A worrying story landed in my inbox late last week, pointing to the imminent death of Australian rugby. And not just at the professional level.
The game, according to an article, is on its’ death bed at all levels nationally.
Under the headline, ‘Soccer roars, rugby is disappearing’, Business Insider Australia ran a piece based around some Roy Morgan Research analysis, which made a seriously concerning point about rugby participation numbers in Australia.
Citing a 2016 participation figure of 55,000 men, women, and children (extrapolated from responses from 14,330 people sampled), the BIA piece concluded that “rugby participation has fallen an enormous 63 per cent from 148,000 in 2001.”
The overall figure of 55,000 is alarming, no doubt. But it didn’t feel right when I read it, and after a number of conversations over the weekend, it feels even less right.
Come Sunday, and I was again in commentary for a Super U20s Championship match, with the competition-leading Queensland Reds U20s in Canberra taking on the Brumbies Colts. The young Reds won fairly comfortably, and will host the Final against the NSW Gen Blue side this Sunday at Ballymore at 2pm. If you’re in the neighbourhood, I’d highly recommend checking the final out – there will be some serious talent on show.
But it also gave me the chance to talk to a rugby friend down from Brisbane to watch his young bloke. Curious, I asked if he’d seen the article, to which he immediately laughed at my mention of ‘Roy Morgan Research’. “Makes you wonder who commissioned the research, doesn’t it?” he shot back.
Regardless of what may well be a very valid point, he held similar suspicion about the numbers, suggesting that there would probably be ‘half that number of girls playing in Queensland alone’. It was enough to plant a seed.
A couple of follow-up calls only confirmed both our suspicions. A source close enough to the development pathways in Queensland that they’ve seen the soon-to-be-released participation numbers for 2016 indicated that my mate was right.
Where Queensland boasted around 21,000 female participants across all formats in 2015, this number is set to jump to more than 33,000 in 2016, my source told me. That number would include all club players, all Sevens and modified format players. And it’s worth remembering that half of the Australian Pearls, the Rio Olympic gold medallists, came from Queensland.
It’s not unreasonable to think that number will increase again in 2017.
But if the Roy Morgan Research is to be believed, as BIA would like you to, apparently there are only 18,000 other rugby players Australia-wide. That is, all males in Queensland, and all players in total in NSW, the ACT, Victoria, and Western Australia. And everywhere else in between. Eighteen thousand.
Now, even just some rudimentary maths tells me there is no way 55,000 can be right.
Premier Grade rugby in Sydney comprises four senior grades and three colts competitions, played by twelve clubs. That’s upwards of 2,000 players. The Sydney sub-district competition speaks of more than 50 clubs and somewhere near 6,000 players, with claims on being the biggest rugby competition in the world.
Brisbane’s Premier Grade competition requires more than 1200 players across nine clubs fielding four senior and two colts grades. ‘Subbies’ lifts that number again.
In the ACT, there’s upwards of 500 players across seven clubs, and two senior grades plus colts. Two further lower grades effectively act as ‘Subbies’, and include smaller clubs. In Melbourne, the number is more than a thousand, with nine clubs and five grades, and it’s more than 1100 in Perth, with ten clubs playing four senior grades plus colts.
That’s the best part of 12,000 of the remaining 18,000 players just there. And I haven’t counted juniors, women’s Sevens or XVs competitions outside Queensland, or any rugby played anywhere outside the five Super Rugby cities.
The ARU’s figures for 2016 are due in the next few weeks, but they reported a total of 267,463 regular participants in 2015, with more than 700,000 Australians having “rugby experiences” last year.
Even if you didn’t want to look at numbers coming from the game itself, the Australian Sports Commission in December last year pointed to rugby participation numbers of 199,000 people. The ASC analysis tallied 56,000 boys alone.
Therefore, there’s no way the Roy Morgan Research numbers pass the sniff test.
But with the cone of silence from the ARU firmly locked down, this kind of wildly skewed analysis goes unchallenged, and it’s not right. At a time when the game has never needed its national body more, rugby people – and people in general – will see hugely doubtful figures and headlines like this bandied around and decide for themselves that it must be true.
There are plenty of things going wrong with rugby in Australia at the moment, and none of what I’ve pointed out here shies away from this.
But now, it seems, Australian rugby has ‘alternative facts’ to contend with.
Quick update: The ARU has released a statement on the Roy Morgan research, rejecting the findings of the survey.
“The Roy Morgan numbers are not supported by any other research and are strongly rejected by the ARU,” said Andrew Larratt, the ARU’s general manager of community rugby and strategy.
You can find the full statement here.
Allies Whakataka
Guest
Well from where I see thing's. I'm a under 11s junior rugby coach and have been with our club for 4-5 yrs. All 3 of my kids play the game 2 girls and my son we love it. We live on the outer suburbs of Melbourne 30 from the CBD . Here in Victoria we have seen our go up and down over the recent year's but nothing quite as bad as this year .last year we had 131 registered junior member's not including our 2 senior team's . This year we have 41 members and have no senior team's this year only 16 of them are returning members. Unable to field most grade we have no choice to dispensate 4 player's with 3 getting approved and 1 being denied who happens to be my daughter . Being told by VRU 6 week's into the competition she can not play rugby anymore was a low point for my daughter and I . I have no reason to go against the verdict but at least I thought maybe at lease my own club and the VRU Victoria rugby union could have helped me find options for her to continue playing instead my wife and I are doing the work ringing around Club's trying to find our own options. While I coach the rest of my daughter team i have no kid's in but they are just as if they were my kid's lol. It's been 2weeks now and i have pulled out from coaching.we have let our other to kid's continue the rest of the season because they want to and enjoy the game. As for next year it's uncertain if we will be playing rugby .
Perry Bridge
Guest
Interesting to contrast the 2016 figures to Roy Morgan’s own 2015 numbers for 14+ (http://roymorgan.com/findings/6123-australian-sports-participation-rates-among-children-and-adults-december-2014-201503182151). (note the sample sizes 2001 : 26,198 ; 2015 : 15,944 ; 2016 : 14,330 – – so, a clear trend is as the Aust population grows the sampling is reducing). Note that in 2001 - that 26,198 relative to a reported national population of about 19.4 million (0.134%) contrasts to the subsequent surveys with the latest 14,330 of about 24.5 million (0.058%) so the relative accuracy looks immediately to have more than halved. The phrasing of questions and methodology is crucial to understand in order to interpret the numbers. For example - are indoor/outdoor soccer and cricket bundled together? Can a respondent list say 5 main sports and if putting indoor AND outdoor variants of a particular game - will both those be counted? Because of course - very few people are single sport players - many have a game for each season (at least winter/summer). And those in the 14-18 age range run the risk of school activity plus outside of school activity - are we sure there will be no double dipping there? So - even when we rely on the sporting bodies themselves - for example the FFA participation audit (2015) was potentially double dipping when they proclaimed that the"..total number of participants in community clubs, school, indoor, social and introductory programs has soared to 1,188,911" And the FFA on their own numbers claimed a smidge under 500K in total for community club participation - of all ages. Roy Morgan's 2015 combo of 6-13 and 14+ claims 1.79 million. Just what the level of 'formality' of participation is required to be for the Roy Morgan stats (claiming to be 'competitive sports' in 2016 survey) is something that needs to be understood. Based on Roy Morgan’s own numbers, basketball trends thus: 422K, 340K and 438K. Interesting – they’ve done well clearly – arresting the 2001-2015 82K drop with a 98K rebound (pun in tended). RL is also trending better having nose dived from 175K to 110K but now back to 127K. Good work NRL HQ – turning it around. AFL done even better – Roy Morgan stats show 256K decline to 184K and in the space of 12 months back to 253K. And as argued on theRoar re RU – somehow dropped from 148K to 113K in 2015 and nosedived to 55K in 2016. Interesting. Anyone else taking all this in with a liberal dose of salt granules?
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
So you think it's right that the ARU's own numbers in 2003 were under reported by 50,000+ thousand and the reported club numbers (i.e. not schools + clubs being counted as separate when we know some double up) is incorrect then?
Zero Gain
Guest
All this thread proves is that when people don't like the message, they discredit the messenger.
Justin Kearney
Guest
Lies and damned statistics. Rugby maybe struggling on some fronts but this data is rubbish.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Yes none would want to see declining participation. But at the same time if all are, maybe that's the market. Societal changes, greater emphasis on school studies, FIFO work, immigration (people with different interests), greater working hours are all prevalent factors today which will impact this negatively for many sports.
Old Bugger
Guest
Cheers TWAS. I guess with any sport, the last thing the administrators want to see is declining patronage, both on and off, the field. But, if the trend is on the decrease, then you hope that trend is at a snail's pace, so that administrators will have an opportunity, to try and reverse it. Who'd want to be a sports administrator when your success, is measured by the fickleness of the patrons off the field and, the performances of the players, on the field. I guess, that's what can happen, in the business world so welcome, to all those sporting businesses or is it, businesses of sport.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
There's no way to hide that the number is certainly dropping though. Even the ARU acknowledge this. The real question is does this exceed the rates which other sports are?
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
That also before you consider that including Junior Club players, as well as schools players you are essentially double counting (but there's no way to tell by how much) so the figure was lower again in 2003. If 25% of schools players also play club rugby, then really about 105,000 people playing in 2003.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
OB I haven't looked closely enough to make a really informed comment. But from what I have seen and do know, I get the impression this paints an extremely negative picture. My guess is the current numbers from Roy Morgan are wrong, erring on the low side and the previous are wrong, erring on the high side considering that the ARU themselves reported a TOTAL participation number of 150,000 for 2003 while Roy Morgan are saying 148,000 people over 14 played in 2001. Considering the ARU figures include 32,000 Junior players and 60,000 schools players, if you assumed half were primary students, the ARU in 2003 reported only 115,000 people played in 2003 based on the Roy Morgan survey group.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Nah. They do their own numbers and quote them. Annually. They have already used the decline in their own participation numbers (which has shown growth in some areas but decline in organised club numbers) to justify the reduction in funding following the reduction in registrations. They would rather spend money where it gets the greatest ROI. It's not like they are using for themselves.
Old Bugger
Guest
TWAS This stuff is explosive so, as an outsider can I ask you, is there any truth in the matter?? Actually, more pertinently, is there any truth, in either report??
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Not if those games are at 3am.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
to discuss it in any intelligent manner you need to know what the statistics represent and what they were counted from. They say "participation", but how do they define it? Who did they actually survey? When you are extrapolating 14,000 people out to represent 25,000,000 the results of 500 people could have a huge impact. Based on the numbers the results would have been somewhere under 100 people surveyed said they played rugby. 10 different people in that whole group may have seen the numbers hugely change.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
It should be noted that the Roy Morgan survey is actually refuting what the ARU have already published.
Shaun Ellis
Guest
Hi Brett - As I said, I did have look through the ASC data tables - just couldn't find the 199,000 you quoted. There are always going to be different numbers around, and it's great that so many readers and posters are weighing up all the info. All I can say is that our survey is independent, with the aim of being as accurate as possible. Of course the ARU's figures are much higher than ours - its job is to promote the sport, not ours. And I'm not saying its figures are inflated - just that they (quite rightly) want to include a lot of things like one-off or casual experiences and leisure participation at schools and promotional events. Which are, of course, vital metrics to look at in the context of the sport's future. As for the AusPlay survey, I'll reiterate that it looks to me like the results are not too dissimilar. Yes, being only about sports, that survey does (and should!) go into more detail about frequency and duration, but it's interesting that you give it cred for applying weightings that seem to lean more toward regular - is this not extrapolation too? All we do is ask people if participation was regular or occasional, and don't lean one way or the other. There could be people, for example, who would simply tell us that they play, in their own view, occasionally but due to different questions and methodology are included as regular or active (or left undefined) for the ASC and ARU. Our goal, as always, is simply to show, on occasion, what our research has found. In this case, it showed a strong decline in regular rugby participation (as well as in many other sports, which was the overall point of our original article). We didn't highlight rugby, but some other outlets focused on it. Finally, the ARU's response said up front it "rejected the research published by Roy Morgan on the number of ‘active participants’ in the sport". It's notable that Roy Morgan never used the term 'active participants' - that was the Business Insider article. Anyway, again, thanks for the interest. Go soccer! (That's a joke). Shaun.
clipper
Guest
The big problem, not mentioned so far (I don't think) is that Rugby, especially in Sydney, is a lot stronger in a couple of areas than other areas. This creates a misrepresentation when the figures are tallied, as they are spread out among all the regions in Sydney - the same thing happens with the Swans viewing figures, as they are mostly in the east and north as well, so we're not getting the full picture, as the figure should be weighted to indicate this phenomenon. Also, as the sample isn't that large, it does disadvantage the smaller sports, I don't think you're getting the full picture either way. I
clipper
Guest
if they had the same rules you could argue the case, but it would be like putting table tennis players in with tennis players.
In brief
Guest
Do you trust the viewing figures? I mean if no one turns up to the ground how can we believe they are watching at home?
In brief
Guest
So if it' negative on rugby it's correct, any other sport and it's not trusted?