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Australian Rugby / RA

Wallaby Man

Nev Cottrell (35)
Yet, rugby union has higher participation numbers than rugby league in Queensland.

Is the Queensland government aware of that fact? Some officials at 1 William Street aren’t.

Rugby had 71,181 registered participants in 2022 compared to league’s 64,566.

Growth, too, is higher – up 8.6 per cent from 2021, compared to 4.75 per cent for league.


Are those numbers real????
The numbers are silly. I love my rugby but been a born and bred QLD it’s not even comparable.

These numbers are self reported, so could contain some children that get a single ‘rugby’ session at school as a participant. Rugby is more popular than people give it credit for in QLD and would be pretty similar standing to AFL for popularity, we just don’t hear about it because of the media presence but anyone that thinks it’s larger than RL in any capacity in the state is delusional and needs to get out of their bubble. I have attended lots of junior rugby and league matches with my family, both have good numbers running around but it’s a no contest if you were to truly count the number of children signed up and playing a season of each sport.
 

Wallaby Man

Nev Cottrell (35)
Really puts it in context - half the grant of the lowest AFL/NRL team and about half the home games as well.

The Matchday and Membership and the Sponsorship and Revenue charts make for interesting comparisons too - the Reds fall somewhere between Cronulla and Sydney for matchday and memberships - ~3.6m for just the matchday value, ~4.8m if corporate hospitality is included (assuming membership is accounted for in their matchday value, it's not listed separately). Then for sponsorship they're just off the bottom chart (~5.5m):

View attachment 15494

View attachment 15495

Even after all that, ignoring Ballymore grants and having no gambling revenue they had more than double the profit of Cronulla. A long way to go, but at least we're looking lean and reasonably run these days. It'll be interesting to see where the other Australian sides fit in.
Be cautious reading into this graph. It contains data from Covid affected seasons (teams not allowed to play at home), it’s also dependent on reporting techniques, etc. I’d be highly surprised if the Reds (with half the amount of games) are generating twice the amount in memberships and match day as organisations with twice the amount of games, similar attendance rates and considerably more corporate appeal due to the popularity of the league.

The chart itself says no singular standard is applied. I’m surprised they pushed such a chart out if there is no comparison to be applied. I surely wouldn’t allow anyone in my organization to push something into the public eye of this standard.

Im pretty confident in saying currently there would be no Super Rugby team beating any NRL or AFL team for membership and match day numbers. It just doesn’t make sense with the amount of games, the corporate appeal and the actual crowd figures.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
I feel like one of the differences in participation is likely to come at the adult level. League is a very brutal sport and I think adult participation at a community level tails away very rapidly as kids get older and then become adults.

Rugby is a far more sustainable sport for people to play for longer as adults.
 

Marce

John Hipwell (52)
The numbers are silly. I love my rugby but been a born and bred QLD it’s not even comparable.

These numbers are self reported, so could contain some children that get a single ‘rugby’ session at school as a participant. Rugby is more popular than people give it credit for in QLD and would be pretty similar standing to AFL for popularity, we just don’t hear about it because of the media presence but anyone that thinks it’s larger than Rugby League in any capacity in the state is delusional and needs to get out of their bubble.
That what I thought, it's not rocket science. NQL Cowboys sell more tickets than Reds in Townsville, Dolphins sell more tickets than Reds at Suncorp and Broncos can match the Wallabies attedances at Suncorp. And I'm not sure if Titans sell more tickets than Wallabies in Gold Coast. Test matches attedances over there have been poor
 

Wilson

Phil Kearns (64)
Be cautious reading into this graph. It contains data from Covid affected seasons (teams not allowed to play at home), it’s also dependent on reporting techniques, etc. I’d be highly surprised if the Reds (with half the amount of games) are generating twice the amount in memberships and match day as organisations with twice the amount of games, similar attendance rates and considerably more corporate appeal due to the popularity of the league.

The chart itself says no singular standard is applied. I’m surprised they pushed such a chart out if there is no comparison to be applied. I surely wouldn’t allow anyone in my organization to push something into the public eye of this standard.

Im pretty confident in saying currently there would be no Super Rugby team beating any NRL or AFL team for membership and match day numbers. It just doesn’t make sense with the amount of games, the corporate appeal and the actual crowd figures.
The chart is from @footyIndustryAU on twitter, built from the numbers taken from the annual financial reports of the various clubs. The reporting categories vary from organisation to organisation but these are independently audited financial reports, there's not really any room for wiggle room like there is when clubs list membership numbers. Certainly the overall profit numbers are rock solid.
 

Rebel man

John Thornett (49)
After the first two nights of the AFL rugby sure does have its work cut out. Thursday night was crap but still 90k, Friday was an amazing game and 90k again.
 

stillmissit

Peter Johnson (47)
Just read this by Andy Farrell: We lose talent that others pick up and use...

Praising the working relationship between club and country in Ireland, he added: ‘The work that (performance director) David Nucifora has done behind the scenes has been fantastic.

‘I suppose the way that he’s done it is the envy of world rugby now, isn’t it? The joined-up approach with coaches, unions and the provinces is unbelievably powerful.’
 

Ignoto

Peter Sullivan (51)
Listening to Eddies latest podcast has made me nervous. Whilst in the UK he picked close to the worst organisation to pop into; Everton.

A team that has been poorly manageed by both owner and coaches for over a decade and is a bees dick of being relegated.

A better choice if he wanted to see transformational change would have been Brighton.
 

The Ghost of Raelene

Simon Poidevin (60)
I feel like one of the differences in participation is likely to come at the adult level. League is a very brutal sport and I think adult participation at a community level tails away very rapidly as kids get older and then become adults.

Rugby is a far more sustainable sport for people to play for longer as adults.
You don't play social League like Subbies Rugby can be in the lower grades. The sport is far to physically taxing in regards to contact. One area that they do stay involved in the playing side is OZ Tag and Touch. Smaller scale sure, but the NRL runs these sports so in a way they do count in the organisations numbers.... Makes me worry about our Womens teams into the future because a lot of them came from Touch, but you can bet the NRLW will have first dibs on them now.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
You don't play social League like Subbies Rugby can be in the lower grades. The sport is far to physically taxing in regards to contact. One area that they do stay involved in the playing side is OZ Tag and Touch. Smaller scale sure, but the NRL runs these sports so in a way they do count in the organisations numbers.... Makes me worry about our Womens teams into the future because a lot of them came from Touch, but you can bet the NRLW will have first dibs on them now.

I'm pretty sure Oz Tag and Touch are both run independently of the NRL/NSWRL/QRL. NRLW is a massive threat to women's rugby as it becomes more professional because they have far deeper pockets than we do.

Sevens is going to have an attraction to it that NRLW can't offer for young players. The chance to travel and play in some big competitions around the World including Olympic and Commonwealth Games is pretty substantial. SuperW is the big issue because currently we offer very little or nothing and that isn't likely to change anywhere near as rapidly as the NRLW salary cap grows.
 

The Ghost of Raelene

Simon Poidevin (60)
I'm pretty sure Oz Tag and Touch are both run independently of the NRL/NSWRL/QRL. NRLW is a massive threat to women's rugby as it becomes more professional because they have far deeper pockets than we do.

Sevens is going to have an attraction to it that NRLW can't offer for young players. The chance to travel and play in some big competitions around the World including Olympic and Commonwealth Games is pretty substantial. SuperW is the big issue because currently we offer very little or nothing and that isn't likely to change anywhere near as rapidly as the NRLW salary cap grows.
I guess it's how a lot of League fans continue to play the game is through touch. There is nothing about Rugby in Touch footy at all even though I think it would dramatically help fundamental skills a lot of Rugby players tend to lack in comparison.

The Female 7s are stars and deserve to be held in such high regard but there are also only so many jobs available. The NRLW has such a jump on Super W I feel bad for saying it, but the players left in Super W are the ones NRLW teams haven't wanted to sign. Even the Womens RLWC got more attention (here) than the Womens RWC and it's basically a 2 team tournament.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
I guess it's how a lot of League fans continue to play the game is through touch. There is nothing about Rugby in Touch footy at all even though I think it would dramatically help fundamental skills a lot of Rugby players tend to lack in comparison.

I think it's got far more general attraction than just former league players looking to continue involvement in the game.

I played years of touch footy and never played league at any point and I'm pretty sure none of my teammates did either. It's just a good social sport to play (and works well as a mixed sport).
 
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