There is no disputing the fact that rugby is played all over the world. From places where it is the dominant sport, such as New Zealand and South Africa, to areas where it is a niche sport, such as Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, China and the USA.
But does the game have a truly global audience?
As the contract season in Australia hots up, I’m amazed at how often I read that rugby league players are attracted to the idea of playing rugby union because it’s a “global game”.
Granted that next to rugby league polar bear hunting could be considered a global sport. But let’s scrutinize the idea of rugby as a global game a bit further by looking at the respective rugby seasons of the northern and southern hemisphere.
The best provincial teams in the southern hemisphere kick-off in February and play through until August. The southern hemisphere Test match season begins in June and ends at the completion of the Rugby Championship in October.
The Currie Cup in South Africa and NPC in New Zealand overlap with the internationals, with their finals played in late October. There is then a short break for the national teams before they undertake their tours of the UK and Europe during the month of November.
The Test players have a break over December and half of January before they reassemble with their provincial teams.
A player in the northern hemisphere begins his season in one of the congruent competitions beginning in August and ending in May. The national teams of the northern hemisphere undertake tours to the southern hemisphere in the month of June.
They then begin the off-season.
So whilst the game is played globally, it is fractured into two very different seasons and certainly not watched by a global audience, or at least not at the same time.
The average rugby fan in England gives the Super Rugby season no more than a passing glance all the while wondering what sort of ghastly game plan encourages tries over penalties.
The average rugby fan in Sydney has little clue about the game in the northern hemisphere. He does not know what the competitions are called, the names of the teams, and he might just recognize a star player.
Oh, and he knows the game “over there” is “dead boring”.
Of course, there are hard-core fans that follow the game in each part of the world with equal fascination (as many Roarers do), but this group represents a minority.
The only way to remedy this situation is to have the best provincial players from the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere play against each other regularly. Until this occurs, the game will continue to exist in parallel universes with fan bases that are as disconnected as they are disinterested.
Now, I’m told that this will never occur, that the interests of the various regions do not align enough to instigate change.
People who make these arguments have a point: the IRB has consistently showed itself to be incapable of being decisive. The ridiculous current situation regarding the laws of the game is just one example of the IRB’s ineptitude and does not inspire much confidence that the game might break away from the shackles of ultra-conservative governance.
At the same time, the various unions that control the game across multiple countries have varied problems and goals to contend with.
With that being said, let’s keep in mind that rugby union is in the entertainment industry and I hold onto the hope that the free market will eventually force the game to become truly global.
It’s often been mooted that the Super Rugby and Heineken Cup champions square off. This is a great idea and a sign that the game is evolving as it should.
MFB1991
Guest
Rugby has not and never will have a truly Global audience. It is only the truly dominant sport in one country, New Zealand, and no disrepect to the Kiwi's but they are hardly a world power in anything else. Infact Rugby is probably their one and only claim to fame. Soccer is the overwhelmingly dominant sport everywhere except North America and Australasia and that isn't going to change anytime soon.
Lorry
Guest
Eskal welcome, good to have you on the site. Hungarian is a very interesting, unique language, unrelated to anything around it... About the ulta-complicated rules, yes we debate that problem on this site all the time.... I don't think it will ever be totally fixed though. It's just an in-built flaw in the game!!! Like 'diving'/'simulation' in soccer, it can't/won't really be fixed...
eszkal
Guest
Excuse me for my English. I'm a rugby union fan from Hungary (Central-eastern Europe). Since 2003 I watch rugby and I am a fan of New Zealand Rugby. I like the rugby because it is a fair play and you can not see so theatrical movements as in soccer. The biggest problem with rugby that it is very hard to understand the rules of the game. The soccer can be a global sport, because anywhere you can play the game and the rules are simplier than in rugby. In Hungary the water polo is a very succesful sport (we are 3 times reigning olympic champion), but the problems are same as in rugby. You don't know what happened when the referree whistle.
King of the Gorgonites
Roar Guru
Huge effort by the people of London
Westie
Guest
End of the day, there is lightyears between the global popularity or rugby football by comparison to rugby league.
Bakkies
Guest
over 83,000 at Wembley to watch Saracens vs Quins
Bakkies
Guest
sold out? Rugby had to become professional other wise it would have died.
The Great G Nepia
Guest
You also forgot to mention there are major Union professional or semi-professional competitions that are televised to the local populations either on free to air tv or pay tv in Portugal, Spain, Romania, Georgia, Russia, Tonga, Fiji, USA (including Collegiate Sevens), Italy, Argentina, Samoa, Madagascar (yes, even Madagascar where Union is the national sport), Zimbabwe, Namibia, Kenya, Belgium, Paraguay. Additionally major tournaments, such as the French Top 14 are and Heineken Cup and Six Nations are shown throughout many countries in continental Europe. You also forgot to mention the IRB Sevens World Series which plays to packed out stadiums all over the world and has a global reach seven times the size of an entire NRL season, including the State of Origin. Almost all of the tournaments I/ve mentioned here, including sevens, have all started in the last ten years. These are facts, not propaganda, and I've got no idea how you conjure up propaganda from cold hard facts - please tell me how that is done, as I will make a million bucks and retire so I can watch my beloved Wigan and Widnes play.
The Great G Nepia
Guest
I enjoy both games as well, immensely, but the international reach of league you mention is pure myth - you talk about propaganda, well I;m sorry to say it's the international league federation who do that because if you, a follower of both sports, actually believe league is played seriously outside of NZ, Aust, north England and PNG, then their propaganda is actually working. I've seen the league web site saying there's 34 members of the RLIF, but in about 28 of those countries, registered player numbers would be less than 500, and most of those are union players who're given a steeden to kick around for a few minutes and they are suddenly registered league players. I agree the international aspects of Union are overstated by zealous union types from time to time, but you can't really argue against it seriously now, because union is an Olympic sport. One of the three main criteria for inclusion on the Olympic programme is 'universality', and the fact Union was voted on the Olympics with a massive majority, while other major, multi-billion sports with millions of registered players such as baseball, softball, squash missed out shows you how big Union is. I;m not knocking League at all, but at the end of the day, the first casualty in its war for global expansion was the truth.
crip
Roar Pro
It used to be a game then it sold out. It should rename itself Rugby Product or Rugby Made For Television Union.
Lorry
Guest
Personally, I don't really like this neo-biologism that has been creeping back into our ways of thinking about society in recent years. e.g. 'Men are like this and women are like that, because they are'. Johnno, re. the wolf-whistles of men, actually that is cultural, not biological. Nowadays in Australia, it's not common for young men to wolf-whistle at women. I lived in Brazil for almost a year and there men say thing like "gostoza!" to women, which translates as 'tasty!" I don't think we've ever done that in Australia... Also, Latin American women who come to Australia have told me that they think it is amazing that "here, in Aust, men and women don't look at each other on the street". Others have told me they love how in Aust they go out in to a nightclub in Australia and are not hassled by men to kiss them... So, i think that stuff it's cultural, not biological.... WCR, interesting note about the Japanese. Having taught Japanese students, it seems to me that their social norms are so restrictive by our standards, they have so many codes, so yes for sure rugby would be a way for them to act out...
Johnno
Guest
WCR that is a good point the voyeurism is part fo huma nature, you only have to attend a beach and hear the wolf whistles at men at a beach to prove that emotion exists in human nature. What i have noticed this year is a really strict clamping down on foul play. As rugby is becoming a global sport WCR, rugby wants to attract lots of kids to play the sport and doesn't want them scared off by foul play. I have noticed this year, SANZAR have not missed a beat. Cooper Vuna cited by match review, Digby Ioane, Johanson sin binned on Haskell last night. SANZAR have not missed a beat this year punishing anything remotely seen as foul play WCR.
Working Class Rugger
Guest
What drives this attraction, drives the attraction toward contact sports in general. We as human being have an inbuilt drive toward voyeurism particularly in terms of violence. It's a very primal emotion and contact sports particularly that of Rugby with it close quarters combative nature tends to tap into that somewhat. For North Americans I find the exposure to Rugby tends to feel somewhat familiar to their indigenous football codes but with a greater level of involvement. It involves similar levels of intensity and tactical orientation. With League many actually find the simplicity of the game somewhat disparaging. American and Canadian Football are popular in each country because of the more intrinsic complexities not over simplifications.
AndyS
Guest
I don't know, I think it might also come down to what folk are used to as well. I recently started working with a number of Canadians and Americans and, never having really been exposed to it, quite a number have fallen deeply for Union. Particularly the Canadians interestingly - as they described it, it was about the "toughness". The hits are big, it doesn't stop, you have to be on all the time while the ball is live and everyone has a role to play going both forwards and back. They like League but see it a bit like American football and were interested in Australian football and Soccer but didn't consider them physical enough. Must be growing up with hockey. There is also an element of what is missing too though. Some of the most rabid fans i know are women, as well as a number of Malaysian folk that are family friends. I think there is a whole vicarious violence thing going on. I noticed something a bit similar in Japan as well - the field was the one place players could act out (for want of a better phrase).
M-Rod
Guest
whilst RU strength is indisputable in established regions, I think it will never capture broader, steadfast global interest as a sport primarily due the innate complexity of its rules (esp. mauls/ rucks) and the perplexing nature of how these rules are interpreted by referees... I appreciate the sport when its flowing is one of the greatest games to watch, but this is the exception to the rule as virtually every Super 15 or wallabies game I've seen is riddled with frustrating and unpredictable refereeing calls that perplex even the commentators, and diminish the spectator experience. yes, I could probably spend more time reading rules to give me a better appreciation, but this is not the premise from which you try to reach out to a new global audience with...
Tom
Guest
Going to have to stand up for Paul here. 87k went to the soweto derby two weeks ago. Have been to soccer city
drama city
Guest
Good to see a crowd of 34,400 at last weekend's clash in Bordeaux between Bordeaux-Begles and Toulouse in the French Top 14. Not sure how a so-called global season would have made any difference to the enthusiam for this match between the recently promoted Bordelais and Stade Toulousain. There is not a global season in football, the world's most popular game, as football giants Argentina and Brasil play through their southern hemisphere winter, just as southern hemisphere rugby heavyweights (SANZAR) will continue to play through winter (and autumn and spring).
Jackson
Guest
That is a ridiculous comment Tiger what are you on about?! In many countries people don't even know the difference between NFL and rugby! They just follow football. The modern game of NFL wasn't even developed until the 50s, yet rugby has *provably* been in many countries for 100 years. And Millis, are you really saying that the Superbowl final, outside of Canada and USA, gets a bigger viewership that the final of the soccer world cup?! I find that really hard to believe... When, as I said before, in all countries soccer is on free to air tv whilst NFL is not.
Tiger
Guest
One thing is for sure, the nfl and nba have much bigger worldwide interest than rugby union and rugby sevens.
Paul Pavlou
Guest
They often get crowds greater than 50K. Check out the crowds for the Cheifs v Pirates.