Rugby poll -thoughts

[chickenfeet2003]

A few observations:

• Northern hemisphere folk aren't much interested in southern hemisphere rugby despite the fact that it's usually much better! In fact, the overwhelming popularity of the Six Nations is quite a surprise given how many really poor games that tournament produces.
  
  
• The sample is too small to establish if the converse is true but my

Comments

[gillo]

I'd say I am not exactly typical of Brits in general, as the only reasons I am at all aware of rugby are that I work in a rugby-playing school and have family members who played. I follow rugby more than most other sports, but that is not saying a lot. Six Nations is on TV, and I notice the results. Standard league rugby union isn't, so much, so I don't. So you can't really take me as evidence for the state of the game in general. The same may apply to others who voted...

[chickenfeet2003]

I disagree with you. You are part of an important demographic. If you consider the analogy with soccer, it's highly unlikely that you would find many people who had some sense of how England were doing but no awareness at all of how their local Premiership/League team was faring. The trouble with rugby is that it has dismally failed (in Europe) to develop a level of club or regional competition that anybody much cares about. Look at the attendance figures for club games, pathetic!

[gillo]

Heck, my local team is Cov City. I assume they're doing badly but have no idea whatsoever where they are in whatever division/league etc they are in. I really know nothing about football either except that Chelsea are owned by a rich Mafioso Russian and Man U were bought by some Yank. IOW, only things that make the front page of a paper.

If it helps, I'm told Leicester Tigers are doing very well. But I only know that because a couple of our old boys play for them. I mostly know about Six Nations because men at work talk about them, just as I know we were doing well in the cricket in India because a friend at the computer next to mine looked up the score on Thursday. I hope we're still doing well, but don't actually know.

Sport-phobic females aren't that vital a demographic are they?

[chickenfeet2003]

Sport-phobic females aren't that vital a demographic are they?

Not the hardcore ones. For rugby though, expanding the demographic beyond people who follow the Six Nations but nothing else (male or female) is. I think the European countries have a long way to go with attracting women too.

I was looking at some stats this morning. Canada has something like 35,000 registered male players and 16,000 female. England has 11,000 female vs 1.2 million male! (The Canadian figures exclude school, college and university players where the proportion of women may well be higher).

[gillo]

I'm pretty hardcore sport-phobic, frankly. All the years I spent working in an almost all-female environment, I never knew who had won anything. Now I can't avoid it quite as much.

Women's rugby is seen as fairly weird here, except in universities.

[chickenfeet2003]

It was here until 5-10 years ago. It's certainly made rugby clubs more interesting places.

[bopeepsheep]

I can't even tell you which league my local team is in, but I can usually tell you how national teams are doing if I notice football at all.