As rugby nuts we need to grit our teeth and see marketing as the extremely necessary evil that it is.
A brave soul went on the main Leinster rugby fan forum last week and posed this question :
“Hello all,
Would anyone else be in favour of Cheerleaders for our Rabo and/or H Cup matches. I've been watchin Super 15 a fair bit recently and while our weather (RDS on Stephen's Day comes to mind) doesn't exactly lend itself to it but It'd be an nice addition and something to look at pre match and half time. Anyone have any thoughts on the subject?”
A few dozen replies later, it was clear hardcore Leinster fans did in fact have thoughts on the subject, with the general opinion being that the original poster (or “OP” to use the correct forum-posting acronym) might very well need a visit from men in white coats.
The prevailing reaction: “I go to the RDS to watch rugby”. Nuff said, right? Yeah, maybe not.
By those opening paragraphs you may think the purpose of this piece is for me to defend that particular OP and explain to you in detail how it would benefit Leinster Rugby to have scantily-clad ladies shaking pom-poms before matches. You may even start wondering if the OP is in fact my good self.
Well, you'd be wrong in both cases. Even before you factor in the temperatures in Ballsbridge during rugby season which give a whole new meaning to the phrase “Boys in Blue”, cheerleaders wouldn't be a good fit. When up at Ravenhill before the Ulster v Leinster Pro12 clash back in April, I felt the performance of the “Rockettes” seemed a tad out of place.
Instead I would like to examine the statement : “I go to the RDS to watch rugby”. I think the OP's biggest error was failing to know his audience. Like I said earlier, these were hardcore Leinster fans, who not only supported the province during the “dark days” when Munster were winning Heineken Cups, but even further back to the earliest formative years of the Celtic League.
I put it to you that when discussing marketing strategies designed to put bums on seats, it’s not enough to canvas the fans who not only show up religiously to the RDS for every home match, but also know all the Ryanair cabin crew by their first names for away matches. Not that their opinions aren't crucial, of course, because their loyalty and contributions to the cause of Leinster Rugby have been significant (to say the very least) over the years.
But when we diehard fans discuss an issue like attracting new ones, we have to look at the game in a way we'd rather not – as a “product”. I hate the term as much as the next rugby nut, but as nostalgic as we may be for the amateur era, the fact remains revenue streams need to be maintained if we want to continue seeing the top Irish stars appear for our provincial heroes.
Do you ever find it annoying when a utilities company to which you have been paying bills for several years offers an outstanding deal to new customers while you get nothing? Sign up to our phone network and get three months free calls. What about me? I've been with you since mobiles were the size of bricks – what free stuff to I get???
Unfortunately that's a reality of the marketing (or as some would say phonetically : “morkeshing”) world. Of course loyalty should be rewarded, but also new customers have to be enticed. And let's face it, to those who haven't a proper grounding in the sport, rugby union is one of the more difficult codes out there to grasp. More often than not an eager pupil’s enthusiasm begins to break down when you try to explain the breakdown.
And as much as we Leinster fans won't like to consider it, I can't help wondering how long our current success rate is going to last? Already in this month's Rugby World magazine there's an article about Joe Schmidt's future – the man himself says “we'll try and sort the decision (about his next contract) in the next month or two”. Of course he has helped establish a culture at the province that will endure, but high and all as the bar has been set, there's more than one outfit well positioned to meet it on these shores, let alone across the continent.
So if/when the unthinkable should happen and Leinster goes a couple of years without silverware, can we expect the impressive crowd levels at the RDS to remain the same without having to lift a finger in the meantime? Of course we can't.
Sure, we bloggers and forum-posters (or as some learned gentlemen from the journalism trade call us, “online loonies”) will be there through the thin as well as the thick, but it will take a lot of “thinking outside the box”, “synergy” and “planning going forward” to entice back the fair weather fans, who's motives might be annoying, but who's money is no less crucial to the game than ours.
Of course I'm not suggesting for a moment that Leinster Rugby aren't already doing what they can to get the punters in, both on match-days and at other times. All throughout the year we see family-themed events and promotions, last Friday's open training session out in Carlow being one of them, all designed to create an enjoyable atmosphere people will take home regardless of the result on the pitch.
And when you consider the trouble they have moving the turnstiles in Wales and Scotland compared to Ireland, it may seem churlish to suggest more work needs to be done here, especially when you consider that not once did a Leinster home match fail to attract a 5-figure crowd last season (that would probably still be the case if you count the bodies in the stadium and not just assume the season ticket holders showed up as the officials often do).
But I for one don't believe we should judge ourselves by what they do in other countries. Our goal should not only be to fill the RDS for every match, but eventually get ourselves to a stage whereby we can hold even more Pro12 games in the Aviva Stadium up the road.
To do this we need to look at the people who aren't coming to the matches now, ask ourselves why they aren't, and think of more ways to tempt them through the gates.
Maybe we don't need to model ourselves precisely on American football teams, but still, when discussing the issue, we should definitely examine the way they approach the marketing of sports over there because there is absolutely no doubt that they know what they're doing.
So…long may the initiatives continue, I say. They may not all be winners, but we should at least appreciate the effort.
And perhaps we dyed-in-the-wool fans can play a small part ourselves. Instead of muttering expletives under our breath when we hear someone sitting behind us at the RDS say something like “what's a knock-on?”, maybe we can turn around instead and politely explain it to them. Yeah, I really must start doing that. JLP
