Something needs to change. My mate, who is a diehard Wallabies fan, played rugby with him for years, texted me at halftime saying he only just found that the game was on.
What's this bizarre head in the sand shit? He used to come to the Wallabies test matches with me whenever they were in town, we'd watch the games at the pub. We know fans are dropping like flies. Maybe I should've said "former diehard" but the point remains. This is the biggest test match of the year and people aren't watching it. We're clearly not going to change that by saying fans need to try harder.
What's this bizarre head in the sand shit? He used to come to the Wallabies test matches with me whenever they were in town, we'd watch the games at the pub. We know fans are dropping like flies. Maybe I should've said "former diehard" but the point remains. This is the biggest test match of the year and people aren't watching it. We're clearly not going to change that by saying fans need to try harder.
What do you suggest would get your mate back on board then?
Cause at the moment it doesn’t sound like anything short of the Wallabies starting to win every test match so he can jump straight back on that bandwagon, which has nothing to do with promotions or marketing
I watched the game on Sunday, and my missus walked in and said oh are the Wallabies playing, so there is something about rugby's prominence in the media, look any die-hard would have known the game was on, but drop a level and you could easily have not known.
The point is what do we do about it, when a competitive Wallabies against the All Blacks is easily the most prominent tool the RA have.
I watched the game on Sunday, and my missus walked in and said oh are the Wallabies playing, so there is something about rugby's prominence in the media, look any die-hard would have known the game was on, but drop a level and you could easily have not known.
The point is what do we do about it, when a competitive Wallabies against the All Blacks is easily the most prominent tool the RA have.
But as half says above not having a genuine domestic presence below Test rugby means you are forever relying on one off sugar hits, and the issue just get aggravated when as has always happened after a sugar hit 99% of our resources then get put into getting another sugar hit.
Must be something of value when we go close. There has been 18 articles on foxsports.com.au about rugby since yesterday. Doubt they put that many out for the entire SRAu competition.
It has been noticable that Fox has been doing more promotion of Rugby this week wheeling out Tony Squires to host and cross promoting on his Monday sports show which Justin Harrison featured on last week.More positive rugby articles in the last 24 hours than in the past year.
Maybe Fox are suggesting that they can play nice seeing there we are close to finalising a broadcast deal and they are really keen to retain the rights?
What's also interesting is the increased coverage in the last 5 days on Channel 9, possibly in response.
It has been noticable that Fox has been doing more promotion of Rugby this week wheeling out Tony Squires to host and cross promoting on his Monday sports show which Justin Harrison featured on last week.
What's also interesting is the increased coverage in the last 5 days on Channel 9, possibly in response. Channel 9 via their mastheads (Fairfax newspapers) have gone from denying the Stan-centric bid for rugby rights only 3 weeks ago, to having Karl Stefanovic acknowledge and emphasise both the Channel 9 bid for rugby (quote "how exciting!") and cover the Bledisloe on both Friday and Monday in the last week during the sports coverage. Given Channel 9's business model of cheerleading their own product (NRL) as a priority, I see this as progress of sorts and a sign that Channel 9 think they may win the bif and that free to air could be good for the sport if NRL-style cross promotion is part of the deal.
The cross-promotion on FTA TV is critical to success. Other sports (A-League, netball) have games on FTA, but with negligible ratings, because no-one knows it's there. Super Rugby replays on Ten for the last few years the same. You need a network that wants to make rugby a key part of their programming, like NRL or AFL. Otherwise, FTA games are meaningless.
It has been noticable that Fox has been doing more promotion of Rugby this week wheeling out Tony Squires to host and cross promoting on his Monday sports show which Justin Harrison featured on last week.
Foxtel have increased the pre-show from 30min to 60min for this weekends match.
As much as I love Rugby a 60 minute pre show sucks balls.