Been thinking about our competitive sporting market and how it views international sporting teams. Last week Brazil V Argentina had a crowd of 95K, the Soccceroos two nights latter 30K.
Hockey, Volleyball, Basketball all huge international sports and yet they struggle badly in Australia for crowds and media space.
Cricket aside from England do we care about test matches maybe India today but leave aside England and we want the Big Bash or ODI.
League biggest matches are the SOO or state V state, and this is rated higher in league folk law and more important than international matches.
AFL well they have no internationals to speak of and even ditched the state v stare thing to protect their club competition. Ratings crowds, memberships indicate they got it right.
Netball gets so much media and media support yet womens Basketball was established a number of years ago, is the second biggest world women’s sport behind soccer and struggles in Australia.
Our media either believe or have researched that local is better.
The A-League crowds and ratings in the Asian Champions League are less than half the A-League competition.
To me as a nation our sporting interests are divided almost along state lines and only the cricket team especially when playing England, Soccer and Rugby have established broad based support more recently Netball you could argue join this small list. However aside from cricket the rest of us can’t get within a bulls roar of league and AFL.
I guess the point I am getting at the concept of Super Rugby is difficult to market in an Australian context where local and home state competitions seem to be important to the Australian sporting public.
We need Super Rugby revenue. Me thinks the SAers will all go to Europe and form the Pro 118 or 20 or 22 whatever, by 2020.
When we come out of our current issues, with less Australian sides, the difficulties in selling the concept of Super Rugby spread across 5 nations will be even harder.
I offer no solution as I can’t see one but do see a massive job when all this is over to sell Super Rugby to new people given the sporting nature of the Australian sports fans which to me seems local V local and state based.