Broadcast options for Australian Rugby

[Train Without a Station]

I'd imagine 10 would be targeting Saturday night as a key night for coverage as they would have no competition from channel 9 here.

Would be naive to think you can bring in strong AFL supporters given it's excellent coverage. League fans on the other hand... It's a closer game and has a prime viewing night with no FTA coverage.

 

[Braveheart81]

Absolutely.

7:30pm Saturday night is the obvious game for FTA to show. Least competition from other codes.

It also connects well into the June test series (albeit one of those games will be an afternoon game) and then the Rugby Championship which will have most of our home games at 7:30pm on the east coast.

 

[wamberal]

Saturday night is definitely the best, probably the only, option.

All we have to do is to get SANZAR to cooperate, and put the best possible local games on the Saturday night. Local derbies and Australia/NZ games only, thank you.

 

[Braveheart81]

Realistically they probably need Channel 10 and Foxtel to do a deal before the SANZAR negotiations come back around so they can enter a joint bid.

If the dollars are greater than what Foxtel would pay on their own then SANZAR would have absolutely no reason to reject it.

You'd definitely want to try and arrange the Saturday night games to involve great matchups. I don't think you'd need to change much though. Let's look at the 2014 Saturday night games this year:

W2: BRU vs RED
W3: WAR vs RED
W4: FOR vs REB
W5: BRU vs WAR
W6: BRU vs STO
W7: RED vs STO
W8: RED vs FOR
W9: FOR vs WAR
W10: WAR vs BUL
W11: FOR vs BUL
W12: WAR vs HUR
W13: BRU v SHA
W14: RED vs REB
W15: FOR vs LIO
W16: BRU vs REB
W17: WAR vs BRU
W18: FOR vs RED
W19: RED vs WAR

So out of that you'd say that things were pretty good. You'd want to put the Rebels on a couple more times, particularly early in the season (crazy that they don't feature until week 14).

You'd also try and avoid having the same South African team twice in a row. One of their Australian games would need to be on a Friday night so they only feature once.

If you figure that you've got 18 games, you'd probably want this breakdown:

WAR vs BRU x1
WAR vs RED x2
BRU vs RED x1
FOR vs all Aussie sides x1 (4 games)
REB vs all Aussies sides x1 (4 games)

you then have room for Aussie sides against 3 South African and 3 NZ sides to fill the 18 games.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Wouldn't you be targeting all derbies on a Saturday night if this is what you are going for? From their NZ teams to fill in the other weeks.

How many weeks of the season do we not play an aus derby or a major aus team vs an NZ team? I'd argue not many and minor adjustments would need to be made to accommodate that

 

[Train Without a Station]

Anyway it's not like Sanzar would be against it. They know it's in their long term interests. They just understandably are against any material short term loss.

 

[TOCC]

Now we just need to hope that that the ARU can convince Foxtel and Ten of the same thing...

 

[Braveheart81]

Wouldn't you be targeting all derbies on a Saturday night if this is what you are going for? From their NZ teams to fill in the other weeks.

How many weeks of the season do we not play an aus derby or a major aus team vs an NZ team? I'd argue not many and minor adjustments would need to be made to accommodate that

I wouldn't have thought you'd want entirely local derbies.

Part of the attraction of Super Rugby is that it is international. If the only games that were ever shown on FTA were local derbies I think it would lose something.

Historically, Australian derbies haven't been particularly attractive games.
I don't think Super Rugby is going to make many inroads into the FTA market if they showcase many of what are historically the most dour matches Australian teams play.

 

[RugbyReg]

yeah, you'd definately want games with the Crusaders, Chiefs and Canes etc in there.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Unfortunately that attraction of the internal flavour hasn't proven to be much of an attraction.

The most popular leagues are primarily Australian based with one or two NZ teams, which don't appear to rate as highly in their games.

We can talk about the most attractive games all we like but you'd struggle to find too many attractive NRL games, yet people watch the shit.

 

[Braveheart81]

If you're trying to sell rugby to a bigger audience, potentially including a lot of people who make the claim that rugby is boring, do you really want to showcase Aussie derbies which might be more dour grinding affairs every week?

By all means, you want plenty of Aussie derbies as your one FTA game per week but I think it would be a mistake if you did this every single week.

 

[D-Box]

The Western Force games are a case in point as to why you would want to have South African, and in particular the New Zealand teams playing in that timeslot. If you look at the attendances in Perth, when we are playing an Aussie team you get lower attendances than when the Kiwis rock up. This is because in Perth most of the supporters of the other Aus teams also support the Force and are already there, however the number of random Kiwis that rock up at the games in those week is amazing.

 

[wamberal]

If we only highlighted local derbies, we would be selling our game short, and we would be cutting off our nose to spite our face. Five teams playing each other week after week is not exactly top flight sport, it wouldn't matter which five teams frankly. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

 

[TOCC]

You'd want to leverage the exposure of players like SBW as well, I know Benji has been playing like crap but he'd still be a New Zealand player to leverage marketing off and give them some time on FTA. Even casual rugby league fans know who Dan Carter and Richie McCaw are..

People say watching the South African teams is boring, I disagree in part, I think there is real merit in broadcasting the best South African teams.. People want to see the best teams playing.. It's hard to predict but you'd hope that a team like the Sharks are broadcast at least once FTA.

Local derbies are good, but to be fair they have resulted in some of the most boring games to watch in recent years. I think the bulk of the games should be some form of local derby, but also rugby union needs to capitalise on what the competition is about, the best players from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

 

[Braveheart81]

You'd certainly want to schedule matchups that historically produce entertaining and quality games.

You'd also want some flexibility in the back end of the season as the NRL does. You don't want to bank on a certain team being your biggest drawcard based on the previous season only to get halfway through the season and find they're absolute duds.

 

[TOCC]

You'd also want some flexibility in the back end of the season as the NRL does. You don't want to bank on a certain team being your biggest drawcard based on the previous season only to get halfway through the season and find they're absolute duds.

Unlikely to happen, NRL & CH9 are in control of their own competition, but trying to tie in the draw with New Zealand broadcasters and logistical issues like flying overseas means we will probably see the draw and broadcast schedule set from the first round.

 

[Braveheart81]

Unlikely to happen, NRL & CH9 are in control of their own competition, but trying to tie in the draw with New Zealand broadcasters and logistical issues like flying overseas means we will probably see the draw and broadcast schedule set from the first round.

It would certainly be more difficult, but essentially you'd be doing the draw and let's say that only the last three rounds after the June test break are left up in the air in terms of playing times for the Australian games.

You'd only be swapping between the Friday and Saturday night Aussie fixtures or possibly a Saturday and Sunday (which would be the case this year for one of those three rounds).

You could make the decision at least a month out as you'd know what the more crucial games are heading into the finals and swapping a team from a Friday to a Saturday with at least a month's notice shouldn't make any difference to preparations.

Ground hire would probably be the most problematic.

 

[Scoey]

As well as the programming time, one thing that will increase the viewership once it's on FTA is people talking about Rugby.
Guys (and gals) sitting in the smoko shed on Monday saying, "hey did you see the Rugby on Sat night? Fuck that was a good game!"
Word I mouth is a powerful advertisement so the games featured should ideally be selected to increase the 'chat' afterwards. As Reg said, Saders, chiefs and canes games are important.


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[wamberal]

One not insignificant problem is that Queensland does not have daylight savings. So if TEN wants to televise all games live, in Eastern Australia, they would have to have different schedules as between QLD and the other Southern States. Not sure that they would want to do that.

One alternative would be for them to time shift (which is what Nine does with the NRL), to keep to a standard East Coast schedule (albeit Nine swaps the games around, so that QLD sees the game that interests them more, first, and vice versa in the South).

However, the complications are obvious, given that Foxtel will want to televise every match live. Live on Foxtel, and delayed on TEN? Maybe, although obviously TEN's ratings might be affected.

 

[Train Without a Station]

Would TEN's ratings be affected? Currently Foxtel and FTA show some events concurrently. Who chooses to watch the FTA broadcast with ads anyway? The viewers for test matches for example would be only those without Foxtel access. The benefit will be minimal opposition on a Saturday night. I can't see a 30-60 minute delay being a huge factor. Never affected Friday night football on 9.