Who Ended Who?

[Dai Perk]

Evening, my friends,

So, I'm sitting here in Boston, Massachusetts, in the USA, and I'm watching two back-to-back exciting games, with the Chiefs squeaking by at home, and what is currently a tight contest between Brumbies and Bulls (it's completely impossible to watch in real time here, sorry for my out-of-date comments).

You look at the stands, and it feels like, 'Wow, there's NOBODY there.' But then when you see the whole venue, you realize, 'Oh, there may be a thousand or more people there, but the venue is just way too big.'

Numbers like that don't seem so bad - if you can get a few thousand people to show up week after week, it seems like you have something good, right?

So, you think, 'Why not use smaller venues, so it doesn't look so desolate?' But the answer is International Test Rugby, right? You need that stadium to be that big for the day when the Springboks visit, or the Wallabies come to town, or whatever incredible event might happen upon that spot.

So you need the giant stadium. In the US, there's no equivalent, because our 'football' teams don't manage their rosters so they can peak against the other top nations every four years. There's no better or more important event coming to Gillette Stadium, where my beloved Patriots play, than when the team itself is playing...

OK, long-winded, I know - long story short, and here's a classic American annoying "hot take" - is international test rugby the reason club rugby perpetually struggles? Is the top form of rugby hindering the growth of all other forms of rugby?

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Evening, my friends,

So, I'm sitting here in Boston, Massachusetts, in the USA, and I'm watching two back-to-back exciting games, with the Chiefs squeaking by at home, and what is currently a tight contest between Brumbies and Bulls (it's completely impossible to watch in real time here, sorry for my out-of-date comments).

You look at the stands, and it feels like, 'Wow, there's NOBODY there.' But then when you see the whole venue, you realize, 'Oh, there may be a thousand or more people there, but the venue is just way too big.'

Numbers like that don't seem so bad - if you can get a few thousand people to show up week after week, it seems like you have something good, right?

So, you think, 'Why not use smaller venues, so it doesn't look so desolate?' But the answer is International Test Rugby, right? You need that stadium to be that big for the day when the Springboks visit, or the Wallabies come to town, or whatever incredible event might happen upon that spot.

So you need the giant stadium. In the US, there's no equivalent, because our 'football' teams don't manage their rosters so they can peak against the other top nations every four years. There's no better or more important event coming to Gillette Stadium, where my beloved Patriots play, than when the team itself is playing...

OK, long-winded, I know - long story short, and here's a classic American annoying "hot take" - is international test rugby the reason club rugby perpetually struggles? Is the top form of rugby hindering the growth of all other forms of rugby?

Yes?. Is the top form of American football hindering the growth of all other forms of American football?

 

[Bull]

OK, long-winded, I know - long story short, and here's a classic American annoying "hot take" - is international test rugby the reason club rugby perpetually struggles? Is the top form of rugby hindering the growth of all other forms of rugby?

No, it's because Sanzaar is messing up SR and they are taking an age to correct it. If it can be rectified at all. SR is going back to a single round robin stage where each team plays the other teams once. If this doesn't work I feel SR has run it's course.

 

[saulan]

Nope, SANZAAR broke Super Rugby so people stopped pitching up. The last year that has easy to find attendance stats is 2013. The average attendance was over 20k, with some teams such as the Stormers having averages in the high 30k with multiple games with more than 45k attendees.

The stadiums weren't built big solely for international rugby. These stadiums used to be full for Super Rugby games.

 

[Dai Perk]

These stadiums used to be full for Super Rugby games.

As a new fan, that sucks. Though I guess, for an older fan, it sucks even worse.

 

[argie]

The UAR is looking for a small venue for the Jaguares games for the comming years, despite they are increasing the crowd.
The average assistance is 7.500, with a botton of 5.000 an top of 17.000, in a stadium of 50.000 capacity (36.000 all sitters).
The possible venues are the stadiums of Platense, Tigre, and GEBA, as the rumor says.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

This is quite a generalized misconception. You look at rugby games in europe (Top 14, Pro14, Premiership) and the games look reasonably full.
Then you look at SR and they stadiums look empty (NZ might be the exception). The thing is, in every single one of those cases the stadiums used were not built with rugby as their sole purpose.

You look at a Lions or a Jaguares game and the stadium consistently looks empty, but it also has consistently more people watching than the pro14, and by quite some margin.

Having said this, the numbers that matter as far as i understand are the tv ones, not attendance.

 

[TRF_heineken]

It's way more complex than that. There isn't a single reason why the stands are more empty than they used to be. Yes SANZAAR's meddling in the format certainly had an effect on it, but it's not the only reason. To single out South Africa, our current economic issues have certainly made it harder to go to a stadium and watch a game. The nearest stadium for me is Loftus Versfeld and it's 300km's (186 miles) away from my home town. It would cost me on fuel and toll road alone about $150 and then I still need to buy a ticket and arrange for a place to sleep depending on the time of the match ending and so on.

In SA, more and more people just can't afford to go to the stadium like they used to, and would rather stay at home and watch it on their tv's on the paytv service in order to watch the game.

 

[unrated]

The stadiums are big and it's true that they look empty because as mentioned above they are in fact relatively empty compared to their sizes.

But it's important to note that despite the viewing figures having dropped dramatically for Super rugby. Despite that it has been going down for years it is still the best-attended rugby league in the world.

No other league, not the Top14, pro 14 or premiership comes close to the Super rugby attendance figures.

I foresee growth in Super rugby, we will develop out of this dip that we are currently in.

From a South African perspective, we are trying to get the black demographic participation up.
Basically every SA Super rugby match is attended by 95% White people (just look at the broadcast of Super rugby and Springbok games), if we as a country can get more of the black community involved in rugby then our stadiums can fill up again, considering out of a country of 50+ million only about 5 Million is white,

So if our transformation efforts are successful long term and we can get the black demographic interested in rugby en masse then we would rather need to start thinking about expanding our stadiums.
The favourite sport of the black demographic in South Africa is football/Soccer these games are usually packed.
The favourite sport for the white community is Rugby, so we just need to fuse our demographics somehow and then I see only positive things coming for both South African rugby and Super rugby,

If what I described above can happen in the medium to long term then not only will South Africa benefit but also NZ, Arg and regrettably the Aussies if we keep the increased tv audiences in mind too which contributes a majority of the money.

Our soccer structures makes millions and millions of South African Rands, its the richest football league on the African continent, the players are pretty mediocre though but super well paid, so even the European leagues are very hesitant to buy from the PSL (South African soccer league) because they can get similar talent for much cheaper in other African Countries such as Egypt, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Morroco, Libya, Chana, Senegal, Congo. Our economy relative to other African countries makes this an attractive Broadcast market especially considering a large (by rugby standards) population.

Therefore soccer is a case study that points to part of the reason why South Africa is trying to transform its rugby, i believe they are doing it wrong currently by maybe pushing it too much on the top level of Super rugby and Springboks instead of Grassroots but long term if SARU can increase the black audience and here is the important part *While managing to keep its traditional white support base* then Super rugby won't even need to look at markets such as Singapore and Japan, we have a market right at home ready to be tapped up.

 

[Dai Perk]

In SA, more and more people just can't afford to go to the stadium like they used to, and would rather stay at home and watch it on their tv's on the paytv service in order to watch the game.

This is the same thing for me with American football... My favorite team of any sport is the New England Patriots, and I could even drive to the stadium in about an hour, but the crappy tickets are $300+, it's like $11 for a beer, you pay to park, it takes forever and a day to get in and out of the parking lot... Staying home and watching on a widescreen HDTV with all the camera angles and everything else is FAR better than the ordeal of going...

 

[unrated]

It's way more complex than that. There isn't a single reason why the stands are more empty than they used to be. Yes SANZAAR's meddling in the format certainly had an effect on it, but it's not the only reason. To single out South Africa, our current economic issues have certainly made it harder to go to a stadium and watch a game. The nearest stadium for me is Loftus Versfeld and it's 300km's (186 miles) away from my home town. It would cost me on fuel and toll road alone about $150 and then I still need to buy a ticket and arrange for a place to sleep depending on the time of the match ending and so on.

In SA, more and more people just can't afford to go to the stadium like they used to, and would rather stay at home and watch it on their tv's on the paytv service in order to watch the game.

This is true, I stay in the KZN midlands and if i want to attend a Sharks game then i would need to drive 140 km and then back again so its more of a novelty going to the stadium, instead we make a party our of the game at home with a braai while watching on the tv.

 

[TRF_heineken]

I think there will be a lot more people going to the games next year when we're back to the format that works. No more double derbies and teams missing out on playing someone from another conference.

Just on the black community in SA getting to the games. I think the Bulls have been the frontrunner in trying to get more of them to the games. They made an agreement with Mamelodi Sundowns (one of the top soccer teams in SA and also situated in Pretoria) to play all their home games at Loftus Versfeld. Pretoria is also upgrading it's entire public transport system in the inner city area to make it more accessible to get to the stadium for one from wherever they are coming from. Plus last year the Bulls' away kit, was the colours of the Sundowns team's home kit (yellow shirt, blue shorts).

But the biggest struggle is the tv exposure. Our paytv company DSTV has 2 packages, a compact (the cheaper package) and Premium package. But Rugby is only available on the Premium package as part of the entire sports Bouquet you get when you have the Premium Package. Whereas the compact package only have local soccer on it's package. So on one side, our Paytv company is the driver of revenue for Super Rugby with regards to broadcasting. But on the other side it's blocking itself from having more exposure to the sport. I can however see them trying to make it more accessible, the last 3 years we've even had Xhosa commentators for all rugby games, and they even have their own rugby magazine show.

I guess we will see in due time if it increases.

 

[unrated]

I think there will be a lot more people going to the games next year when we're back to the format that works. No more double derbies and teams missing out on playing someone from another conference.

Just on the black community in SA getting to the games. I think the Bulls have been the frontrunner in trying to get more of them to the games. They made an agreement with Mamelodi Sundowns (one of the top soccer teams in SA and also situated in Pretoria) to play all their home games at Loftus Versfeld. Pretoria is also upgrading it's entire public transport system in the inner city area to make it more accessible to get to the stadium for one from wherever they are coming from. Plus last year the Bulls' away kit, was the colours of the Sundowns team's home kit (yellow shirt, blue shorts).

But the biggest struggle is the tv exposure. Our paytv company DSTV has 2 packages, a compact (the cheaper package) and Premium package. But Rugby is only available on the Premium package as part of the entire sports Bouquet you get when you have the Premium Package. Whereas the compact package only have local soccer on it's package. So on one side, our Paytv company is the driver of revenue for Super Rugby with regards to broadcasting. But on the other side it's blocking itself from having more exposure to the sport. I can however see them trying to make it more accessible, the last 3 years we've even had Xhosa commentators for all rugby games, and they even have their own rugby magazine show.

I guess we will see in due time if it increases.

They know that if Rugby gets broadcasted on the Compact package nobody would buy premium again. Its the only reason a majority of South Africans pay more than a grand just for a satelite service while they can get Netflix for a tenth of the price.
Its not like we can legally stream rugby from other sites either with the geoblocking so DTSV knows what they are doing and as you say its making rugby difficult to be accessed by the other potential communities for rugby.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

i never got to go to a stormers game because I had to ref every Saturday but being in Stellenbosch going out to Cape Town for a Stormers game wasn't exactly attractive. If Paul Roos was at home there would be a couple thousand people there plus a Maties Club game and the coloured and black clubs had pretty good attendance for crap level rugby.

Newlands isn't exactly a first-class experience, the only time my ref coach has gone out to a game at Newlands recently is when they did the double-header preseason and his kids wanted to wear their superhero kit to a game.

 

[SomeOke]

i never got to go to a stormers game because I had to ref every Saturday but being in Stellenbosch going out to Cape Town for a Stormers game wasn't exactly attractive. If Paul Roos was at home there would be a couple thousand people there plus a Maties Club game and the coloured and black clubs had pretty good attendance for crap level rugby.

Newlands isn't exactly a first-class experience, the only time my ref coach has gone out to a game at Newlands recently is when they did the double-header preseason and his kids wanted to wear their superhero kit to a game.

Agreed, also that pre-season double header was at Greenpoint, and packed to the brim haha.

edit: sorry for the necro mods, didn't see the dates.

 

[The Seeker]

This is the same thing for me with American football... My favorite team of any sport is the New England Patriots, and I could even drive to the stadium in about an hour, but the crappy tickets are $300+, it's like $11 for a beer, you pay to park, it takes forever and a day to get in and out of the parking lot... Staying home and watching on a widescreen HDTV with all the camera angles and everything else is FAR better than the ordeal of going...

Don't feel bad, I'm a Green Bay fan living in California. And Packers tickets are even more expensive than what you're paying in New England. I've only been to one of their games and I was lucky to get a seat way up in the rafters. And Green Bay is out in the boonies (around 100 miles north of Milwaukee), and the local motels double their rates during football season. After that I agree with you, it's better to stay home and watch the NFL on TV.