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At a time when rugby league needs all the money it can get, and while the NRL is trying to educate its players about attitudes toward women, surely cheerleaders have passed their expiry date.
As it currently stands, South Sydney is the only club without a cheer squad.
Russell Crowe made an ethical stand when he took the Rabbitohs reigns and replaced the cheer-girls with drummers. At the time he said: “Our focus is to re-establish rugby league and women … We feel that [cheerleaders] made a lot of people uncomfortable.”
But from an economical view-point, surly cheerleaders are of minimal worth?
Sure they attract some sponsorship, but it also costs money to get them out on the field each week. Evidently, clubs continually cut the budget on material used for their costumes, but pom-poms and appearance fees wouldn’t come cheap.
I propose some alternative investments better than Russell Crows drummers:
* Spend the money on week-to-week promotion of every game. I know clubs already spend a lot of money on this, but from what I’ve seen, it’s usually plain, uninspiring TV ads or newspaper prints. There are so many more potential levels to advertising these days, I think it’s time we get more creative!
* Bring back the luxuries. You get so much less for your ticket price these days when you go to support your team. I remember getting free game-day programs or footy cards when I used to watch the Raiders play at home as a kid. Reward people for coming out to watch.
* Put the equivalent resources into an organised cheer squad in the crowd. A group of people who actually lead cheers! If each team had their own organised Barmy Army, it would add to the spectacle of a game and help build fan-based culture. Give us a reason to get off the couch and into the stadiums!
If you don’t like these ideas, and you can’t think of any others, then maybe drummers aren’t so bad of an idea. But at the moment, many things in rugby league don’t add up and I think the pom-pom economy is one of them.
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