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Spectators lose interest in Super Rugby
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<blockquote data-quote="riffraff" data-source="post: 806831" data-attributes="member: 74048"><p>Every professional sports league here in the USA has weak and strong conferences in cycles, without killing the league. Take the NFL where for a decade the AFC might dominate and for another the NFC might dominate. The conferences are regional, only to be practical due to time zone differences. None of the fans seem to care if the players are locals, although it makes a nice story when it happens that a star is playing for his home city. Expansion weakens competition for a few years, but it works because the fans in the new city are excited to have a franchise. The thing that keeps it going strong is heavy marketing by the league and lots of money from TV. The fans show up at the stadiums because it's an exciting experience and because it is marketed so well. The corporations buying seats to entertain clients fills the skyboxes but most seats are every day fans that live locally, many with season tickets. They want to be a part of something big. </p><p></p><p>I think Super Rugby is great, but the problem may be that the league covering so many time zones and countries with less of a regional flavor makes it hard to develop excitement when playing a team halfway around the world if it's not in a championship. That drives TV revenue and attendance revenue. Having regional conferences to keep things local competitively (not limiting the player pool) seems like a good idea, where only in the final stages of the playoffs the top teams travel to see who's top team is the best makes practical sense and engenders a national pride. Of course test rugby dilutes that effect somewhat but not entirely. The biggest challenge is finding a way to market heavily and effectively on national TV, in local media, though merchandising, and through community involvement to build the excitement for people so they want to go to games, watch on TV, and buy licensed products especially shirts and other stuff that makes them walking advertisements).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="riffraff, post: 806831, member: 74048"] Every professional sports league here in the USA has weak and strong conferences in cycles, without killing the league. Take the NFL where for a decade the AFC might dominate and for another the NFC might dominate. The conferences are regional, only to be practical due to time zone differences. None of the fans seem to care if the players are locals, although it makes a nice story when it happens that a star is playing for his home city. Expansion weakens competition for a few years, but it works because the fans in the new city are excited to have a franchise. The thing that keeps it going strong is heavy marketing by the league and lots of money from TV. The fans show up at the stadiums because it's an exciting experience and because it is marketed so well. The corporations buying seats to entertain clients fills the skyboxes but most seats are every day fans that live locally, many with season tickets. They want to be a part of something big. I think Super Rugby is great, but the problem may be that the league covering so many time zones and countries with less of a regional flavor makes it hard to develop excitement when playing a team halfway around the world if it's not in a championship. That drives TV revenue and attendance revenue. Having regional conferences to keep things local competitively (not limiting the player pool) seems like a good idea, where only in the final stages of the playoffs the top teams travel to see who's top team is the best makes practical sense and engenders a national pride. Of course test rugby dilutes that effect somewhat but not entirely. The biggest challenge is finding a way to market heavily and effectively on national TV, in local media, though merchandising, and through community involvement to build the excitement for people so they want to go to games, watch on TV, and buy licensed products especially shirts and other stuff that makes them walking advertisements). [/QUOTE]
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Spectators lose interest in Super Rugby
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