Rugby's brand equity is diluted by both league, AFL, soccer and cricket with no one attribute being owned by rugby. Bluntly put, consumers are not passionate about rugby. They favour AFL and NRL, which tend to be more tribal. Disconcertingly, even our passionates are turning away. The Super 14 is likely to see a name change to Super 15 with the Melbourne Rebels on board, but realistically union's general popularity and viewing audiences are at a long term low. Did you know that in 2009 attendances at Super 14 matches dropped from 115,317 to 75,393? What is happening to the love of Rugby?
MD, welcome, good to have more posters going to the heart of the matter re our code in Australia. I have been making my own lame attempts at discussing this crucial matter since starting posting to this fine site in June. I have posted - for what it's worth - on the genesis of rugby's post-2003 problems, and have issued my own sort of ten-point plan in an attempt to deal with them, looking forward say 2-4 years.
What you highlight is (sadly) correct, but you must appreciate first that many 'mad passionates, hard core' rugby supporters here in Australia are in a kind of trenchant denial about this problem, and don't really want to talk about it, analyse it, or face it squarely. Rugby has attachments to a kind of 'born to always exist' superiority mist around it that partly emanates from its elite private school roots in Australia (and coming as I did from rugby at Kings in NSW, I know something about this ;-) ). This mist shrouds and magnifies the core problem. Just look at GAGR (for which in general I have a very high regard, btw): I know of no recent main blog essay that examines the obvious, serious problems faced by the code in Australia and then sets forth constructive, gutsy suggestions as to what must be done to fix them. And GAGR is the world's leading rugby blog and fan site for Australian rugby!
Re S14/15 and your comments on same. The core problem is, for me, blindingly clear and not at all unfathomable. Apart from the notable exception in this one year 2010 of the Reds, none of the S14 teams have (a) enough star player dazzlers that pull crowds in to watch them (as league and AFL have) and (b) their brand of rugby is largely dull, not dynamic, fast-paced and pulsing ball-in-hand play leading to exciting wins (c) they don't appoint really competent, world-class coaches that know how to build a rugby play style that excites and pulls crowds and wins and (d) the business and market-development quality of the state RUs' management is second-rate and, in general, below the comparable competencies in league and AFL and, increasingly, soccer too.
Until the above problems are honestly faced and decisively fixed - and the Rebels and S15 new game structure are beacons of light in the dark - the S15 will continue its seeping market share loss and income decline in Australia. The Wallabies are a closely related problem - their slow decline to today's poor state where, incredibly, we have even lost the once great hallmark of Aussie back line genius (all now accompanied by the lamest of excuses-factories vs sacking those responsible and fixing problems in an honest manner), adds hugely to the rugby brand and related $ income problems in Australia.
Again though, I loop back: there's not many core rugby supporters who want to face these realities hard on. The above type of analysis often offends them as 'negative'.
