Rugby TV Ratings 2016
- Thread starter Hugh Jarse
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Strewthcobber
Simon Poidevin (60)
Disagree with that mst. GWS, Western Bulldogs, Canberra or Melbourne, even Leicester have nowhere near the level of local support as those TV numbers would indicate (obs not ManU!).
In fact the vast, vast majority of viewers of all of those games would be "neutrals" watching because they know when and where it will be on (Same time/same place every year), who the players are (from saturation media coverage), will probably be entertained (because the AFL/NRL can change the laws of the game to make it so), it's event TV (you'll be talking about them at work on Monday) and it will probably be at least competitive (because the competitions equalise through salary caps etc).
Our competitions have none of those advantages and we get the ratings we get. The one yearly event we did have, the Bledisloe, is now so uncompetitive as to have lost whatever prestige it had.
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Dick Tooth (41)
^^^^^
Strew
Good points, I would add also add the AFL in particular are very aggressive in expansion, their fans are unique many see it as their duty to expand their game, and the AFL head office I am told over the years is more akin to a war office.
Tis only recently league and soccer understood this, union never has more often co-operating.
Strew
Good points, I would add also add the AFL in particular are very aggressive in expansion, their fans are unique many see it as their duty to expand their game, and the AFL head office I am told over the years is more akin to a war office.
Tis only recently league and soccer understood this, union never has more often co-operating.
The AFL game yesterday was the second last game of the season featuring two teams popular with neutrals because they are underdogs (particularly the Bulldogs making their first grand final since 1961).
It was a highly entertaining game that went down to the wire. I'm not surprised if rated very well.
The AFL is wildly more popular than rugby on a national basis and that is not about to change.
It was a highly entertaining game that went down to the wire. I'm not surprised if rated very well.
The AFL is wildly more popular than rugby on a national basis and that is not about to change.
mst
Peter Johnson (47)
I have to say I really like the way you explained that and the points you make. I don't think what we are saying is that dissimilar (except mine was explained very poorly
).
mst
Peter Johnson (47)
Agreed, but hypothetically, thinking along the lines of a FFA Cup concept where teams play off to advance to a final 32, if Rugby adopted a similar concept where the Shute were part of the playoff and possible one of them advance to the last group from say a Sydney zone, I believe the out of town'ers would care and the Shute would be relevant and on a national stage.
I may be totally wrong, but I think some of the Shute teams would give the NRC teams a hard time.
WorkingClassRugger
Michael Lynagh (62)
Considering the NRC sources players from the Shute Shield it's somewhat unlikely. Their respective windows are different to avoid overlap. If whatever remains of a Shute Shieldside played off against an NRC side considering the quality of the competition this season. I doubt it would be competitive.
The only way I could see the Shute Shield or more specifically a certain number of clubs from the SS drawing more interest from interstate fans would be some kind of national club competition. The issue there is it would have to run during the current club window. Which would mean not every club could compete. And and the inevitable bun fight will ensue.
Oh, and then there's the issue of the clubs working against their own stakes in the NRC.
The_Wookie
Chris McKivat (8)
For mine, Rugbys problem remains that it climbed into bed with South Africa and New Zealand at the cost of any domestic relevance. Sure, we have 5 super franchises -but these spend 2/3rds of the season overseas, playing at ridiculous times, and its no wonder people lose touch.
The landscape could have been a lot different if they'd chased a second franchise into NSW and QLD, and possibly a team in Adelaide and run a proper 8 team domestic competition that would have fit the window needed to allow the Wallabies to take precedence for a time. The problem being of course that the ARU have never had the funds needed to do anything.
wamberal
Phil Kearns (64)
We had no choice, we needed the money, and still need the money that Super Rugby brings in.
Our best hope is that the NRC eventually becomes commercially viable. That will not happen overnight, to put it mildly. It will take 10 years, maybe longer, to build up some tradition and recognition.
Then, hopefully, it will comprise 10, maybe 12, franchises, and a longer season beginning earlier in the year.
Our best hope is that the NRC eventually becomes commercially viable. That will not happen overnight, to put it mildly. It will take 10 years, maybe longer, to build up some tradition and recognition.
Then, hopefully, it will comprise 10, maybe 12, franchises, and a longer season beginning earlier in the year.
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Dick Tooth (41)
Never a truer post made. The failure of ARU management at this point in time beggars belief.
The Super league war, scared us to the point where a bunch of advertising executives developed a media deal and offered us some money. We took it without even trying to ensure we kept Rugby together, we made our state teams club teams and effectively ruined the FTA product we had in the Shute Shield.
TWAS IMO and I have bagged on about this for so long so easy to make this work for us but pride got in the way of common sense and out of their depth admin's just signed off.
Not true we did need the money but at that point in time we could have and SHOULD developed an 8 team national league, it would have not been that hard at the time to find a media deal. That is the real joke, it was so easy at this point in time to get a very good media deal.
Remember at this point in time soccer was on its knees, and the AFL was in a rare patch of poor management, Basketball had fallen out of favour. There was never a better time to launch a national domestic competition its just the officials we had as did NZ and SA were simply totally out of their depth and they should have brought in experts to advise, but as I said human pride and egos got in the way.
Nothing can change where we are today, my comments and posts have been we can keep making the same mistakes of the past and simply fade away or have faith and start up our own competition.
wamberal
Phil Kearns (64)
We all saw how the ARC went. What makes you think that the ARU could have put together a domestic competition years before, when the Shute Shield clubs were probably more powerful than they were in latter days?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but with the benefit of hindsight it still looks to me as though the ARU did the best they could given all the circumstances.
I might add that in the early days of professionalism the resources of the ARU were fully stretched coming to terms with all that changing from an amateur sport to a professional one entailed. A good friend of mine (a person with a lot of experience in recruiting and contracting) was in a senior voluntary position at the ARU in those early days, and I can assure you that it was a very tough period in adminstrative terms. Chasing fancy new competitions for possible television deals would have been totally beyond their ken.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but with the benefit of hindsight it still looks to me as though the ARU did the best they could given all the circumstances.
I might add that in the early days of professionalism the resources of the ARU were fully stretched coming to terms with all that changing from an amateur sport to a professional one entailed. A good friend of mine (a person with a lot of experience in recruiting and contracting) was in a senior voluntary position at the ARU in those early days, and I can assure you that it was a very tough period in adminstrative terms. Chasing fancy new competitions for possible television deals would have been totally beyond their ken.
Where was it possible to create 5 additional teams overnight to create a new national league (that arguably would still have been too small to have a sustainable national league)?
It is a reinvention of history to suggest that we were in a position to launch a professional national competition and that club rugby was a juggernaut that got killed off because of Super Rugby.
T
Train Without a Station
Guest
Half I think you are re-inventing history here.
The Shute Shield wasn't a domestic TV product. It had no national footprint, which the NSWRL had already started to develop by 1998, and it's clubs were professionally behind the Sydney NSWRL Clubs.
Professionalism was a massive spanner in the works, bringing previously not experienced financial obligations to them, with little hope of greater incomes to support those financial obligations.
The league clubs were built on paying players, so with the increased revenues that the expansion and greater broadcast of the code bought, payments increased accordingly.
To compete with the Super League war for players the Shute Shield would somehow have needed to support player payments for 12 teams (not sure how many there were at the time) on far less TV revenue than Super Rugby bought in, lower interest per team than the NSWRL, and minimal hope of appealing outside Sydney.
The Shute Shield wasn't a domestic TV product. It had no national footprint, which the NSWRL had already started to develop by 1998, and it's clubs were professionally behind the Sydney NSWRL Clubs.
Professionalism was a massive spanner in the works, bringing previously not experienced financial obligations to them, with little hope of greater incomes to support those financial obligations.
The league clubs were built on paying players, so with the increased revenues that the expansion and greater broadcast of the code bought, payments increased accordingly.
To compete with the Super League war for players the Shute Shield would somehow have needed to support player payments for 12 teams (not sure how many there were at the time) on far less TV revenue than Super Rugby bought in, lower interest per team than the NSWRL, and minimal hope of appealing outside Sydney.
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Dick Tooth (41)
BH N Wam
RL was in a war and many left to other codes, soccer was on its knees, and as I said the AFL in a rare bad patch.
You ask were could we have the teams.
Western Sydney, Eastern Sydney and Northern Sydney, Hunter / Central Coast, Canberra, Two Brisbane, Perth. Thats eight teams and as it grew it could have expanded over time.
We should as we should now appoint people who know how to run things, John Quale would have been a great pick up as an example.
But its all in hindsight we can stay on our current path or have faith in the game and run a domestic competition.
RL was in a war and many left to other codes, soccer was on its knees, and as I said the AFL in a rare bad patch.
You ask were could we have the teams.
Western Sydney, Eastern Sydney and Northern Sydney, Hunter / Central Coast, Canberra, Two Brisbane, Perth. Thats eight teams and as it grew it could have expanded over time.
We should as we should now appoint people who know how to run things, John Quale would have been a great pick up as an example.
But its all in hindsight we can stay on our current path or have faith in the game and run a domestic competition.
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Dick Tooth (41)
The SS was on Sydney FTA on the ABC. Sydney at the time was the key to sports media.
My strongly held belief, and I have talked about this at length with some media people, is Rugby could have sold a competition to the media at the time. You are right in saying it would not have matched the SL money but it would have been much better than many think.
However we will never be able to test the theory and we are where we are today.
If you made me God for a week and say put a long term fix in. I would appoint some top AFL and soccer current admins to run rugby as they understand how to run domestic competitions.
RL was in a war because another party entered the fold and was throwing huge amounts of money at the game. It wasn't because the game was falling apart. They had a whole bunch of teams with long histories and strong fan bases.
If you want to take a lesson out of the Super League wars and compare it to what might have happened in a national rugby competition heavily based around new teams with no history, look at all the Super League/ARL teams that sprouted up at that time.
The Western Reds, Adelaide Rams, South Queensland Crushers, Hunter Mariners.
None of them survived.
For the ARU to start up a domestic 8 team competition as the highest competition below the Wallabies they would have needed to create 5 teams from scratch. At least some of those would have had to have been in non rugby states.
Fielding 5 teams in Super Rugby now is a massive test of our depth. What do you think those 5 new teams would have looked like in 1996?
We are running a domestic competition and slowly building it up. It is absolutely impossible to suggest that the competition would be big enough now if we replaced Super Rugby with it that it could generate the revenue to pay a substantial amount of the salaries of the best players in the country that Super Rugby does now.
There was one game a week on the ABC in NSW.
I really don't see how it is equivalent to the AFL or soccer. Soccer has a huge participation base and is trying to get a small amount of that interested in following a domestic soccer league. They are also trying to leverage fans who follow EPL and other international leagues heavily into taking more interest in domestic football.
The AFL is a behemoth and is the biggest winter sport in Vic, SA, WA, Tas, and NT.
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Dick Tooth (41)
^^^
BH
We do agree on some things, first if we ditched Super Rugby there would be a significant fall in revenue resulting is more players than now leaving to play overseas. Tick one we agree.
I don't agree in the mid 90's it would have been that hard to establish, 3 teams in Sydney, 1 in Canberra, 2 in Brisbane, 1 in a combined CC & Hunter region. Plus a team in Perth, the Perth Team would have been difficult.
The biggest argument both then and now is the size of the media deal compared to RL's media deal given the cross over in players. IMO the best way to answer this is to compare the period from the mid 80's thu to the mid 90's. Yes there were some and some of the best but equally not everybody and if we had paid a reasonable we IMO would have retained more than we did in the period from the mid 80's to the mid 90's.
The NRC we disagree, unless massive changes are made the NCR will make little difference to growing rugby in the broader community. Its more of the same we establish something and within seconds it primary purpose is to gander support for the national team. What was promised as a competition to grow rugby becomes a training and development competition. If it was a competition to grow rugby a consequence of growing rugby would be to create players for higher honours.
However I realise I am kinda a lone voice in this and accept my thoughts will never be put to the test. That said if anybody is happy with the current state of rugby and believes it can be cured with a little bit of tinkering here and there is foolish. We need major surgery.
BH
We do agree on some things, first if we ditched Super Rugby there would be a significant fall in revenue resulting is more players than now leaving to play overseas. Tick one we agree.
I don't agree in the mid 90's it would have been that hard to establish, 3 teams in Sydney, 1 in Canberra, 2 in Brisbane, 1 in a combined CC & Hunter region. Plus a team in Perth, the Perth Team would have been difficult.
The biggest argument both then and now is the size of the media deal compared to RL's media deal given the cross over in players. IMO the best way to answer this is to compare the period from the mid 80's thu to the mid 90's. Yes there were some and some of the best but equally not everybody and if we had paid a reasonable we IMO would have retained more than we did in the period from the mid 80's to the mid 90's.
The NRC we disagree, unless massive changes are made the NCR will make little difference to growing rugby in the broader community. Its more of the same we establish something and within seconds it primary purpose is to gander support for the national team. What was promised as a competition to grow rugby becomes a training and development competition. If it was a competition to grow rugby a consequence of growing rugby would be to create players for higher honours.
However I realise I am kinda a lone voice in this and accept my thoughts will never be put to the test. That said if anybody is happy with the current state of rugby and believes it can be cured with a little bit of tinkering here and there is foolish. We need major surgery.
We already had Reds and Waratahs. In 1996 we established the Brumbies.
I just don't agree that creating an additional 5 teams and generating a fanbase from nothing would have been anything but unbelievably difficult.
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Dick Tooth (41)
At a time when the SS was much stronger than today and was on weekly news sports reports.
Create out of the SS teams and others in Sydney, a Eastern / Southern , Western and Northern based Sydney teams.
Create out of the Hunter / Newcastle / Central Coast a team.
Out of Canberra create a team.
From the Brisbane club competition create two teams.
From the left overs go to Perth who had a big SA expat population and a recently left RL team where a cross over was possible.
Just my very very very humble opinion that was possible nay an obvious way to go and it also left the Tahs and Reds as state teams. We will never know.
What I am sure of is, a Hunter / Newcastle / Central Coast team would have worked, as would a Canberra based side and I believe if done correctly so too would the 3 Sydney sides. Not enough knowledge to say for sure on the Perth and two Brisbane sides.
Also with five teams based in NSW the travelling costs would have often been coach hire for 5/8 of the competition, a big cost saving adding to whatever the media deal was.
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