I’ve long had concerns that the rugby union state/national unions are not putting enough emphasis on development and growth of the game beyond their traditional catchments.
Even within the NSW/QLD nurseries, it appears to me that there is not a great deal being done to get the game out to kids and adults who are not associated with a school that plays the game (a very narrow group being private schools).
Too many parents don’t know much at all about the game and they just hear about broken necks and big tackles and therefore want their kids to play a ‘safe sport’ like football and are not aware of the whole pathway of Walla rugby etc that develops kids without tackles and scrums until they get older.
I only know that these programs exist because I looked them up on the ARU website. Most parents would not bother.
So why are these things not being promoted?
Try finding out what age a kid has to be before they can start playing – I had to hunt through a competition rules document to find that out. I even emailed one of the officials from the Brisbane Junior RU a while back to advise them of website links that weren’t working and telling them the info that I was seeking and struggling to locate on their site.
Reponse? Zero.
Then in all the state primary schools, where the majority of the kids go, they are exposed to other sports who are actively pursuing new recruits.
Here in QLD, AFL with their AusKick program does this very well and I see lots of banners about for junior league clubs, football clubs etc, but nothing about rugby union clubs. And I live in Brisbane close to one of the Premier rugby clubs.
We already suffer because of a lack of free to air TV coverage, neglible coverage on the news sports segments, and the newspaper sports sections, which seem reluctant to write about anything other than the local city team and have only the briefest of mentions of any other games that happened.
This is in comparison to multiple pages on all of the matches from AFL, league, and even European football.
These other sports do a good job of promoting themselves, and good on them.
I have no wish to criticise them, but I think that rugby union could do a lot more to promote itself and get people supporting the game rather than just relying on big Test matches to publicise it. Even the one TV show we have – The Rugby Club – doesn’t have any coverage of the club competitions.
If they were to have a player and team profile each week instead of that nauseating Footy Show type Piggies and player quizzes that they have, it would give a greater familiarity with the teams, and might encourage more people to go watch the Premier clubs because they feel that they recognise the players.
It seems to me that the marketing by the various unions is all based around big games and top tier, and they are not focused on growing their base, which I believe is a mistake. Their marketing people only understand big campaigns and expensive advertising, which might be fine for promoting the Wallabies, but it requires a different mindset when it comes to growing the grassroots.
It is like a company that focuses on Enterprise size clients trying to deal with SMB’s.
They just don’t get it.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.
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