numbers have barely moved, and TV numbers have doubled, despite the move to FTA tripling the potential audience. The increased participation hasn't brought a huge benefit to the FFA.

Strategically it is very much about participation and having a national footprint. They have a better base to work from imo to address current challenges as a-league yes has some similar issues but has increased participation and for a national footprint to work from. All codes have their challenges. But i think it is churlish to not say a-league has at least on some key criteria made better progress.

Battle ground is participation and by creating a national footprint in terms of teams you don't think this is part of the reason for increased participation.

Chicken and egg. But yes let's ignore how soccer has made inroads in soccer participation at expense of codes like rugby - and in traditional rugby areas like private schools. Yep great work let's make rugby great by ignoring successes of other codes (and only looking at their area of challenge: failures). too many rugby die hards burying their heads in the sand with rose coloured glasses on.

Let me ask you a question do you think the Ffa despite their challenges would rather be where they are or be in the aru's shoes with the current state and challenges rugby face.

Time to wake up from your slumber ''twas


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[Strewthcobber]

Any idea how much tax payer money, national broadcaster subsidy and personal investment from Frank Lowy and the other investors in the a-league clubs has been spent to date?

Would give us some idea as to how many hundred millions of dollars would be required to set up something similar.


Their salary cap is half that of Super Rugby with fewer players so gives us some idea of what we could offer our players under a similar setup.

 

[Braveheart81]

The positions of the A-League and football in Australia compared to rugby union are very different.

As has been mentioned with this "Yoshi" ad campaign, there are vast numbers of soccer players and fans of overseas leagues that currently show no interest in the A-League. They are working on converting more of those fans.

The situation in rugby union in Australia is that we have low participation numbers and are a relatively small sport although we perform well on the world stage and the game is doing well globally. Realistically we have pretty good engagement from our fanbase but it is small.

A substantial change in the last 20 years are the demographics in traditional rugby schools and areas. They are no longer WASP predominant to the extent they once were and that is a major reason we are seeing those changes in participation.

Rugby needs to push ahead in different areas based on those changing demographics and work really hard to boost participation in areas with high PI populations because realistically those are the players that are punching far above their weight on a global scale in terms of participation and ability.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

The positions of the A-League and football in Australia compared to rugby union are very different.

As has been mentioned with this "Yoshi" ad campaign, there are vast numbers of soccer players and fans of overseas leagues that currently show no interest in the A-League. They are working on converting more of those fans.

The situation in rugby union in Australia is that we have low participation numbers and are a relatively small sport although we perform well on the world stage and the game is doing well globally. Realistically we have pretty good engagement from our fanbase but it is small.

A substantial change in the last 20 years are the demographics in traditional rugby schools and areas. They are no longer WASP predominant to the extent they once were and that is a major reason we are seeing those changes in participation.

Rugby needs to push ahead in different areas based on those changing demographics and work really hard to boost participation in areas with high PI populations because realistically those are the players that are punching far above their weight on a global scale in terms of participation and ability.

You quote part of the areas need to push into but there are many more - 7's provides a new vehicle to compete for school kids across the spectrum as it does for woman.

There are many areas need to target but this also comes by offering different products for different appeal and cross selling. Something cricket done incredibly well.

Innovation key here in terms of product development, wider stakeholder engagement, participation, financial innovation etc to just name a few of the areas need to focus on


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[Rugbynutter39]

You quote part of the areas need to push into but there are many more - 7's provides a new vehicle to compete for school kids across the spectrum as it does for woman.

There are many areas need to target but this also comes by offering different products for different appeal and cross selling. Something cricket done incredibly well.

Innovation key here in terms of product development, wider stakeholder engagement, participation, financial innovation etc to just name a few of the areas need to focus on


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Just to give an example I use to be a fan who followed and went to games in rugby, afl, soccer and league.

But with increased offer of new rugby products - and better quality re: 7's, nrc , 6 nations, super rugby, Shute shield games on 7two I now watch less of other codes because of different and varied rugby products competing for my attention.


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[Rugbynutter39]

Just to give an example I use to be a fan who followed and went to games in rugby, afl, soccer and league.

But with increased offer of new rugby products - and better quality re: 7's, nrc , 6 nations, super rugby, Shute shield games on 7two I now watch less of other codes because of different and varied rugby products competing for my attention.


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Or another example - over the years watched less cricket but appeal of big bash got my family watching that and going back to live cricket games

No code can rest on their laurels and is about innovation


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[Braveheart81]

I was talking geographically in terms of areas to work on.

Of course rugby needs to leverage off 7s and increase participation and interest in that format which will also be the driving force behind getting more women playing the game.

I was trying to address a couple of issues, not trying to write a thesis covering every issue the ARU needs to work on.

The point Barbarian raised on the previous page is that the ARU can't look too closely at the FFA as the sporting body to follow. The structure they have has relied on vast investments of private equity to stay afloat. They haven't managed to grow their audiences substantially in the last decade despite having massive participation numbers and a huge number of fans of the sport in Australia that they haven't managed to convert into fans of their league.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

I was talking geographically in terms of areas to work on.

Of course rugby needs to leverage off 7s and increase participation and interest in that format which will also be the driving force behind getting more women playing the game.

I was trying to address a couple of issues, not trying to write a thesis covering every issue the ARU needs to work on.

The point Barbarian raised on the previous page is that the ARU can't look too closely at the FFA as the sporting body to follow. The structure they have has relied on vast investments of private equity to stay afloat. They haven't managed to grow their audiences substantially in the last decade despite having massive participation numbers and a huge number of fans of the sport in Australia that they haven't managed to convert into fans of their league.

Private equity part of the model rugby wants but of course just part of the financial strategy.

Private equity still important lever are financial ownership of some clubs as provides bigger pie of investment and startup capital / resources. About finding balance as multiple financial levers need to rely on in terms of financial model.

I find these arguments presented to Black and white as of course no one would suggest a carbon copy as need to Adjust blueprint for different environmental factors rugby faces etc.

Rugby has the opportunity to look at many different sports to look at what 'elements' and 'learnings' it can take away. And a-league, afl and league are competing for many of same eyeballs so need to stop the black and white view and look at what some of things other codes done better that we could learn from.

I think for example you are still ignoring how a big a-league presence and media spotlight has had on participation as you are only looking at a narrow view of measures of success and direct and indirect benefits


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[Quick Hands]

What has happened in sport in general and in Australia in particular between 1996 and 2016 could not have been predicted by anyone.

I thought, and I'm sure that most people thought, that going in to super rugby was the right call in 1996. Knowing what they knew in 1996 I think that the ARU were right and probably couldn't have made any other decision other than to be part of SANZAR. But the world has changed so much in that time and I'm not sure that super rugby is the right model moving forward.

Who in 1996 would have thought that in 2016 the BBL would captivate the nation for 6 weeks or that there would be a women's BBL or a women's soccer league or a professional national netball league with FTA coverage or that women's 7s would be an olympic sport.

Go back 20 years before that and all sports were state based with their main club competition in the state capitals and similar competitions in regional areas. Who in 1976 would have thought that most sports would move to national leagues?

I always like to compare what other sports in Australia do. While it's not necessarily feasible to copy exactly what other sports do, there is a fairly basic model which works for sport in Australia.

Club based junior development (only rugby is schools based).

A national club competition. (only rugby has a multi-national super model)

We're stagnating or possibly even going backwards and every other sport is moving forward - not only the major sports, but sports like hockey, water polo etc. Many of these sports have started from a smaller player base and have a smaller budget than rugby does. To give a couple of examples: in the past 5 years junior hockey players in the Manly Warringah District Hockey Club have quadrupled; in a similar period junior water polo players in the local Northern Beaches Water Polo club have tripled.

I'm not sure how the ARU could get out of super rugby - it seems harder to leave than the EU. We would still need SANZAAR for Wallaby games.

We do need to recognise though that we are very much an outlier in the way that we do things. When you're an outlier and it's not working, I suggest that it's time to change the way we do things.

The NRC is a great initiative, but played at the wrong time of the year. Currie Cup and Mitre 10 Cup work in SA and NZ because they are traditional competitions and they are played without serious competition from other sports. No Aussie Rules at all and virtually no league.

I'd suggest that the NRC change from being an afterthought stuck at the end of the year to the mainstream. At the moment we have an 8 team competition - 7 weeks plus 2 weeks of finals - 9 weeks.

Change it to home and away and finish it the week before the NRL grand final. Nothing is played on the Sunday before the NRL grand final. AFL preliminary finals are Friday night & Saturday afternoon and the NRL ones are Friday and Saturday nights. So the NRC grand final would be the last Sunday in September and you would need 16 weeks to run an 8 team home and away competition - 14 rounds plus 2 weeks of finals. Start it on the last weekend in May. SS, Brisbane Premier etc still start at their normal mid-March and players feed into NRC. NRC draw players from their local club competition to cover injuries.

Rugby also needs to have a women's component to it - either 15s or 7s, doesn't really matter, but the expansion of women's sport has been exponential. Sponsors and FTA are lining up to support women's sport - let's be ahead of the pack.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

What has happened in sport in general and in Australia in particular between 1996 and 2016 could not have been predicted by anyone.

I thought, and I'm sure that most people thought, that going in to super rugby was the right call in 1996. Knowing what they knew in 1996 I think that the ARU were right and probably couldn't have made any other decision other than to be part of SANZAR. But the world has changed so much in that time and I'm not sure that super rugby is the right model moving forward.

Who in 1996 would have thought that in 2016 the BBL would captivate the nation for 6 weeks or that there would be a women's BBL or a women's soccer league or a professional national netball league with FTA coverage or that women's 7s would be an olympic sport.

Go back 20 years before that and all sports were state based with their main club competition in the state capitals and similar competitions in regional areas. Who in 1976 would have thought that most sports would move to national leagues?

I always like to compare what other sports in Australia do. While it's not necessarily feasible to copy exactly what other sports do, there is a fairly basic model which works for sport in Australia.

Club based junior development (only rugby is schools based).

A national club competition. (only rugby has a multi-national super model)

We're stagnating or possibly even going backwards and every other sport is moving forward - not only the major sports, but sports like hockey, water polo etc. Many of these sports have started from a smaller player base and have a smaller budget than rugby does. To give a couple of examples: in the past 5 years junior hockey players in the Manly Warringah District Hockey Club have quadrupled; in a similar period junior water polo players in the local Northern Beaches Water Polo club have tripled.

I'm not sure how the ARU could get out of super rugby - it seems harder to leave than the EU. We would still need SANZAAR for Wallaby games.

We do need to recognise though that we are very much an outlier in the way that we do things. When you're an outlier and it's not working, I suggest that it's time to change the way we do things.

The NRC is a great initiative, but played at the wrong time of the year. Currie Cup and Mitre 10 Cup work in SA and NZ because they are traditional competitions and they are played without serious competition from other sports. No Aussie Rules at all and virtually no league.

I'd suggest that the NRC change from being an afterthought stuck at the end of the year to the mainstream. At the moment we have an 8 team competition - 7 weeks plus 2 weeks of finals - 9 weeks.

Change it to home and away and finish it the week before the NRL grand final. Nothing is played on the Sunday before the NRL grand final. AFL preliminary finals are Friday night & Saturday afternoon and the NRL ones are Friday and Saturday nights. So the NRC grand final would be the last Sunday in September and you would need 16 weeks to run an 8 team home and away competition - 14 rounds plus 2 weeks of finals. Start it on the last weekend in May. SS, Brisbane Premier etc still start at their normal mid-March and players feed into NRC. NRC draw players from their local club competition to cover injuries.

Rugby also needs to have a women's component to it - either 15s or 7s, doesn't really matter, but the expansion of women's sport has been exponential. Sponsors and FTA are lining up to support women's sport - let's be ahead of the pack.

Agree with pretty much everything said here and put more eloquently then I could.

There has been massive shifts in the sporting landscape and only way to survive is to be more agile, innovative and willing to embrace change including the product to meet the needs of the modern day sports fan and participants.

We need the structures and models that allow for change to happen at the required pace of other codes at the minimum as otherwise we will continue to fight a losing battle.


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[Braveheart81]

The NRC is a great initiative, but played at the wrong time of the year. Currie Cup and Mitre 10 Cup work in SA and NZ because they are traditional competitions and they are played without serious competition from other sports. No Aussie Rules at all and virtually no league.

I'd suggest that the NRC change from being an afterthought stuck at the end of the year to the mainstream. At the moment we have an 8 team competition - 7 weeks plus 2 weeks of finals - 9 weeks.

Change it to home and away and finish it the week before the NRL grand final. Nothing is played on the Sunday before the NRL grand final. AFL preliminary finals are Friday night & Saturday afternoon and the NRL ones are Friday and Saturday nights. So the NRC grand final would be the last Sunday in September and you would need 16 weeks to run an 8 team home and away competition - 14 rounds plus 2 weeks of finals. Start it on the last weekend in May. SS, Brisbane Premier etc still start at their normal mid-March and players feed into NRC. NRC draw players from their local club competition to cover injuries.

Would the NRC work if for the first part of the season Super Rugby players weren't involved?

Would the clubs continue to back it if it gutted their teams of the best players for much of their seasons?

Would there be any fans if it was competing against Super Rugby and club rugby?

Is the NRC really losing many viewers to AFL and NRL finals? It would seem that competing against other rugby competitions would cost it far more viewers than those would.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Would the NRC work if for the first part of the season Super Rugby players weren't involved?

Would the clubs continue to back it if it gutted their teams of the best players for much of their seasons?

Would there be any fans if it was competing against Super Rugby and club rugby?

Is the NRC really losing many viewers to AFL and NRL finals? It would seem that competing against other rugby competitions would cost it far more viewers than those would.

I think we need a national professional domestic competition.

To create this probably would be new model that takes best of nrc and other ideas as to what that would look like. Agree that lot that would be required to work through as to how it would look and be rolled out to be successful. But I agree with basic premise of what quick hands is suggesting.


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[barbarian]

National footprint and fan base for domestic league for how many teams playing in a national comp. I think rugby would kill to have that as a starting point. And how many schools including private schools now offer soccer. You got to be kidding me.

There are elements of soccer we should definitely look to learn from.

None of us are saying that the status quo should remain in rugby. None of us are saying that 'everything is fine', or we shouldn't look to learn from other codes. Rugby has some clear challenges that need to be addressed. Some are clearly being worked on (school structure, 7s etc), and others look to be falling by the wayside (eg Western Sydney).

But I take exception when people come on here and paint the FFA and A-League as this juggernaut that is steamrolling over rugby. They are not even a direct competitor of ours, taking place in the Summer months (with a very real advantage in avoiding competition from AFL and League).
.

 

[Braveheart81]

None of us are saying that the status quo should remain in rugby. None of us are saying that 'everything is fine', or we shouldn't look to learn from other codes. Rugby has some clear challenges that need to be addressed.

I think this is the core takeaway more much of this thread.

The situation isn't binary and if I or someone else disagrees with a suggestion by half or Rugbynutter39 or anyone else in this thread it is not because we think everything is fine and nothing needs to be changed.

Very clearly change does need to happen but care needs to be taken as well because the finances of Australian Rugby are not strong enough to be able to absorb a big loss caused by making a bad decision.

One of the biggest considerations for rugby in Australia compared with other sports is that there is significant opportunity for players to earn as much or more money overseas (depending on their status within the game) and as such decisions can't be pursued that require players to take huge pay cuts.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Most important Baa Baa, if rugby was to achieve this massive success, ignoring that soccer had 400% rugby's current participation when the A-League started, it would not sustain rugby, and would lead to greater financial losses than rugby has incurred since 2003.

I don't see how it's a viable solution if it doesn't pay the bills. The fact is that the game would go broke before the financial benefit required was realized.

People are saying that the increased exposure would lead to increase participation and that is the goal. But if the professional arm goes broke then the exposure just drops off and participation disappears to irrelevance.

 

[Strewthcobber]

You just have to look at the smouldering husk that was once the NBL to see how a sport can essentially disappear despite having plenty of participation, relative international success, production of elite talent and even free to air coverage.

National comps don't automatically equal success.

The lessons from that sport should be included in these conversations but too often we only focus on the successes elsewhere and not the failures

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

What has happened in sport in general and in Australia in particular between 1996 and 2016 could not have been predicted by anyone.

I thought, and I'm sure that most people thought, that going in to super rugby was the right call in 1996. Knowing what they knew in 1996 I think that the ARU were right and probably couldn't have made any other decision other than to be part of SANZAR. But the world has changed so much in that time and I'm not sure that super rugby is the right model moving forward.

Who in 1996 would have thought that in 2016 the BBL would captivate the nation for 6 weeks or that there would be a women's BBL or a women's soccer league or a professional national netball league with FTA coverage or that women's 7s would be an olympic sport.

Go back 20 years before that and all sports were state based with their main club competition in the state capitals and similar competitions in regional areas. Who in 1976 would have thought that most sports would move to national leagues?

I always like to compare what other sports in Australia do. While it's not necessarily feasible to copy exactly what other sports do, there is a fairly basic model which works for sport in Australia.

Club based junior development (only rugby is schools based).

A national club competition. (only rugby has a multi-national super model)

We're stagnating or possibly even going backwards and every other sport is moving forward - not only the major sports, but sports like hockey, water polo etc. Many of these sports have started from a smaller player base and have a smaller budget than rugby does. To give a couple of examples: in the past 5 years junior hockey players in the Manly Warringah District Hockey Club have quadrupled; in a similar period junior water polo players in the local Northern Beaches Water Polo club have tripled.

I'm not sure how the ARU could get out of super rugby - it seems harder to leave than the EU. We would still need SANZAAR for Wallaby games.

We do need to recognise though that we are very much an outlier in the way that we do things. When you're an outlier and it's not working, I suggest that it's time to change the way we do things.

The NRC is a great initiative, but played at the wrong time of the year. Currie Cup and Mitre 10 Cup work in SA and NZ because they are traditional competitions and they are played without serious competition from other sports. No Aussie Rules at all and virtually no league.

I'd suggest that the NRC change from being an afterthought stuck at the end of the year to the mainstream. At the moment we have an 8 team competition - 7 weeks plus 2 weeks of finals - 9 weeks.

Change it to home and away and finish it the week before the NRL grand final. Nothing is played on the Sunday before the NRL grand final. AFL preliminary finals are Friday night & Saturday afternoon and the NRL ones are Friday and Saturday nights. So the NRC grand final would be the last Sunday in September and you would need 16 weeks to run an 8 team home and away competition - 14 rounds plus 2 weeks of finals. Start it on the last weekend in May. SS, Brisbane Premier etc still start at their normal mid-March and players feed into NRC. NRC draw players from their local club competition to cover injuries.

Rugby also needs to have a women's component to it - either 15s or 7s, doesn't really matter, but the expansion of women's sport has been exponential. Sponsors and FTA are lining up to support women's sport - let's be ahead of the pack.

I actually think we should be looking to push the NRC back. Starting after the AFL and NRL seasons have concluded. Allow the clubs to run as long of a season as they want as long as there is ample lead in time.

Of course, ideally this would also be coupled with the elimination of the June Test window and bring TRC forward. The goal would be to have as many of the best possible available talent compete for as long as possible in a window where our two largest competitors currently do not occupy.

Now, while I understand there may be some question about it eating into Super Rugby pre-season but would it. The Rising, Spirit, Vikings and both Queensland sides are just extensions of the larger Super Rugby squads. There's no reason the three NSW squads couldn't look to train under a centralised Waratahs umbrella. Besides, what better preparation in terms of fitness is there than playing in a tough, competitive NRC?

 

[Quick Hands]

Would the NRC work if for the first part of the season Super Rugby players weren't involved?

Would the clubs continue to back it if it gutted their teams of the best players for much of their seasons?

Would there be any fans if it was competing against Super Rugby and club rugby?

Is the NRC really losing many viewers to AFL and NRL finals? It would seem that competing against other rugby competitions would cost it far more viewers than those would.

There actually aren't that many super players in it anyway and non-Wallaby super players would be able to play during the June tests, so it's actually a plus all round.

This proposes nothing different than has already happened in other sports. The state-based capital city club competitions still go on, but there's just a national level above. I can't see any reason why rugby is that different to every other sport. Clubs who are progressive will still back it because in the long term it's better for them to be involved in the NRC. (I actually smiled when you raised this noting your historical antipathy to SS clubs)

Super rugby has very few home games for people to go to anyway - which is the inherent problem in that model. If the standard was good and their was sufficient community engagement of course people would watch. More people watch Wests Tigers NRL than watch Balmain and Wests run around in the NSW Cup. Netball people still watch their local club and go to their national league matches.

For someone who likes to seem quite progressive, you seem wedded to the ideas and structures of the past.

If indeed rugby cannot accomplish that which most other sports have been able to do, then that poses serious questions.