Rubbish like last week won’t grow game in US
Did you watch the Wales v South Africa match held in Washington DC last weekend? It was one of the most torpid games I’ve ever seen, utterly unworthy of being called an international. Played in front of sparse crowd of just over 21,000, in a stadium that holds over 45,000, it is rumoured that World Rugby had to chip in some cash to help the organisers who needed 27,000 to break even – however it’s dressed up, it was another in the long list of disastrous rugby adventures in the US.
More worrying than the financial problems is the fact that the game will have turned no-one on to rugby – spectators will have gone away shaking their heads and wondering what on earth the fuss was all about. Did it move rugby forward in the US? I would argue that it did the opposite, and even the US-based Welsh and Saffer diaspora will have been disappointed in this meaningless match.
If rugby wants to grow the professional game in the US, then there’s a better way to do it. NBC already shows some Premiership rugby, and in general what they will be showing will be streets ahead of last weekend’s game. Keep doing that, and gradually grow the audience if they can – if successful, there will start to be a clamour for some live rugby, and that’s the time to take games over there. Even then, make them one-off exhibition events – the Baa Baas is the obvious team.
However, a message to the Premiership bosses: don’t ever again deprive English fans of their live club action – they’re your league’s core audience, and taking a home game away from them is simply disrespecting your customers.
My view is that the whole ‘project US’ is a terrible waste of time and money. With American Football, baseball, basketball, golf and tennis already filling the US schedules, is there room for another sport? Look at how long it took soccer to grow to where it is in the US – it’s taken 50 years, and has been driven by grass roots games, not by parachuting in the occasional bunch of pros for a one-off match.
Club rugby in England is essentially parochial, with most of its fans having some sort of a geographical link – people in Bath generally don’t support Bristol, just as Northamptonians tend to visit Welford Road just once a year! Trying to create support 3,000 miles away might sell a few shirts, but at the cost of disillusioning the core customer base, so focus on building TV revenues, and play club matches in England where they belong.
Warren Gatland was so far wide of the mark that it was embarrassing when he had a pop at the Premiership for not releasing some Welsh players outside of the international window. The windows are the periods, agreed by everyone, when internationals are played, and when countries are obliged to release players – it isn’t complicated and it runs from June 9-23 this year.
When countries decide to schedule a match outside of the window then they’re just being plain daft, and have to accept the consequences. What on earth were the WRU doing when they organised such a game? For a great and distinguished coach, Gatland really does come out with some utter tosh, but he was just trying to put lipstick on a pig, and the blame lies with his bosses at the WRU who seem to make a Horlicks of most things they touch.
This weekend sees the biggest-ever Bingham Cup, when nearly 3,000 gay rugby players will gather in Amsterdam. Actually, that isn’t strictly the case, as the rules say that the tournament is open to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, although the reality is that the vast majority of participants are from the LGBT community.
What makes this year’s tournament so important is that it happens after a season when homophobia has reared its ugly head in the professional game. There have been well-publicised allegations of homophobic language in the Premiership and in the Six Nations, plus Israel Folau’s bizarre comment that gay people would go to hell ‘unless they repent their sins’!
There have been a few rugby players that have come out, but you’d have to think there must be a fair few more who haven’t yet had the confidence to talk openly about their sexuality. If the Bingham Cup does its bit to inspire them to feel that they can be more open, then that can only be a good thing.