Rugby union, the game which many of us grew up watching, is losing popularity to its rival, rugby league. Look around at the Super 14 games compared to the NRL games: the crowd numbers at each seem to have swapped.
AMI Stadium used to be packed to the rafters every home game, now they’re lucky to fill a stadium with one whole stand gone. Then you look at Mt Smart for a Warriors home game. Not an empty seat in the house.
So why is this?
Some have said it’s because we’re getting saturated with rugby union. But hang on a minute, the NRL season is 26 weeks long, add the finals and you’re looking at 30 weeks.
That’s half the year for one rugby league competition.
That said, rugby union seems to be an all year-round sport these days, with the Super 14, Tri Nations, Bledisloe, and then the Northern Hemisphere tour.
So maybe people are getting saturated.
But the major reason why rugby league is taking crowd numbers from union is the unpredictability of the NRL and the Rugby League World Cup.
Look at the NRL table.
The team that won the competition last year (40-0 in the Grand Final) is sitting near the bottom of the table in the 2009 season. If that’s not an advertisement for an unpredictable season, then I don’t know what is.
For years, the Super 14 has been battled out between three or four teams, and it’s not until this year when things have changed and finally there are about eight teams vying for the four semi-final spots with two weeks to go in the round robin.
Maybe this is the time when rugby union is on the comeback and competitions are going to get closer.
One thing is for sure, crowds enjoy watching games far more when they don’t know who is going to win before kick off.
At the moment, rugby league has the upper hand in drawing crowds.
The question is, does rugby union have anything up its sleeve to bring the crowds back?
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May 8th 2009 @ 4:05am
Eamonn said | May 8th 2009 @ 4:05am | Report comment
Guy think you have a strong point but I’d add football into the mix.
The Socceroos have swamped the Wallabies at the top end in the last few years. Games and lots of them against a range of Asian nations are bringing the Socceroos to our notice over and over. The Asian teams may not be huge drawcards but the Wallabies can only drag out SA and the ALL Blacks over and over and a few meaningless friendlies, oh sorry tests, against Northern Hemisphere countries increasingly reluctant to play here.
League has a national competition which rates well, gets reasonable crowds whereas Union has what ….6 or 7 home games a year, plus a load of games in NZ and SA that only the die-hards follow. Out of sight out of mind and all that.
Whatever the reasons for Union’s demise it’s not because there is too much Union, if anything there is not enough, but one suspects it is way too late for Union to break the stranglehold League, AFL and the Socceroos/A-League have on the market place.
Thing is Union can perhaps bring in some games to excite the existing small fanbase but it’s chances of growing the supporter base would, given the media presence of the other codes, Union’s lack of funds and the size of the Aussie population, be next to zero.
May 8th 2009 @ 6:55am
LeftArmSpinner said | May 8th 2009 @ 6:55am | Report comment
Guy, unpredictability? Sure the NRL is unpredictable. But, in Super rugby, of the 77 games played so far, in our tipping comp, of almost 40 people who have contributed $40 for the privelege, the average score is 51, or 66%. In other words, in a two horse race, the tipping results are only just above 50%. Hardly predictable.
So no, I dont agree with Union losing ground to League and I definitely dont agree with your explanation.
frankly, neither code is as healthy as it would like to be and AFL is about to join them, they just wont admit it. They will return to the pack with the next TV rights deal and the millstone that will be Western Sydney. Just look at the parlous state of the Swans after more than 25 years.
The paymaster that is Fox Sports, and the cost of attending a live game, is the reason for falling attendances.
May 8th 2009 @ 7:16am
ohtani's jacket said | May 8th 2009 @ 7:16am | Report comment
I don’t think parity has anything to do with it.
It’s been proven in all manner of sports that competitions are their most successful when there’s a dominant player or dominant side. The audience that the sports market place is vying for is the casual viewer and the casual viewer is more likely to watch a Roger Federer, Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan than a competition where a different player or team wins each time. The NRL as we klnow it grew from the success of the Canberra Raiders and Brisbane Broncos in the late 80s/early 90s.
And the parity argument is flakey anyway. How many times have the Melbourne Storm been in the Final recently? And before them the Roosters. .
May 8th 2009 @ 7:43am
Rob said | May 8th 2009 @ 7:43am | Report comment
When all of my mates talk about rugby we are negative. We are in our 50′s so have had a bit of time playing and watching. So forget about why, which has been debated many times,suffice to say we find S14 and in particular NSW boring. As I said on another post we can’t remember the last time we looked at a NSW game and said .. “gee that was a great game.. ”
Are we the odd ones out ? too old? not the current market? We don’t know. But we forever say “…we can see what is happening why can’t the coaches/selectors..?” I now find better games of footy in the local Newcastle comp near where I live. Not as big, not as fast, not as skilfull but better games to watch without anywhere near the number of stoppages/short arms at the breakdown. Our Friday nights are a mix of watching S14 and flicking over to the league –something we thought we would never do when the whole concept of Super rugby on payTV was introduced–which was the only reason we got payTV in our houses in the first place.
May 8th 2009 @ 8:03am
True Tah said | May 8th 2009 @ 8:03am | Report comment
I dont agree with the mantra that having a dominant side is really a bad thing for a sports comp. The EPL has gone great since the Big 4 have emerged.
In Super rugby, having a team like the Crusaders (admittedly it is not their year this year) is somewhat similar in that everyone wants to beat them, and hence these sides generally draw big crowds.
As OJ said, when you had Canberra and Brisbane dominating all before them, you wanted your team to get one up on them..As a North Sydney supporter, I have been starved of success, but it felt fantastic when we could get one up on Manly, even if we were no-hopers that season.
May 8th 2009 @ 8:06am
mitzter said | May 8th 2009 @ 8:06am | Report comment
absolutely it’s the competition (s14) too many teams no one cares about – the sooner there is the TT the better product absolutely.
Also a fixing up of the breakdown is needed – what i don’t know but there is too much cheating going on, law makers don’t seem to know how it should work or how to make the rules so that what needs to be achieved can be done. They need to work out that in cleaning up the game.
Maybe the answer is to bring back rucking. We have also got to stop the mentality now of appealing to soccer mums. I think this is part of the problem because in the old days a cheater would get rucked out (aka ice hockey enforcer style) now it’s all on the ref and it is TOO hard to police everything
May 8th 2009 @ 8:15am
number3 said | May 8th 2009 @ 8:15am | Report comment
mitzer AGREE
BRING BACK RUCKING
May 8th 2009 @ 9:07am
stillmissit said | May 8th 2009 @ 9:07am | Report comment
The FTA issue is a big one and I cant see how we can get over it certainly whilst the Waratahs are boring us to death.
I am currently coaching out west and I can tell you there is almost none of these boys who watch S14. They dont know the players, apart from the ex leaguey’s, and they dont have some of the basic skills that a Sydney rugby player would have. Maybe this is because their examples and experience often come from league.
Having said this League is in trouble with finances and BOS (bums on seats), Gallop was on the radio last night talking about trying to save Cronulla who, it appears, are close to bankruptcy.
It seems to me that we are going through a transformation and people dont want to watch a team sport week in week out. Happy to go once in a while but mostly watch it on TV or in the pub with mates.
May 8th 2009 @ 9:14am
Mark said | May 8th 2009 @ 9:14am | Report comment
Rubbish. Rugby is fine. If anything O’Neil has made some decisions that will later prove to be a master stroke. The other sports will cut their own throats for sponsors and air time. Soccer comp are trying to hard in expanding when the dollar is shrinking. There just isnt the fan base for mine. There isnt enough games in Aust for the Socceroos, they dont play real comp. When is Brazil, Germany, England and France touring? Soccer…they better win a WC or its over. NRL, they need new administration because as it stands, they will kill the code. Some clubs must be killed off. AFL arnt smart enough to understand that money is running out as is time for some Melb based clubs. They clearly dont understand business. Merge or die off.
May 8th 2009 @ 9:19am
stillmissit said | May 8th 2009 @ 9:19am | Report comment
Mark – what do you think those decisions are that JON has made?
Agree with some of your points.