Broadcast options for Australian Rugby

[JRugby2]

Very true. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, with games lasting 90mins plus injury time. Cricket is hugely popular and it's short form goes forever. This "ball in play" stuff is something usually only brought up by league fans, purely to say how great league is, how crap rugby is etc etc

This is almost an argument to increase the length of games/ stop the clock more to protect ball in play time.

Rugby is good but each team only having roughly 15 minutes out of 80 to score points every game could be improved, to the benefit of literally everyone involved in the game (barring parents of young kids....)

 

[Rob42]

Rugby has a number of podcasts made about it weekly, produced by an array of types.

But what you're pointing out isn't the direct fault of RA. A number of the popular podcasts or social media accounts that focus on other codes are first and foremost creator led, without any direct influence or incentive by said codes, and so if we want the same thing it's not up to RA to start them.

They are popular because they aren't directly connected to the governing bodies and therefore free from influence. RA leading that charge would be antithetical to potential popularity and cut through.

Can I put in my semi-regular request for Super Rugby teams to replicate something like the Tah Talk pod from the Tahs which was (gulp) almost 20 years ago. Run by the media manager of the Tahs at the time, I think it was also Morgan Turinui's first media gig as well, whilst he was playing. It was great in sharing the stories of lesser-known players in the squad, beyond the usual perfunctory questions. It was a good wrap-up of rugby news outside the Tahs too. It created the connection with the team that is so critical to developing long-term supporters.

Easy to do, but hard to do well.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Can I put in my semi-regular request for Super Rugby teams to replicate something like the Tah Talk pod from the Tahs which was (gulp) almost 20 years ago. Run by the media manager of the Tahs at the time, I think it was also Morgan Turinui's first media gig as well, whilst he was playing. It was great in sharing the stories of lesser-known players in the squad, beyond the usual perfunctory questions. It was a good wrap-up of rugby news outside the Tahs too. It created the connection with the team that is so critical to developing long-term supporters.

Easy to do, but hard to do well.

The Reds were doing Socks Up in 2023 and 2024, but that seems to have fallen away.

I reckon the engagement they get on these official channels would be pretty minimal, and hard for everyone involved to keep at it - and now Ryan Smith is leaving

 

[Strewthcobber]

A couple of days in, the Youtube highlights numbers for the first test
* Stan - 8.3k
* The Bristish & Irish Lions - 137k
* Sky Sports - 806k

 

[PhilClinton]

A couple of days in, the Youtube highlights numbers for the first test
* Stan - 8.3k
* The Bristish & Irish Lions - 137k
* Sky Sports - 806k

Does YouTube have a strong geolocation algorithm? I.e. if I'm in Australia and search for the highlights, will I get the Stan results pushed first? Or just the results with the highest number of views?

 

[Braveheart81]

It doesn't really move the needle but there's also a Wide World of Sports (Channel 9) YouTube page that has 8.8k views with basically the same highlights video as the Stan Sport page.

 

[Derpus]

Australia getting thumped in a vaguely unpopular sport is a hard sell locally.

 

[The Ghost of Raelene]

It's a story of one - but - I watched the game on Saturday with 4 mates and our families. We each have 14 year old boys that play rugby at school, none of them have ever played League.

The boys popped in and out to check the score periodically but otherwise chose to sit around the fire and chat rather than watch the game. The same group were glued to the SOO a few weeks ago even though none of them have any direct connection to League.

I was trying to understand why and could only put it down to the fact that rugby, and even the Lions series as a spectacle, aren't in the face of the casual sports fan, or being talked about by their mates at school, in Australia because of our recent performances. crowded market, pay TV, insert 8 more reasons here.....

Because Rugby has no engagement with 'Cool' besides JAS and potentially Jorgo if he keeps on his trajectory. None of the Wallabies are exiting to kids or teens. It's all utterly boring speak and culture that makes middle-old aged men feel comfortable.

Were you ever over the moon about your Dads interests as a kid? Rugby is a Dad interest sport in a world where Sport is an entertainment product first these days. Do we see many of the Wallabies doing Twitch streams, series vlogs or launching products and channels to the same level as the NRL? There's no individuality and it's hurting. The Honey Badger brought some and look how he blew up....

 

[JRugby2]

Fuck if we had Finn Russell running around in gold throwing silly cut out passes like he did on the weekend we'd 100x our cool factor.

 

[PhilClinton]

Fuck if we had Finn Russell running around in gold throwing silly cut out passes like he did on the weekend we'd 100x our cool factor.

Finn Russell actually showed some humour and personality in the 6 Nations documentary, instantly made him more likeable than anyone in Australian teams.

Meanwhile our latest rugby doco was just Eddie Jones being a fuckin nutjob on the way to a crash and burn RWC appearance.

 

[Derpus]

Fuck if we had Finn Russell running around in gold throwing silly cut out passes like he did on the weekend we'd 100x our cool factor.

This was us at one point long ago.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Fuck if we had Finn Russell running around in gold throwing silly cut out passes like he did on the weekend we'd 100x our cool factor.

We had one of those, half of Australian rugby hated him, then his state coach wouldn't play him so he moved, and then went to Japan.

(559k Instagram followers)

 

[PhilClinton]

We had one of those, half of Australian rugby hated him, then his state coach wouldn't play him so he moved, and then went to Japan.

(559k Instagram followers)

Sam Greene?

 

[Derpus]

Heinous misrepresentation

 

[The_Wookie]

Saturday July 26 #AuSportTV #Wallabies Nine 804k (BVOD 100k) Reach 1.893m (1st Test consolidated to 803k)

 

[KOB1987]

Cool, now we can look forward to Buzz Rothfield highlighting the drop in viewers. edit, sorry, I just noticed it was a small increase. Regardless, he'll write something about it, probably rehash last week's piece about State of Origin viewers.

 

[The_Wookie]

Cool, now we can look forward to Buzz Rothfield highlighting the drop in viewers. edit, sorry, I just noticed it was a small increase. Regardless, he'll write something about it, probably rehash last week's piece about State of Origin viewers.

probably not. He and his researchers generally steal this information from my twitter or website and Ive already noted these are the best ratings theyve had since 2022.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

So we've had a pretty decent increase in viewership for the Wallabies from this series. That's good news isn't it?

Added to the fact that the media can run the WE WUZ ROBBED line all week, it's going to put eyeballs on the last test.

 

[Crashy]

Its hard when they dont include STAN. That would be a big number I would have thought.