More colleges attracting thousands of fans

College matches are increasingly attracting thousands of fans, outdrawing top club matches.

Last weekend's Brigham Young-Utah match in Provo drew more than 3,000 paying fans, BYU said in a press release, topping February's Cal-Univ. of British Columbia contest, estimated (by me) at 2,800 (counting onlookers). Also this month, smallish St. Mary's reeled in some 1,500 for a league game against the Bears.

By contrast, the Chicago Lions' home opener, which debuted Hope Field and featured the crosstown rival Griffins, was described as one of the larger crowds at a regular-season Super League game -- and came up well short of 1,000. Many big club games are played in front of no more than a couple hundred spectators.

The idea that college names are more marketable than standalone clubs isn't new, but growing crowds and USA Rugby's televised game of the month series lends hard data to the argument that universities are a superior commercial proposition. Few club sides can match school facilities, and now more and more school XVs are generating fan bases.

This Saturday's Army-Navy clash could go still higher, as it has in recent fall encounters. Also this weekend, the Denver Barbarians will host the Lions at the 18,000-seat Dick's Sporting Good Park, a top-line soccer facility owned by the parent company that also holds the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche.

It is encouraging that senior clubs harbor such ambitions, but not yet clear they are well founded.

Comments

[Rugger Bee]

April Fools?

[Hoodwinkle]

Thousands of fans? It's more a case of the reporters fudging the guestimates. Totally misleading unless you have the supporting documents to prove it. Someone at BYU send a copy of the revenue sheet showing how many tickets were sold. Same for Cal and St Marys. Then we'll see if this article has any merits, or is just selling the same old story to the same old listeners.

Produce the facts before you reel them off like it's the gospel truth.

[picture is worth a thousand words]

The spectator numbers which appear off are those club numbers. The SL final doesn't out-draw a regular season game at the best universities. Many club matches are played in front of 100 or less fans, none of which paid an admission fee.

The photos of these matches all tell the story.

[DaTruth]

Wow, Hoodwinkle -- did someone pee in your snickerdoodle half-caf frappuccino this morning?

I'm sure it's a conspiracy of some sort, probably from Boulder... right?

Lighten up, man.

[Opportunities are Apples and Oranges]

Of course Army/Navy will be a huge turnout. Would you rather pull some duty job or go to this game that all your superior officers are pushing you to go to to support smashing your rival? At the military acadamies anything involving defeating their rival program is top priority and they are to show the colors proudly. As an aside, Go Navy!

Universities obviously have an advantage over mens clubs in that they generally have a large immediate student base to draw from, i.e. Cal with 20,000 plus students. No club has that at their disposal.

Colleges then also have a large alumni base of former players and supporters. This is because in college, players cycle through in four years and then are instant alumni to support the cause, so they have more people on the outside than in the active program.

As a contrast, mens clubs without youth programs have two, or at the most three active teams playing RSL, D1, D2 or otherwise at 45 to 60 players maximum. Those members play for an extended period as they do not graduate in four years liek their college counterparts. Even if players wives, girlfriends, families and friends are involved you are hard pressed to pull in every single old boy that ever played with your club to each of your matches. Even if you did, in most cases that would not be more than 1,000 people. You would not have that number there anyway due to people moving away, having other commitments, etc. There is the occasional fan who will come who just enjoys good rugby, but rugby at the club level is club centric. Without an affiliation generally people will not cross club lines to see games.

Additionally, there is competion from other interests in major metropolitan areas with pro sports and other activities. For example, there is a lot more to do in New York, SoCal, Chicago, and other similar places than to watch a rugby game when you are an adult over 21 and not a college student.

Colleges have the benefit often times of being in a "college town" where the world revolves around the university and its athletic program. I know they are in the middle of ski season in Utah but besides that what else is going on there to pull them away from this match?

This is not a disparagement of the BYU/Utah clash, anytime that you can get a lot of good fans around the sport it helps with media, sponsorships and rugby being seen as a marketable entity, but we are really talking apples and oranges here when trying to compare the real world opportunities afforded colleges and clubs to pull in big crowds.

[Biz Plan]

We agree its not a comparison at all. I think its a business recondition step.

University and college rugby is a better tool to develop our sport. To grow rugby's fan base and to engage the media.

What is shameful is the current administration isn't doing much along these lines. Compare what is successfully being done for college rugby, with the millions we are spending on test rugby and the comparison shows the USAR leadership is clueless. The facts are the college game of the week has been a success, but not much else has been invested in college rugby since the commonwealth club arrived. Unless the Balloon Park, former waste dump event is counted as productive.

On the other hand the CEO blogs about a SL competition which less than 3000-4000 fans witness in a given round. That's for all the matches. Add to this the $6m USAR has spent on the Eagles during this administration and the point of Kurt's article is made clear. We have no plan.

[really?]

Yep that is the point. College rugby should be USA Rugby's #1 product. Invest in that you thick headed stubborn gentlemen!!! Forget about the stinking IRB. No one cares about it. Invest in college rugby now and in 6 years we will re-emerge internationally as a force.

Also, can someone please ask what MIke Flanagan and Rich Pohlidal are doing to promote this damn game??? Went to both Navy and Army's site and neither has been updated in over a year. The very least they could do is upload the slick "national guard rugby game of the week" posters that BYU and Cal had. If not there is going to be no one but the aforementioned academy students. CMON dont waste our time!

[Go State!]

Let's promote college rugby, but let's first get the N-bombs out of the game. Do you hear this Cal?

[Feldspar]

BYU/Utah pulled in just a few less than 3,100 paying attendees, with 2-300 admitted for free sometime after halftime. The stadium actually seats under 2,200, so there were many unseated attendees. Students comprised maybe 2,000 attendees, with the rest being adults from the community.

Marketing for the event included pieces in both local newspapers, the campus newspaper and the team handing out fliers on campus for several days.

Reserved tickets went for $8 while students got in for $2.

The team took marketing of the event quite seriously, viewing it as a measure of their relevance to the campus and community population. They had something to prove.

My impression is that men's club teams don't really do much marketing and often don't have a nice venue to exploit.

[Pete Murray]

Lots of good points made above...both (for lack of a better label) pro & con, although I think everyone is somewhere on the same page. I admit when I first read the article I my thinking was the same as "Opportunities are Apples and Oranges" but also agreed with Biz Plan and really?

The question at should be can USAR read history or hope that it can make future history? Silliness aside, look at the rise of college football over rugby in the 1920s. If you believe what you read on the 'net about the popularity of the Cal-Stanford matches of that time period and how when football was allowed back on campus it pushed rugby into the background and then pro-football eventually surged ahead of the college game, well the blueprint is in place for USAR. The point of my previous (and run-on) sentence is that USAR should start with promoting the college game (something it has done with the National Guard Game of the Week) and hope that it gains popularity. Then maybe a Red Grange like figure will arise and give more strength to the club game, which will hopefully grow along with the college game. Hell, it's all there in the history of the NFL. Someone over in Boulder just needs to read it. Every sports league in the US, aside from MLB, was begat with the college game. Less then 30 years ago there was no Major League Lacrosse but there was Blue Ridge Lacrosse Club (Charlottesville, VA) playing Dundalk Lacrosse Club (Baltimore, MD) at some junior high school in Sparrows Point with nothing but family and girlfriends on the sidelines. Now there are guys making a little bit of cash playing in front of 3,000-8,000 fans a weeks of the year. If they can get a real tv contract in 5 years, those guys might make enough to forgo working a 9-5 and the crowds might grow to 8,00-15,000. Oh well we can also hope for our children's sake....

[really?]

spot on pete

[David C]

The sooner we get people in leadership positions who know the American way of running college athletic programs, as opposed to overseas ways of doing things, the sooner we can promote the college game to the masses. I saw many great ideas from people posting about how easy and do-able this can be, if you have the right people in the right position. The college game IS the right way to go for making rugby more appealing thru the media for the U.S. sports fan to gain interest in. Sure it needs some tweaks here and there.A couple examples would be, one its kinda lame to know who will play who in the college championships a few months ahead of time. Takes the surprise out of knowing who you'll play and for some teams to sandbag their season in order to garner an easier route to the final four. The other thing I see is college rugby having these split seasons. This Winter/Spring, East Coast/ West Coast seasons need to be universal under one time frame. Its like having two seasons for Basketball or football. Lets get our U.S. rugby college braintrust in there and get the ball rolling already.

[David C]

By the way, Pete, Right?, BizPlan and Feldspar, great posts. If only we could get people with your ideas into USA Rugby postitions, I think the our rugby programs would be better off.
Is anyone going to the Wales game?

[RSL administrator]

It is not an "Either-Or" (college or club) situation. Both must be developed with support from USA Rugby, though in my opinion USA Rugby will never be able to create the tipping point that is necessary for our sport to break through in the way it needs to be. The thought that developing the college game and the Eagles will be a power in "6 years", as someone suggested is naive. There needs to be a place for the top college players to go and continue their development. Despite RSL detractors, the competition and parity continues to improve. The next step for the top clubs is partnership with strong sports business people, who know how to promote sports, have quality venues, and can bring things such as: business plans, marketing resources, sponsorship, and sports league knowledge to the sport. Even the top clubs are too thin in administration and operate so thinly just to make ends meet in the RSL. It is a model that, though it has proved sustainable for many years and is making improvement on the field, is not making any great leaps as a business model. USA Rugby will support such alliances between rugby clubs and sports entities interested in making rugby a commercial product simply because such an arrangement will improve the top players and provide a better trained player for the national team. I don't see a lot of development ideas from USA Rugby. They seem to have all they can handle with the current structure (too many championships in my opinion) and zero support for the marketing of the top products (top college and RSL). Bottom line is college and RSL both need to become more professionally managed. Top colleges and RSL are both doing a much better job, but for the sport to compete in a market with a lot of entertainment competition, a quantum leap in sports league expertise, financial support, marketing, and funding are required. I don't see that occurring in the college game. Universities are not going to put funds into rugby, when they have Title 9 requirements and traditional sports that drive that system. So college rugby will remain an alumni supported product and continue to grow, but that growth will not be the breakthrough that our sport needs. College rugby should remain what it is in all sports in America - a feeder to professional teams. The quantum growth needs to be at the club level, with strategic partnerships between clubs and sports business entities. The Barbarians may be on to something with the alignment with the owners of Dick's Sporting Goods Park and that potential sponsorship could develop into a template for others to review.

[from the ground up]

The universities might not allocate budget funds to their rugby teams, you're right.

But universities are a gold mine from a budget resources standpoint.

Any college with a plan can raise millions. This can't be said about any other aspect of our game.

I also believe having a strong senior domestic competition is important to our US rugby future.

Invest in HS and college and these levels will produce capable players. Then its about the best clubs having a plan to improve their set-up.

At this time the Eagles will win most times out and not before. The IRB are fools for listening to this short cut plan presented by the commonwealth club.

[Feldspar]

As I understand it, USA Rugby provided some materials and match support, but the teams were pretty much completely responsible for marketing the events. If they were successful, we owe it to the teams who worked their butts off to get fans into seats for the games. BYU, and, I presume, Cal, wanted to have the venue full both to bolster their own perceived value and relevance to the community, but to imply a solid following for the TV audience.

We need to have multiple TV opportunities EVERY year, but, my information is that there is little likelihood that the National Guard will want to renew their sponsorship next year, since they are already 12,000 soldiers above their authorized levels nationwide. Their recruiters are being told to practice their marksmanship or fitness rather than to recruit more soldiers.

We need to start thinking how we will replace that sponsorship in this economy to keep the TV ball rolling (and growing). If we see TV as an essential element is growing the sport, then we need to support Dan's efforts to institute major event TV distribution after the National Guard deal fades.

[Feldspar]

I take issue with RSL Administrator regarding the relevance of college rugby. I didn't grow up with the sport but became a rugby junkie in the last 3 years by watching the college game (not men's club matches). In my view, Life University upping the ante by offering undergraduate rugby scholarships can fundamentally change the dynamic of the college sport.

Many athletes choose an NCAA sport rather than rugby because it offers them an opportunity for at least a partially funded education. 95% do not pursue athletics after they leave the University. If we could level the playing field by offering scholarships, or partial grants-in-aid, we could attract top rugby athletes that we now lose to football, basketball and baseball.

To fund all this, we need to get more "butts in seats" and a higher price than the $5-10 we now assess for admission. Most college football or basketball programs get $40-100 for prime seats. To do this, we need to present the value proposition of the sport in a more intelligent way, and with more powerful and consistent media support. It doesn't have to cost huge amounts of money, but it does require marketing intelligence and dedication.

My impression (correct me if I am wrong), is that USA Rugby does little with the mainstream media to "feed the engine" with a constant supply of marketing materials to create awareness. It takes work and a "marketing mentality."

Marketing is cumulative. Hyping and event now and again really doesn't cut the mustard. You need to be on top of it every week.
Just my two cents.

[really?]

RSL administrator is full of you know what. the guy who detailed how college developed before every single pro sport is right on. College is where its at. RSL will only benefit from investing in the college game. Get on board with it or get out of the way.

[Good Refs]

How about dedicating some quality refs to college matches? I recently saw a Super League match with about 100 people watching that had a very good ref and refs running touch. The next day at a Sunday college match that had about 500 people in the stands (mostly students that do not know the game) the ref was shockingly bad and there were not refs running touch. The audience turned on the ref and the coach told me later that the Athletic Department had their NCAA Compliance Director and the Men's and Women's Soccer Coaches at the match watching because the coach was asking for access to more AD resources. The volunteer rugby coach was embarrassed at the spectacle.

[Good Refs = Good Games?]

The Super League pays a pretty penny to make sure it has the top level referee and the local union supplies the touch judges. Unfortunately, sometimes the college matches are relegated in a union with many Mens Division 1 and Division 2 club matches going on as well. However, the coach should be in touch with his local referee society well beforehand if he had this much riding on this match to make sure that he had a C-1 level referee at least, or one that was hand picked. If he had that, and it still did not work, there is not much you can do. Sometimes even RSL referees have a shocker. It is all part of the game.

[Good Refs]

Good Refs = Good Games? must be a member of a ref society. The clubs pay dues to the refs, the ref societies have been around for years and coaches should not have to work the ref society for good refs on top of all they are doing to have a college rugby program function. Ref societies have to take pride in what they do because just having a man show up with a whistle is not enough. A chimp society could almost do the same.

[Elite Athlete fan]

All of this stuff has been hashed out, but don't lose focus on what is most important.

Attracting the elite athlete is fairly simple and straight forward. A handful (or two) of American rugby administrators have this going in the right direction.

In watching the travel channel's Dhani Jones "tackles rugby" rugby (Blackheath), American rugby had another opportunity but were done once again by English pomp and circumstance.

Mr Jones (an elite American athlete) was "scrubbed in" for the last 10 minutes (of a 61-15 loss), never touched the ball, and answered the question and chose Football. Whooda thunk it?

My point is that our current leadership looks very much like Blackheath, the oldest club in the World. They get walloped AND miss opportunity. It just doesn't make any sense.

Let's hope our elite coach, EO, will answer the question differently at the end of the day. EO is coming in at half time and not "scrubbed in" like Mr. Jones.

[Nick]

Good Refs,

I take issue with what you are saying there on two levels.

Firstly, yes the coach should "work the ref society". It's common courtesy and common sense. You make sure the referee is contacted with in advance and you make him feel welcome. You pay attention to the field requirements and ensure that the field is roped off. You also ensure that someone in your squad or coaching team is knowledgeable enough to run touch effectively, and not just chuck the flag to a rookie who is going to make more work for the referee.

Secondly, if you know you've got a big game coming up, or you've got the AD attending, then the game is clearly a big deal. If it's a big enough deal to complain about afterwards then it's a big enough deal to contact your ref society and let them know in advance. Sometimes a game does not appear to be a big event on paper, particularly not to a referee manager who in most cases will have far more matches to cover than he has refs available to cover it.

The sport is growing fast in may parts of this country, but the number of referees available is not growing at the same rate. There are many reasons behind this, but when I speak to people about it the main turn off to people is the fact that they don't want to deal with the mindless heckling from uninformed crowds, or screaming coaches who have it in their heads that part of their job on a weekend is to "ride the ref" during the game. That is not what rugby is about and anyone who takes the time to coach a rugby team should take on board the culture that surrounds rugby and not the Bobby Knight approach.

[Elephant in the room]

Pete was right on, but improving the SL (with HP funding and policy) improves the Collegiate game and the Eagles. All of that IRB funding should go towards our top programs.

The Collegiate game and High School need their own leadership. Those dues and sponsorship should go directly towards those!!! With American leadership groups focusing in those places, the game would double in no time. It is idiotic to continue down this cobblestone pathway that ends in the middle of the woods.

Ok, that leaves the MNT, Unders programs, Youth - basically, the focus of our leadership. This is where they fail every single day. It could be much better.

The odd man out is the SL, the elephant in the room. This elephant is the biggest marketable rugby entity, bigger than the MNT. If this were tied into HP (properly) it would also take care of the unders, youth, and MNT. The contracting of the SL only hinders growth. Expansion should be the new catch phrase.

What would happen if 2mil was directed in "partnership" with the SL. Then you have zero waste. It's quite simple when you think about it. If there is benefit for admin or players to play in the SL it will get better. If you make proper policy around it, finally USA Rugby can attract sponsors. What they are currently doing is treading water until their contracts are up. Our next group needs to adopt a simple plan and policy and watch the game growth exponentially.

[Interesting]

I heard a rumor that a group is going to make an attempt in one of the TUs to withdraw all of the men's college rugby from under the governance of that TU and create a completely independent men's collegiate rugby competition. Stay tuned...

[Elephant in the room]

Wrapping the youth, unders, and MNT into an "expanded" SL HP program is what I was trying to say. Streamline it and dump the chumps.

[Elephant in the room]

Just made USA Rugby better in 20 minutes while drinking coffee and eating breakfast, what am I going to do during my lunch break?

[from the ground up]

Spot on guys.

If we did anything close to reasonable with the IRB's $1.7-2m within US rugby and its domestic interest, we would be laughing in no time.

Spend it on youth and HS, spend it on college rugby, spend it on the SL or a combination of all three and we will be flying upward and onward.

Continue spending a total of $3m on the mens senior team, chasing near meaningless victories, and we will get more of what we've gotten over the last four years. Maybe EOS gets a couple more victories than Thorburn or Johnson, but this has nothing to do with anything. 20th in the world, 14th, 11th, hell 22nd, nothing changes. We still have the same problems of building out a rugby union.

It is a misnomer that a more successful Eagles team will make easier the work on the ground, it won't. The work has been the same since losing to Japan and Canada. The work isn't harder and if would not have been easier in victory.

Why hasn't and isn't this investment in our domestic rugby happening? Two reasons, the leadership isn't interested in the hard yards. They are here to sit in the president's box, wear the blazer, stop by the locker room and tell their friends how they are helping the yanks sort out their rugger. Next, the IRB grants are tied to HP. We have never spent the funds on HP, instead we call the Eagles HP and spend the funds where the union has been unable to raise sponsorship dollars. The next group of USAR leaders need to get on a airplane to Dublin and tell the IRB the above domestic programs is where the grant funds need to be directed if you want us in a quarter final in this lifetime.

[Good Refs]

Nick - You have issues and probably are one of those refs that shows up for a match in full ref kit and talks a great pre-match, but when the match starts you are running around trying to keep up and blow the whistle with no explanation and lose control of the match. Later you get upset when a coach ask what your rating is because you are too ashamed to say C3.

[Nick]

"Good Refs",

It's funny to read that, because you couldn't be more wrong if you tried. I'm not sure if it's worth trying to explain why, because clearly you are capable of making up your own version of the truth.

Somehow from a posting on the web you can work out my attire, level of fitness, and use of primary and secondary signals.

I'll just leave with a comment that Local, Territorial and National referee management are more than happy with my work, and my assignments reflect that.

[college rugby!!!]

Elephant in the room,
Your wrong. RSL is no where near the biggest marketable entity. college rugby is. Clearly, obviously, undoubtedly. RSL will benefit from investment in college. not the other way around.

Interesting,

I hope to god thats true